SPILL FEATURE: I AM VERY PROUD TO BE A BITCH – A CONVERSATION WITH SAVE TORONTO MUSIC VENUES’ ASHLEY CACHIA

I AM VERY PROUD TO BE A BITCH

A CONVERSATION WITH SAVE TORONTO MUSIC VENUES’ ASHLEY CACHIA

In an effort to combat an era of gentrification greatly escalated by the pandemic, Ashley Cachia created Save Toronto Music Venues in 2020. Driven by a DIY aesthetic, STMV has become a staple among the independent Toronto rock scene. Through countless shows and a compilation CD, Cachia and her team have provided a significant level of support for the city’s musical community; however, perhaps their greatest initiative is Bitch Fest, an annual festival that runs across Toronto every March and is currently underway.

Currently in it’s fourth year, Bitch Fest has become central to the organization, which spends most of the year focused on community building and booking shows. Cachia states, “Bitch Fest is obviously a big part of what we do every year; it’s out big thing to uplift female and queer-fem artists.” With such a goal, Cachia touches on the social-cultural roots of the festival, “It’s such a male dominated industry, as we know. The whole idea is to cram it in everyone’s face that females, queer, and fems have been here since the beginning and we’ve been such a big part of music and music history, but our history has often not been written, skewed or deleted.” She continues, “It’s crazy to me that we’re in the 2020’s and people are still having the idea that ‘women don’t have a place’ or ‘there’s limited space’ or ‘they’re not as good’… It doesn’t need to be this way.”

The name of the festival is a reflection of this notion. “In any industry, men can be aggressive and pushy, boisterous and confident, but when a woman does it, its rude or bitchy. The whole thing about naming it Bitch Fest is that women are doing the same things that men are, but everyone just puts a shitty label on it. We’re taking it back” Cachia tells me before exclaiming, “I am very proud to be a bitch ‘cause it just means that I am doing the things I need to do in order to be strong, independent, and successful.” In addition to reclaiming the name, Bitch Fest is running all month at a series of venues, including The Bovine Sex Club, Sneaky Dee’s, The Cameron House, and more, with a line-up that features 36 artists, including Queens And Kings, Goodnight Sunrise, Hysterics, Neon Bloom, Smoking In Bed. Cachia explains, “All of the shows are female fronted or all female or fem/queen artists and we fill up every weekend of the month of March – which is International Women’s History Month – with those artists.” She adds “We also do panels with of women in the industry, musicians and behind the scenes, bookers, managers media people, and give them a voice that they don’t necessarily have and give them a safe space that isn’t always there. Building that community and that foundation so women know they aren’t the only one’s out there and there are these safe spaces goes a long way in making females and fem/queers feel safe in this industry.” This year’s panel kicked off the festival at Parkdale Hall on March 1st, and featured Micky Skins (The Curse), Emy Stantcheva (Musicontario), Molly Mayhem (The Filthy Radicals, Wise Guise), and Arianna Benincasa (Wener MGMT, Drip Drums) in conversation with Cachia.

Much like Save Toronto Music Venues, Bitch Fest is a celebration of independent artists while taking a stand against the patriarchy and misogyny. The festival seeks to raise voices that are otherwise not heard while making space for female and fem-queer artists and audiences alike. For Cachia, one of her favourite memories of previous Bitch Fests was a conversation she had with Amy Gabba after crowd surfing at a show, “she had told me ‘out of all the years I’ve been doing music, that was the first time I’ve crowd surfed… I’ve always wanted to , but that was the first time I actually felt was safe enough to do it.’ That’s what this is really all about.”

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