We finished my new record, The Pain And The Power, on Tuesday night, and the studio I work out of here in Portland burned down on Wednesday, less than 24 hours later. I am feeling very grateful that Pretty Baby and I were not there when the fire happened and that no one else was hurt. Also feeling so lucky that we finished when we did and that my new music is not one of the many, MANY things that has been lost in the fire.

I made the Distracted EP at Burn Money Studios, as well as the Rock and Roll City single, and this new collection of songs I’ve been working on this year. This special place has been my musical home for a long time now and I love all of the people who have been affected by this devastating loss. It’s kind-of unimaginable, but I went over there today and saw it with my own eyes. It’s all gone.

My friends iLoveMakonnen, Yellow Trash Can, and so many others have dedicated countless hours to building that spot into the community hub it is today. This is not just a loss for the music scene. This is a loss for PDX.

I am sitting here with the hard drive we loaded up at the end of that session on Tuesday — perhaps the last record to ever come out of the studio before it was destroyed — and I need to do something to help, right now.

We have big plans for The Pain And The Power, all of which will still be happening…but ahead of any of that, I have decided to release the first track TODAY as a @Bandcamp exclusive and a 100% fundraiser for my Burn Money Studios family who will be out of work for the foreseeable future. The price is $5 but if you can pay more, please do. I will be giving all of the proceeds from this single toward supporting the rebuild.

Music is love.
Support your local crews and workers.

Thank you to Burn Money Music for everything you have done (and will still do) for Portland’s music community. I love you and am here for you, with you. Gonna take a lot more than a fire to take this magic out.

xo
Logan

GET YOUR COPY HERE

I have spent the past 3 decades navigating the music industry as an out, gay man who writes and releases songs and videos about life and love as a queer person. I first got signed in 1999 and suffice to say, they weren’t ready back then. When my major label debut came out 10 years later, they still weren’t ready.

Fast forward all these years later and, while the landscape of music has changed and a lot of things have gotten better for a lot of us — myself included — most of the same barriers that LGBTQ+ bands and artists face still persist (and some fun new ones have arrived!)

During this time when queer and trans people are being silenced, while our communities are under attack by the systems in place to protect us, as the robot overlords threaten to replace us and our government attempts to erase us, I am dialing my mission to platform LGBTQ+ voices ALL THE WAY UP.

Queer and trans art is the antidote. I am not going to shrink away because they want me to. I will not die because I am told my life is an inconvenience. And I refuse to let these motherfuckers take the culture.

Queer and Trans people belong in the music industry.

QUEER AND TRANS PEOPLE BELONG.

“Participating in the arts, as an observer or creating it, can be a way to touch and heal and recontextualize and bolster and imagine and be excited by and to be let loose which, for someone whose very self is at odds with the world around them, can be the literal difference between life and death. It is important for the well-being of all people but I think it may have a slightly more significant place for LGBTQIA+ people or for any group or individual who faces an excess of scrutiny, bigotry, violence, or ostracization for who they are. It is a place to turn negative experience and negative feeling into something other than oppression or pain.” – Jamie Stewart, Xiu Xiu

+ + + + +

JAMIE STEWART x LOGAN LYNN
for DotGay Blog (2021)

(Interview posted at OhHey.gay and LoganLynnMusic.com)

#XiuXiu

(Photo by Jeremy Lange)