Eva Silverman

Image courtesy of Eva Silverman.

Eva Silverman is a graphic designer, musician and Riot Grrrl. Eva discovered her passion for music and feminism at the young age of fifteen when she formed her first band and began commuting into New York City from New Jersey to attend Riot Grrrl meetings at the Pink Pony Cafe in the East Village. She helped organize a Riot Grrrl convention at the lesbian bar Meow Mix in the 1990s where she also assisted bands, such as Sleater-Kinney, who came to perform there. The following conversation was recorded on April 7, 2020 at 1pm by phone from Brooklyn, NY to Oakland, CA.

Gwen Shockey: Hey! Is this Eva?

Eva Silverman: Yeah!

GS: Hey! This is Gwen!

ES: Hey Gwen!

GS: It’s really nice to meet you over the phone! 

ES: It’s nice to meet you over the phone as well!

GS: It’s always so nice when people reach out when they hear about the project!

ES: Yeah! I was so excited too! And to be totally fair I haven’t done a deep dive yet but I’m so psyched you’re doing this!

GS: Thanks! Yeah! And most of the research I’ve done for the project has been through conversations like what we’re doing now! Most recently I started collaborating with a photographer friend to take portraits of some of the women I’ve interviewed but now everything has been kind of put on hold because of the Coronavirus situation. Luckily we can still record conversations over the phone though! I’m curious how you found out about the project?

ES: You know! Well, one thing I’ll just tell you before I answer that is this project in some ways feels so aligned with how I think of documenting and retaining history. Just as an example; about eight years ago now I did an installation at this kind of artsy but barebones hotel in Manhattan called the Carlton Arms. It’s been around for about forty years and all the different rooms are designed or painted by different people. My project was called “Mapping Roots: NYC” and it was mapping my own family’s history in New York, starting with my grandma’s generation. She came in 1920 as an Eastern European/Polish -Jewish immigrant. I knew her stories really well because she remembered every detail from the very first apartment they lived at on Norfolk and Grand, its cost, and so much detail. And this was when she was in her mid-eighties. The Mapping Roots: NYC project was basically documenting the coming of age of her generation, my parents’ generation and my generation. My parents were born in the ‘40s. Mom was born in a refugee camp and she came over in ’51. My dad was an amateur photographer starting in his teens and I still have thousands of slides and negatives that I’ve scanned probably starting from when he was sixteen. My parents met when my dad was eighteen and my mom was sixteen, and that’s resulted thorough documentation of the places that were important to them in Brooklyn. And then the third generation is mine. I grew up in Jersey but my coming of age was really on the Lower East Side – going to punk shows at CBGB’s and ABC No Rio and Meow Mix. The installation was a visual documentation of these three generations. I painted a map of the five boroughs, plus Jersey, and then each generation had ten points of interest: my grandma’s, my parents’, mine. I took photos of each of those places in 2012, and then used historic images for the then. For my grandma’s generation, for example, I used the New York Public Library’s archive of photos to find the very specific places of importance to my grandma. Like the first sweatshop she worked at Broadway and Spring, or Leow’s Delancey. 

GS: Wow! That’s so cool!

ES: Yeah! And I did that for my parents’ generation and for mine. In 2012 I went back to Meow Mix and took a picture and ABC No Rio and all the places that were important to me in my own coming of age. All that is to say that I really appreciate maps and how that can narrate and document histories of places that, you know, we don’t want to forget about. Whether it’s our own family or community history.

GS: Do you have documentation of that project? I’d love to see!

ES: Yeah! For sure.

GS: It’s funny because my history is somewhat similar – my grandmother and grandfather were German and Czech Jews and immigrated to the U.S., my grandmother ended up in New York and I also grew up in New Jersey.

ES: That’s so funny. When did they immigrate?

GS: Right at the beginning of World War II. My grandmother is passed now but I have a diary of hers from when she was young in the city. It’s pretty amazing. 

ES: Wow, that’s so great. I have immigration and refugee papers from my mom and all my grandparents. They just kept the stuff!

GS: I always think, especially with this project, that is so pays off to be a hoarder! (Laughing)

ES: Yes, yes, yes. It sounds like we’re of the same ilk in that way. Especially with history.

GS: Totally. I freak out when I see someone with a huge collection of documents and stuff from their past. It makes me so happy.

ES: Hell yeah! That’s obviously an aside but clearly an important one for our connection. The real question that you asked was how I came to you specifically. I posted some scans of documents Meow Mix days and the Riot Grrrl convention, and DJ Andro, who I don’t know personally, said, “Hey! You should check out the Addresses Project!”

GS: Oh cool!

ES: Yeah! So, that’s pretty much exactly when I sent you a message.

GS: Awesome! I’m just always curious how people find out about it. So, what we’ll do is just chat a bit and I’ll ask you a couple questions! I’d love to hear about your experiences with Riot Grrrl and at Meow Mix and with music. Like I messaged you, the first question I always ask is to remember the first space you were ever in that was mostly lesbian or queer women and what it felt like to be there.

“The original note that I wrote info on about my first RG meeting.” Image courtesy of Eva Silverman.

ES: Sure! Let me just caveat that by saying that I didn’t yet know I was queer at that time, but I would definitely say that my first time being in an all women and mostly queer space, was probably my first Riot Grrrl meeting, at the Pink Pony in New York City on Ludlow Street. It was word of mouth, in the very beginning days of AOL. I was involved with various AOL punk chats and with my local punk scene. I had a friend, Barbie, who suggested we go to this meeting. She knew somebody who was going and said we could meet up with them. So, one day we met up with this woman Mara on St. Mark’s Place and then we walked over to the meeting. And just as a caveat Mara and I ended up going to college together, lived next door to each other for years, and are still really good friends. So, I would say that the first queer space I was in was definitely my first Riot Grrrl meeting at the Pink Pony. Despite not really knowing that I was queer, I was also in a place where I was making zines and very much an “ally” of myself but didn’t know it. Just in general, and this sounds cliché, the one word I would use to describe that experience is empowering. Especially because at that meeting, although I don’t remember the specifics of it, we were in the midst of starting to organize a national convention. Part of it was about organizing and making shit happen and doing it ourselves, which was pretty incredible. And I can talk more about other times that felt significant, but that was the first one! I was fifteen years old and it was 1996. It was probably early Spring is my best guess or maybe a little before that.

GS: Wow! You were really young!

ES: I was!

GS: Can’t you paint me a picture of what that first meeting looked like for you?

ES: Sure. And just for background, even if we get to it later. At that time, I was already in a band, I was playing guitar, writing a lot, and my dad was super encouraging of me exploring things that were meaningful. For me, a lot of it was around music and politics. That same summer of the Riot Grrrl convention I actually was interning at a media management company called Girlie Action. It’s still around. Brooke Webster worked there and she was the owner of Meow Mix. It felt kind of easy to fall into that. So, what was your question? Sorry if I went off on a tangent.

“Brooke Webster and I.” Image courtesy of Eva Silverman.

GS: Oh, that’s ok! The tangents sometimes end up being the most important parts! I was just curious what the first meeting looked like for you at the Pink Pony!

ES: Sure. The Pink Pony at the time was on a side street [Ludlow] on the Lower East Side near Katz’s Delicatessen where we would always go after the meetings. We would usually sit in the very back of the Pink Pony. I think it had two rooms but the rooms were pretty open. We’d be all the way in the back and there would be a couch or maybe two, and we’d pull up chairs with our notebooks covered in stickers and we would get down to it. And frankly I can’t remember all the substance of our meetings besides planning the convention. The convention was a big thing. I can’t remember if it felt like a queerish women’s support group-y thing, but it definitely felt strongly like what can we do in society to fuck shit up and change the paradigm. But a lot of the focus was this convention.

“Meow Mix during the Riot Grrrl convention.” Image courtesy of Eva Silverman.

Image courtesy of Eva Silverman.

GS: Were there regular Riot Grrrl meetings at this place or were you meeting there specifically for the sake of the convention?

ES: There were regular meetings. Yeah. In my memory they were once a month but it is possible that they were more frequent. I think on Sundays. These meetings had been going on for a while. It had probably been going on for over a year, there were some older folks involved – older for us at that time – probably in their mid-twenties or something! (Laughing) They had been going on and then the focus somewhat changed to planning the Riot Grrrl convention. I do remember that one time I brought my friend who was very-much-a-boy, I would call him a feminist boy, friend Brandon and it sparked a lot of conversation about whether it was appropriate for him to be there. He was someone who identified as feminist, a Riot Grrrl and we shared all our taste in music. But there was definitely this debate and some people were not happy with his presence, which reflecting on it -  I get that! I definitely get that. At the time I thought: But come on! You know? Why does gender matter anyway? But obviously sometimes it does! And safe spaces are safe spaces for a reason. But he was a pretty unique and special individual. And why not welcome allies to help fight the patriarchy?

GS: Were you one of the youngest people there?

ES: Um… my friend, who wasn’t yet my friend at the time, Mara was younger than me. I think she was fourteen and I was fifteen but I would say I was likely one of the youngest. There were a lot of people who lived in the city and grew up in the city, so for me, being so young and from the suburbs, it was rare for parents to be like, “Yeah, Cool! Go! Go to the city by yourself!”

GS: You were coming in from New Jersey?

ES: I was. I grew up in Wyckoff, New Jersey and I would take the train to Hoboken and transfer to the PATH train, take the PATH train to 9th Street and then walk from there. Occasionally I’d take the bus because I could get the bus in my hometown and the train was in the next town over. My dad would often drive me to the train. Once I got my license I would drive in or to Hoboken.

GS: It’s so great how supportive your parents were of your adventures – what were they like?

ES: Well, my mom died when I was ten so at the time of my coming of age, it was just my dad. I had, what I would call, a really wonderful childhood. My parents were incredibly loving and gentle and my dad and I were like best friends. My childhood was obviously flavored to some extent by my mom’s illness. She died of breast cancer. It’s interesting because when I was as young as like four or five she would try to get me to wear these frilly, girly dresses and my willpower was strong and I was like: No! I will not! That is not who I am! My dad let me buy boys clothes, which I’m sure my mom was not super psyched about. Sometimes I wonder – what would my life have been like if my mom had been alive? Because she was born in a refugee camp to Holocaust survivors who lost two little girls in the war, she was way more overprotective than my dad. I do wonder, you know, what would my teenage years have looked like? I can’t imagine I would have been allowed to go to the city by myself. My mom wanted a girl so badly, and she was incredibly loving, I’m sure it was confusing to her that I had no interest in being girly, and for years, literally wanted to be a boy. I lost her young so that in-and-of-itself had me grow up a little bit faster and resulted in being more mature than a lot of people my age. My dad was… well, in my teen years we definitely had our moments, but in general he really wanted me to be who I was and deeply supported me. I didn’t know I was queer yet but he was just encouraging and supportive and I was truly accepted by him. Not in an absent way, like, “I don’t care, do what you want” but in a very involved way. When my band played at Meow Mix he was there with his girlfriend.

“Me, my friend Deb (one of the people I met via NJPunkChat or SPINchat in a neighboring town), Hazel - the singer of my band and bff at the time. This was at The Cooler in NYC. After we played at the RG convention, we hopped over to see Thurston Moore at the Cooler (was in the meatpacking district).” Image courtesy of Eva Silverman. 

GS: Aw! That’s amazing!

ES: Yeah! And we shared music in common. He was a passionate lover of music and had a whole closet just full of records and multiple turntables that I grew up with in the background.  When I started coming of age, we shared a lot of our love for music. He went to see the Ramones with me at Coney Island High, went to see Pearl Jam with me when I was thirteen, which was my first concert and a band I still love today. (Laughing) He was there because he loved them too! He went to some local punk shows with me… music was a big thing for him. So, my delving into music and playing guitar and being a part of a music scene – well, he was kind of over the moon. I feel incredibly fortunate that he was so encouraging with who I was and accepted me. Even the first time I dyed my hair multiple colors – he might have been questioned by others, and ultimately, he let me be who I was! That gave me a lot of freedom and liberty to explore myself, and a lot of exploring that had to do with the music scene in New Jersey, the music scene in New York and Riot Grrrl and zine writing.

GS: I’m curious to hear a little bit about the music scene in New Jersey! Was there a prominent local punk scene?

ES: Oh my god yes! There was a full punk scene! (Laughing) There’s actually a podcast called “This Was The Scene” and granted the podcast is very male-centric, I was interviewed for it and kind of just wanted to roll my eyes a lot, unfortunately. It does document a very thriving scene of the 1990’s and early 2000’s. Kids were putting on shows at VFW halls, at Masonic Temples, at American Legions, in community spaces, even churches! You could rent out a hall for next to nothing and organize a show and kids would flock to it because it was such an important means of expression, especially if you weren’t a part of this mainstream world of, like, dressing in GAP clothes. I started going to shows when I was fourteen and kids my age or a couple years older were putting on these shows and many bands came out of that. It was definitely, definitely a male-centric scene when you think about who was making the music, and the contrast between that and Riot Grrrl was great and I think still is. This is another kind of tangent but last year I went to see Bikini Kill in LA one week and then the next week The Bouncing Souls were playing in Berkeley. Both are two of my favorite bands and just the crowd… (Laughing) It was like night and day! I was like: That’s why these spaces and women fronting bands is so important. It just has such a different feel. There’s a different kind of community. I think, yes, there was great contrast in the scenes that I was a part of but the local punk scene… I can’t express how valuable it was for me and so many others! And this was happening all over in NJ. Once I had a car or friends who had cars, I’d go to shows a half hour or forty minutes away in New Jersey in Westfield, Westwood, New Milford and literally all over. It was a really thriving scene. 

GS: Did it feel like there was much overlap at that time between queer culture and punk culture? 

ES: Not really, at least in the NJ punk scene. My friend Danny, who is still one of my best friends today, we met when we were fourteen at a backyard punk show in New Milford and I didn’t know that I was queer at that point and he was probably the only out gay person that I knew. It felt very masculine in ways. This was pre-Riot Grrrl for me. The local scene definitely did not feel at all queer. But, that didn’t stop Danny and I from going to see Pansy Division at Coney Island High in NYC. I had guy friends in the scene and loved them but just very different in flavor and the contrast, especially in hindsight, was like: Wow! I’m so glad that I had this Riot Grrrl scene – a very different representation of what a music community could be. I think that was invaluable, and amazing to be a part of two seemingly very different music communities.

GS: Were you playing instruments at that time?

ES: Mhm! Yeah. I grew up playing trumpet. That was my instrument in band, but really once I found the guitar at thirteen when I started taking lessons, my heart abandoned the trumpet. My excitement around playing the guitar was super high. I started taking lessons at SG Music in Waldwick and was kind of taken… What’s the correct term… Taken under the owner’s wings a little bit and I ended up working there. I would get amazing discounts on anything I needed, and so all of my instruments are from my teenage years. I still have my original guitar, which is covered in punk stickers. It’s a piece of shit but I will never get rid of it. My really beautiful acoustic guitar and my bass guitar as well, are all from then.  I started taking lessons at thirteen and the first song I learned to play was “Alive” by Pearl Jam. I had a really awesome teacher, Bob, who wasn’t like, “Here, learn the scales.” Instead, he basically said, “Sure, you can learn the scales, but let’s get to the juicy stuff and play songs you want to play.” Some of the earliest stuff that I learned was Ani DiFranco who had just crazy, crazy strumming rhythms and it was just so fun to learn. I ended up starting a band with one of my best friends at the time, Hazel, and we recruited her younger brother to play drums and his metal-loving friend to play bass. I think he was maybe thirteen at the time. We would practice every day. There’s something about the rhythm of connection and making music with someone that really rivals most types of teamwork in my life. I play a lot of softball… Just totally stereotypically gay, what can I say. (Laughing) I started a softball team called Oaktown Roots nine years ago, and we have beautiful rhythm and we play so well together it’s like music. It’s the one thing that reminds me of what being in a band felt like. You’re so connected, you flow and you pick each other up.

GS: That’s so wonderful and so fun as a kid to have that community already.

ES: Yeah! I feel really lucky. Sometimes I think about the fact that I’m from Jersey and I’m clearly a huge Springsteen fan - and those years were my “glory days!” You know? I don’t look back on high school like: Oh, high school sucked… Because I got to do some cool shit because I had the freedom and independence and trust from my dad, and a deep desire to find myself and what I connected to. 

GS: Did you write music for your band or did you mostly do covers?

ES: We did a cover of Bikini Kill’s “Suck My Left One” but otherwise all original stuff. Hazel, who sang, was a really good writer and wrote most of the songs. I think I wrote one or two… The one that I can remember the most clearly is the song “I Wanna Be A Squatter” which was basically making fun of all the suburban white kids who would camp out on St. Mark’s Place and like beg for change to buy cigarettes and then go back that night to their like sprawling home in the suburbs.

GS: Did you go into the city a lot with Hazel and her brother?

ES: No. Hazel and I went to some shows but she wasn’t really a part of the local music scene in the same way that I was, even though she was a big music lover. I had other friends who I’d met on AOL’s New Jersey Punk Chat or various AOL message boards. I’d definitely go to shows in NYC with my gay best friend Danny. Or I’d go in and meet up with people that didn’t live immediately near me. In the very beginning of the online era it was kind of an amazing thing to be able to connect with other kids from nearby towns who I would not have met otherwise. We had music in common, and this odd new online thing to connect us, and so that kind of turned into going to more shows. Some of the kids were a year or two older than me and had cars that facilitated going into NYC.

GS: What were some of the other musicians you were listening to at that time?

ES: Oh, I mean… Bouncing Souls, Excuse 17, Anti-Flag, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Heavens to Betsy, Sonic Youth, Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney in the earliest days of Sleater-Kinney.  Pretty much a lot of Grrrl bands and punk rock. Plan A Project was a New Jersey band that I got really into in the very beginning of finding the local scene. They weren’t as much like the pop punk Jersey scene and more political. My dad also really loved folk music, and introduced me to Dar Williams and we found Dan Bern together when he opened up for Ani Difranco. He has been a lifelong friend of mine, family really. And then old punk rock, too. The Clash, Dead Kennedys, Social Distortion, Iggy and the Stooges. The list could go on. It was a mixture of old punk, newer punk, Riot Grrrl, and a lot of music from the Northwest scene that Nirvana and Pearl Jam came out of. Being into them really helped dig deeper into that music scene. I would buy a music magazine, look for the record label ads and then write to those labels for catalogs. Usually I would buy a compilation record and hear a bunch of bands and take it from there. I still have my catalogue from Kill Rock Stars. That was how I was able to learn about new music that wasn’t just immediately in the New York or New Jersey area. I even got to see Excuse 17 at Maxwell’s when I was fourteen. They were another Northwest pre Sleater-Kinney band.

GS: It’s so fascinating to me how people find their way to what they end up spending a huge part of their life, you know, dedicated to. It seems like the beginning of the internet was super useful for you as a tool to find your way.

ES: It was! It was. I feel very grateful for that. It also, I think at the time, it really lowered the barrier of entry. Like, I had met Thurston Moore at Maxwell’s in Hoboken and I interviewed him for my zine. Later,  he got a hold of my band’s demo tape and gave it to Tobi Vail of Bikini Kill who I was already pen pals with! I was able to further connect with him via his AOL email address. This shit was so… It just happened easily back then because the internet was so new that there was a lower barrier to connection with people you admired. I actually have printed out emails from him from those days. It was easy to connect via snail mail and newly email with folks out in the Northwest music scene, like Tobi Vail.

GS: Did you ever live out there?

ES: No. I was sure I was going to apply to Evergreen for college because Olympia was the place to be. But I didn’t. I was so close with my dad that I don’t think I could have been so far away from him at that time. I will say that Seattle really feels like home. Living on the west coast, I’ve been there a lot and it always feels like home in this weird way. It feels familiar. Maybe not like home, but there’s a familiarity to it. I think it’s because I was so interested in music coming out of there.

GS: Yeah. Yeah! So, tell me! After your first Riot Grrrl meeting did you start becoming really active? Did you end up moving to the city?

ES: Yeah, I did become really active, but I’ve never lived in NYC. In terms of the meetings, the ball was rolling and it felt good to keep doing it. It was so easy to go into organizing mode; figuring out how to get the word out there nationally, and how could we make this something that people paid for but still keep the costs low enough that it was easy to access for most people. Within a few months we had put together three nights of bands and then all different workshops like self-defense workshops and probably like sticker-making workshops. It was a full weekend of badass events. At some point and I can’t remember at what point exactly, but way before the convention, we started meeting at Meow Mix. I had this connection with Brooke Webster [Meow Mix owner] because of Girlie Action. That summer I also interned for her… Or maybe it was the following summer. Honestly it’s a little bit of a blur. But basically we had a connection with Brooke and so we started meeting at Meow Mix and that was primarily where we had the convention. For some reason I think there was maybe one night at Coney Island High but I might be making that up. Brooke also organized a night called “Fraggle Rock” at Coney Island High and it would usually be queer bands.

Image courtesy of Eva Silverman.

GS: Was that like a monthly night?

ES: Yeah. I think it was monthly. When Sleater-Kinney first came through after Janet joined they played Meow Mix and then they played Coney Island High for Fraggle Rock. Because I was interning with Brooke at the time, I got to hang out with the band pre-show at CIH.

GS: It sounds like Brooke kind of took you under her wing? Was she a mentor for you?

ES: You know, it’s hard for me to really say. I don’t remember exactly. A lot of my worlds were swirling around hers and obviously I was this young kid who didn’t even know she was queer yet and maybe she was like, “Yeah, you definitely are,  so, you’re coming with me!” I would say somewhat of a mentor and my “internship” for her was music and band promotion - putting up flyers and stuff and getting to hang out with the bands. My internship with Girlie Action gave me more access to new music and free tickets to shows. For me it meant getting further and further involved in the music scene and that felt important to me. So much of my world wrapped around that and it was another really cool element. I have a picture of the two of us during the convention. She was just so supportive of the work that Riot Grrrl was doing and clearly aligned with it and so much of her world overlapped with that world that it was just a natural fit.

“Me + Sleater-Kinney outside Meow Mix. I believe it was during CMJ in 1997, but it's possible it was 1996.” Image courtesy of Eva Silverman.

GS: It seems like she brought a lot of bands to Meow Mix…

ES: Yeah, I would assume so. I can’t honestly remember. I do have that postcard that I put on Instagram so now I’m curious who else is on there. I saw Kaia [from Team Dresch] on the postcard even though I didn’t go to that show. I think she also helped bring the Bikini Kill show in ’96… Now I’m curious. But Meow Mix was a total dyke bar! Even after I went to college, until it closed, I would go back. I remember being there on a New Year’s Eve even. You know, it just felt like a really wonderful community space. Like so many of them do. And by that time I actually knew I was queer! (Laughing)

GS: Yeah! So, tell me about that! What was your coming to queerness story like?

ES: (Laughing) Well, I think of it as kind of comical… But I went to Smith College, so… (Laughing) I remember my first week there, I entered the dining room in the house where I lived and I literally had the thought: Oh my god. I’m the only straight one here… That literally came into my head. Three weeks later I was making out with a girl, a friend of mine, and so we were making out and I thought: Ok! This is cool. I can make out with girls but I don’t think I wanna do more than that and I don’t think I’d fall in love with one… And then towards the end of the school year I had gotten involved with the Student Labor Action Coalition, which was a student labor rights group. There was a woman in there who was graduating from Smith that year, which was my freshman year, and we fell in love at the very end of the school year. She was from Staten Island, and that summer we spent a lot of time together. I remember one of the nights of finals we had literally stayed up all night. We went to this all-night diner with some friends and wandered around what we called “the insane asylum” back then which had actually been an asylum in Northampton but in the ‘70s… I think it was the ‘70s… it was essentially abandoned. They literally released all of the patients. It was kind of a huge thing because it was happening all across the state and obviously was problematic. (Laughing) Things are problematic! Systems are problematic! The asylum was right beyond campus and we had stayed up all night going there and taking pictures and I didn’t know then but shortly after that we hung out and had our first kiss. I remember very specifically telling my dad: I’m in love with Elizabeth. Him and I were super close but that was essentially when I came out to him!

GS: How did he receive it?

ES: Totally supportive, you know? That summer Elizabeth slept over in my childhood bedroom with me. THAT kind of supportive. (Laughing) The one thing that he said when I came out,  which has stuck with me was, “I want grandkids!” And at that time I think it still felt like a question mark. “Well, how do you make that happen? You’re two women.” He accepted me and was totally supportive but also had this desire to have grandkids. That’s pretty much my coming out story. Right after my first year of college.

GS: Very sweet! And I’m glad he was supportive.

ES: Yeah, me too.

GS: Did you find your way back to New York a lot after college?

ES: I did! I never went to Boston. It felt like, what’s the point? For me it was all about New York, and that was easier since I had a car. I would go to New York quite a bit for shows. Plus, my dad and I were really close and I wanted to see him. He died after my sophomore year of college. It was a car accident. It just happened.

GS: Oh god I’m so sorry.

ES: Yeah. It was the worst. Some of the worst moments of my life were finding out and then losing him.

GS: I’m so sorry Eva.

ES: Thank you. Me too. Me too. He was pretty amazing.

GS: You said he went to your band’s show at Meow Mix?

ES: Oh yeah. My first and only show playing at Meow Mix was at the Riot Grrrl convention. My dad was there with his girlfriend at the time and took pictures. He was just so proud of me.  Now I’m kind of curious… did he know it was a dyke bar? Probably, but I don’t know - it wasn’t something we talked about because it wasn’t quite on my radar for myself yet. So now I’m just left with questions I can’t ask. Back to your other question – when I was at Smith, I came down to New York a lot before he died and after too. Shows and that community were important to me so I would go to them when I could. The area around Smith - Western Massachusetts had tons of punk shows too. There still is a collective in the next town of Easthampton called Flywheel Arts. I worked at the radio station WOZQ at Smith and we put on Le Tigre and other cool shows. But New York City remained super important to me. I kind of envied Thurston and Kim from Sonic Youth. They bought a house in Northampton probably when I was  seventeen, right before I started at Smith, and also had an apartment on Lafayette Street in NYC. I felt like this is the best of both worlds. And tangent again, but Thurston was so involved in community and though I have different feelings about him after he ended the relationship with Kim Gordon, at the time he was just really supportive of younger bands, of local scenes and he did that in Western Massachusetts as well as in New York. It felt good for me to have that continuity, since he had been a fixture in my greater music world.

“Me and my band Pinker Duck playing at Meow Mix.” Image courtesy of Eva Silverman.

“Another Pinker Duck image from Meow Mix. It’s when Hazel and I were singing ‘Suck My Left One’.” Image courtesy of Eva Silverman.

GS: Were you involved in more bands?

ES: It was really just Pinker Duck. Hazel, my friend, and her brother actually moved to Idaho not too long after our show. I played music with another friend who played. I have a little drum and bass demo tape, but that was really it.

GS: How did you come up with the name?

ES: Hazel and I both had dyed pink hair at the time, and I was obsessed with punk rock ducks because… (Laughing) Hold on! (Laughing) I feel like this is the shit that happens when you’re young… You just kind of grip onto something odd and that becomes your thing. I loved 1991: The Year Punk Broke the Sonic Youth movie which featured so many different bands including Nirvana. In the film, at one point Thurston Moore is just rambling on about something and he was like, “You’re not just a duck! You’re human!” It just did it for me. I can’t explain it. And then Kurt Cobain had this punk rock duck shirt and so I just started becoming obsessed with ducks and my zine was called “Riot Duck”… It’s so ridiculous but that’s kind of how I fell into the duck thing. “Pinker Duck” just made sense at the time. Now I’m like: Really, Eva? You couldn’t come up with something better? But it was child brain… (Laughing)

GS: I love it! Do you have a favorite memory from Meow Mix?

ES: Um… Hmmm. Do I have a favorite memory… I mean, I think that my strongest memory is definitely playing there. I hesitate to say favorite because I thought I was going to throw up the whole time from nervousness, but if I think of a highlight it would be that. Being able to say: I played on stage at a dyke bar in Manhattan when I was fifteen! To me that is definitely a favorite memory even if at the time I thought I was going to vomit.

GS: Yeah! So badass!

ES: Aw, thank you. The other memory that kind of jumps out is seeing Sleater-Kinney there when I was interning for Brooke Webster. I was fifteen and really into music, and their band, and it was just kind of cool to hang out with them for the day and get to take pictures at the show. I still love taking photos. I have a picture of them from that night and so just visually I see that picture often, so that is a strong memory. Though, it’s slightly different from the excitement of getting to play there.

GS: Maybe last but not least tell me how you ended up in Oakland and what you’re up to these days?

ES: Sure! My best friend Gretchen and her partner Jesse from Smith graduated a couple years before me. They ended up out here for my best friend’s grad school. After my dad died I was like: Well, ok. I’ll probably end up on the East Coast, that’s home to me, but I want to try to live near these friends for as long as I can. I thought I might be out here for six months, a year, two years… And I’m still here, eighteen years later! (Laughing)

GS: Oh wow!

ES: Yeah! They’re the ones who really facilitated my desire to be out here. I had visited them a few times and thought it seemed like a really cool place, and gradually I fell in love with it here. I’m still in the same apartment that they found me and I have a really lovely life in many, many ways. As for what I do - about twelve years ago I fell into graphic design through a non-profit job. I’m mostly self-taught but took a couple classes at a local community college and thoroughly just fell in love with it. That’s when I started my studio Pushcart Design. I’m a graphic designer and I work mostly with non-profits and small businesses. They’re mostly queer, POC and women-owned businesses. I’ve also been doing a lot of design work for the City of Oakland for the last year and a half. Non-work wise, I am also an animal lover. I’ve been volunteering at a pit bull rescue in Oakland for the last few years. I have a wonderful dog that I still co-parent with my former partner. I fell in love with pottery about a year and a half ago so when we’re not in quarantine I spend a lot of time in the pottery studio. And softball is a big part of my life and community as well! So, pretty gay all around! (Laughing) 

GS: (Laughing) I would say solidly gay!

ES: Solidly gay! Yeah! For damn sure.

GS: Well, I can’t thank you enough for sharing your story!

ES: You’re welcome! Thank for helping me remember!

GS: It’s so fun for me to listen!

Image courtesy of Eva Silverman.