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Rachel Lark is an
Rachel Lark is an Oakland
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...
-based folk punk
Folk punk (known in its early days as rogue folk) is a fusion of folk music and punk rock. It was popularized in the early 1980s by the Pogues in England, and by Violent Femmes in the United States. Folk punk achieved some mainstream success in ...
singer-songwriter
A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music gen ...
and multi-instrumentalist. Known for her sex-positive songs and activism, she has been regularly featured on Savage Love
Savage Love is a syndicated sex-advice column by Dan Savage. The column appears weekly in several dozen newspapers, mainly free newspapers in the US and Canada, but also newspapers in Europe and Asia. It started in 1991 with the first issue of t ...
with Dan Savage
Daniel Keenan Savage (born October 7, 1964) is an American author, media pundit, journalist, and LGBT community activist. He writes ''Savage Love'', an internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column. In 2010, Savage and his husba ...
.
Career
In 2014, Lark released her first album, ''Lark After Dark'', followed by her debut music video, "Warm, Bloody and Tender", which she funded through a Kickstarter campaign and produced herself. "Warm, Bloody, and Tender" features cameo performances from the writer and activist Dan Savage and localSan Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
sex-positive activists Jamie DeWolf
Jamie DeWolf (born October 28, 1977) is an American Poetry slam, slam poet, film director, writer, spoken word artist, and circus ringmaster from Oakland, California.
DeWolf is best known for his early career as a slam poetry champion, his award ...
, Polly Superstar, Dixie De La Tour, Sister Flora Goodthyme, Wonder Dave, Laika Fox, and Paige Goedkoop. Soon after, Lark began touring the U.S. and Europe regularly, playing festivals, comedy clubs and colleges and building a die-hard cult following among the poly
Poly, from the Greek :wikt:πολύς, πολύς meaning "many" or "much", may refer to:
Businesses
* China Poly Group Corporation, a Chinese business group, and its subsidiaries:
** Poly Property, a Hong Kong incorporated Chinese property devel ...
, sex-positive and queer communities, as well as academics and podcast fans. During the COVID pandemic, while production for her original musical, ''Coming Soon'', was on hold, Lark brought actors and musicians together to create a concept album based on the show. ''Coming Soon: The Pandemic Sessions'' was released in May 2021. Lark also launched her new podcast, ''What's the Point?'', where she interviews artists, professors and organizers about the relationship between art and politics. During this time she released her EP, ''Sex and Balances''.
Personal life
Lark’s parentsLouise Antony
Louise M. Antony is an American philosopher who is professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She specializes in philosophy of mind, epistemology, feminist theory, and philosophy of language.
Education and career
Antony ...
and Joseph Levine are both philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
s currently at University of Massachusetts Amherst
The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...
. Lark is also known for her activism and advocacy work in women's rights
Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...
and sex-positive feminism
Sex-positive feminism, also known as pro-sex feminism, sex-radical feminism, or sexually liberal feminism, is a feminist movement centering on the idea that sexual freedom is an essential component of women's freedom.
Sex-positive feminism cen ...
.
In 2017, she began making trips to Tijuana to translate and advocate for asylum seekers at the border, and worked to match asylum seekers with U.S. sponsors to get them out of ICE detention.
Discography
Studio albums
* ''I Wouldn't Worry EP'' (2013) * ''Lark After Dark'' LP (2014) * ''Hung for the Holidays'' LP (2014) * ''Vagenius'' LP (2015) * ''They've Done Studies'' LP (2017) * ''Sex & Balances'' EP (2020)Singles
* "Warm, Bloody and Tender" (2015) * "Naughty Bits" (2018) * "National Emergency" (2019) * "The Unicorn Song" (2020)References