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Music

Running tings

WOMEN AH
RUN TINGS with the Jane
Waynes, Marni
Levitt, Kat
Goldman, the Proust
Sisters and others, as part of the
I’m Not Yer Little Lady benefit for
Nightwood Theatre at the 360 (326 Queen
West), Friday (March 8) at 9 pm. $5-$10
(sliding scale). 416-593-0840. Rating: NNNNN


give lady luscious, aka jannett Scott-Jones, the leading light of women ah run tings, a challenge and she’ll run with it.In the early 90s, after dancehall dude Inspector Lenny scoffed at the possibility of a chick on the decks in his joint What More Do You Want Me To Do, the pissed-off Lady went home and scrawled some lyrics.

“I had to respond,” she chuckles. “You wanna know “what more do you want me to do?’ Stop lying and speak the truth.”

She put Lenny to shame with this bravura performance on the dancehall mike at the Canadian Reggae Music Awards in 93, and it changed her career.

She copped the trophy for best female dancehall DJ in 1998, and since then she and her band have collected an impressive array of prizes for their music.

Luscious is nominated again in the best female dancehall DJ category this year, along with the ah run tings crew (for top female reggae band), but she claims awards don’t do much for her any more.

“There’s too much politricks in that business,” she says pointedly.

Socially conscious lyrics about female empowerment and liberation underlie the hip-shakin’, roof-raisin’ dancehall-reggae-hiphop-R&B-funk grooves of women ah run tings.

So having her estrogen-powered outfit headline Friday’s (March 8) benefit for feminist theatre company Nightwood seems like a no-brainer.

The current incarnation includes vocalist Tolu Olumide, drummer Debbie Augustt-Moffatt, guitarist Aimee O’Connor, sax player Heather Burton, Jen Sheppard on trumpet, rapper La Bomba, plus newer additions bassist Rachel Melas (also of Random Order and Cajun darlings Swamperella), vocalist Deborah Alison and chanteuse Angel.

When she started out, founding member Lady Luscious was the only woman running things.

“The first time I performed, in 1993, I was backed by an all-male band,” she laughs. “The audience at this thing was expecting a Beenie Man or a Bounty Killer, you know? They started to boo. And the musicians weren’t man enough to face it — they ran to the back of the stage.

“After that I decided to put together a female band who’d be running things — not running to the back of the stage!

“You gotta represent, hold your head up high and be yourself,” she insists.wuzzlet@hotmail.comworthy women

Women ah run tings aren’t the only ones making noise during International Women’s Week. Check out some other chicks who rock in their own ways.

Bluebird at Rancho Relaxo, Friday (March 8). Local (by way of the UK) twang-lovin’ sweetheart Cindy Archer fronts this melancholy country & western ballad band.

Ivana Santilli at Lee’s Palace, Friday (March 8). Ex-Bass Is Base belter lays down brown sugar soul jazz grooves.

Julie Doiron at Convocation Hall, Saturday (March 9). Life after Eric’s Trip: indie babe flies solo with fragile bilingual tunes — last year’s Desormais charmed en français, and her new English-language album officially drops April 2 (although it’s in stores now).

Eve Egoyan at the du Maurier Theatre Centre, Sunday (March 10). Atom’s equally intense little sister is a virtuoso classical pianist (and has contributed to several of his soundtracks). She hits the stage with the world premiere of Maria de Alvear’s Asking.SL

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