Description

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In Rubymusic, award-winning journalist and broadcaster Connie Kuhns takes readers on an explosive journey through the Pacific Northwest’s groundbreaking women’s music scene in the 80s and 90s.

When journalist Connie Kuhns approached Vancouver Cooperative Radio in 1981 to host a music program dedicated solely to playing music by women, there was some doubt at the station that there was enough music by women to fill half an hour—and besides, who would tune in? Such was the underground nature of women’s music. Despite the doubters, Rubymusic became a successful program, running for fifteen years, introducing listeners to countless artists through radio, magazines, and newspaper columns and on stage at Vancouver’s annual Folk Music Fest, and serving as a powerful platform for the feminist movements taking place in Vancouver’s punk scene and throughout music history in the 80s and 90s. Rubymusic also served as the launching pad for Kuhns’ life-long passion—the preservation of the histories and stories of the women with whom she crossed paths on the airwaves. Here is a time capsule of a pivotal moment in women’s music history, with special emphasis on the women’s music movement in Canada, including the only written history of the women involved in Vancouver’s punk rock scene.

About the Author

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Connie Kuhns has a forty-year history as an essayist, journalist, photographer, and broadcaster. Her essays have been finalists for Canada’s National Magazine Award, Western Magazine Award, and the LA Review Literary Awards, named “Notable Essay” in the Best American Essay series, and featured in the New York Times Modern Love column 13-word love stories. For fifteen years, Kuhns was the producer and host of the groundbreaking radio show Rubymusic on CFRO, Vancouver, specializing in the history of women in music. She lives on Salt Spring Island, BC.