Navigating Tough Conversations, Activism, and Aging in the Music Industry with Vickie Starr

In this episode, Dori talks with music industry veteran and activist Vickie Starr about the importance of empathy, productive conversations, and navigating the messy path of personal and societal change. Together, they reflect on Vickie’s career in music PR, the industry's evolution, and what it means to have difficult, transformative discussions, including a notable, mind-changing exchange with rap icon Ice-T. Vickie shares stories about growing older in an evolving field, learning from unexpected places, and finding joy and connection through community, dancing, and reinvention.

Highlights:

• Handling tough conversations with empathy
• The evolving role of women in music
• Personal reflections on aging in a dynamic industry

Chapters

00:00 Setting the Stage for Deeper Conversations
02:54 The Journey of Vicky Starr in Music
05:52 Navigating the Music Industry: PR and Marketing Evolution
12:03 The Shift to Artist Management
17:47 Cultural Connections in Brooklyn
20:07 Modeling Difficult Conversations
25:57 Empathy and Understanding in Family Dynamics
29:45 Aging in the Music Industry
36:11 Legacy and Living in Joy

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LinkedIn: Dori Fern
Email me: lifechangingwithdorifern@gmail.com

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Dori Fern: Hello Vickie Starr.

[00:00:04] Vickie Starr: Hello Dori Fern.

[00:00:05] Dori Fern: Who are you and what should people know about you?

[00:00:11] Vickie Starr: I like the term arts facilitator and activist.

[00:00:16] Dori Fern: I've had a desk job for my entire adult life, which is 40 years now But about 20 years ago, I realized that if I had it, if I could start over again, I would not want a desk job.

[00:00:31] Vickie Starr: And then I thought, what would I want to do? And I thought I would like to be a forest ranger.

[00:00:37] Dori Fern: What is it about forest ranging that you like?

[00:00:39] Vickie Starr: Hanging out in the woods, nature.

[00:00:42] Dori Fern: Nature.

[00:00:44] Vickie Starr: I grew up in rural Ohio and that's now I'm, living most of my life in the Catskills. It's just in my bones, 

[00:00:49] Dori Fern: And yet, you are very much a Brooklyn friend. Sowe went to hear music last night, as we do, and [00:01:00] yesterday afternoon I met up with a former colleague of mine, and I told him I was going to hear Argentinian music at a bar with friends and then potentially going dancing, which I didn't end up doing, but he was like, that is the most Brooklyn thing I've ever heard.

[00:01:20] Dori Fern: So

[00:01:25] Vickie Starr: That's why we love Brooklyn.

[00:01:27] Dori Fern: that's why we love Brooklyn. 

[00:01:28] Vickie Starr: have it all.

[00:01:29] Dori Fern: we have it all. What do you love about being in the city versus

[00:01:35] Vickie Starr: First of all, let me just say, Brooklyn is in my opinion, the most magical city on the planet. we are part of one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. We can have almost any experience we want.

[00:01:49] Vickie Starr: We've got people from every country in the world. People from places that aren't even countries, Every possible type of culture, [00:02:00] including the oldest in the book and the newest trends. We're on the coast so we can go to the beach. We're near the mountains so we can go to the Catskills or the Adirondacks.

[00:02:11] Vickie Starr: But most importantly with Brooklyn in particular, and this is not necessarily true of all of New York City, and it's definitely not true of the United States in general, is that in Brooklyn, you can be very much a part of the melting pot without having to in any way diminish or relinquish any of your historical family culture, I remember, my first 10 years living in Brooklyn, I would ride my bike around Prospect Park and, over here you have the Hasidim having a picnic and over here you have the Jamaicans playing Soccer and over here you have, some Chinese folks dancing and everybody's barbecuing and everybody's speaking in their native tongues and you don't have to assimilate in Brooklyn to be a proud Brooklynite and to, and [00:03:00] for us to love each other, ideally.

[00:03:02] Dori Fern: Right. You can also, and maybe this is more other parts of the city more than Brooklyn, you can also be part of the melting pot without engaging with it at all. Manhattan in particular. I don't know, you can be happily in your, say, mostly white bubble and not really engage with people. And maybe it's money more than it is whiteness, but whiteness and money

[00:03:38] Vickie Starr: Yes, that's true. But Dori, if you think about it, really. At least for the United States, it's one of the few places in the country where you have no choice at some point if you step out your door. You have no choice but to interact with humanity from everywhere. The subway is the great equalizer.

[00:03:58] Dori Fern: Yep.

[00:03:59] Vickie Starr: Our [00:04:00] city streets are the great equalizer, but in New York city, even people with money, even people with chauffeurs ride the subway because the goddamn traffic who wants to deal with that?

[00:04:10] Vickie Starr: Most places in America, everybody's in your car. But I feel like in New York, more than probably any other city in the world, in the country, you really are forced to rub shoulders with other people from other parts of the world who think very differently of you, potentially, who speak a different language etc.

[00:04:31] Dori Fern: This is very connected to one of the reasons I asked you on the podcast today, because what I wonder right now in these times that we're living in is, How can we model more productive, difficult conversations? And does being shoulder to shoulder with [00:05:00] people help us? Is it helping us now? How can it help us? By being close to people to have difficult conversations with people? Mm hmm.

[00:05:17] Vickie Starr: an important question we all need to ask ourselves every day. About how we go about our lives. How do we create more open minded and open hearted interactions with our fellow humans? And again, I feel like the answer to your question directly is yes. Nowadays I live 75 percent or 80 percent of my time in the Catskills, which is largely white. and I'm not talking about what we see in the news.

[00:05:48] Vickie Starr: I'm talking about my experience and maybe it's different from others, but I feel like in the city, there is less of this hardened red [00:06:00] blue divide, I don't want to say everybody in the city is more open minded and open hearted, but less hardened in their lines they've drawn around themselves. Because it's just not our nature here in the city 

[00:06:15] Vickie Starr: And I wonder, is it that it's not our nature, or it's just really hard when you connect with someone to dismiss their beliefs outright the way we do when we live in our bubble? And come on, New York is a bubble in its way,You're absolutely right. Even upstate, my wife and I live on a road there are Trump signs that never went down. They've been there for eight yearsAnd now they say Trump 2024. And these are our neighbors. But I, I know for a fact that most of these people, if I run into someone at the farmer's market or the hardware store or the gas station or whatever, they're not going to necessarily just immediately be hostile to me because I look like a feminist or I [00:07:00] don't know what they think I am.

[00:07:01] Vickie Starr: Of course I'm white, maybe it'd be different if I was black, I do think that it all comes down to interpersonal relationships. The personal is political and vice versa. That's So true. And the more we get to know a person, the more accepting we can be of their differences. And I think that can apply on a macro level too.

[00:07:24] Vickie Starr: going back to what's unique about New York City and Brooklyn in particular, is because it also helps us as humans on a macro level to be more open minded.

[00:07:33] Vickie Starr: If we let in experiences from other cultures, if we seek out experiencing other people's cultures, to the extent that we're welcome and invited into those experiences.

[00:07:46] Dori Fern: Other people's cultures and by cultures, I don't know if you mean this, but I take it to mean more than ethnic cultures, but literally they're. lived experiences, whatever it [00:08:00] may be.

[00:08:01] Vickie Starr: Absolutely. 

[00:08:03] Vickie Starr: you and I talk about this all the time, is how do we facilitate and participate in creating culture, cultural change and social justice, and it has to start with understanding where people are coming from,

[00:08:17] Dori Fern: Right. It's 

[00:08:17] Vickie Starr: empathy and understanding what motivates people.

[00:08:20] Dori Fern: empathy is really hard when you have deep visceral disagreements with someone's point of view, because you believe that it is opposite of everything you believe in.

[00:08:35] Vickie Starr: And because you believe that it could kill you,

[00:08:38] Dori Fern: Exactly.

[00:08:39] Vickie Starr: if you're a person of color or a queer person. Or even a woman these days in this country, or especially if you're all three of those things. your life could be in danger right now. So It's really hard to have that kind of [00:09:00] empathy. 

[00:09:00] Vickie Starr: can you talk about an example in your personal life where a conversation changed a point of view.

[00:09:14] Vickie Starr: yeah. what happened was, I'm queer, and my wife and I have two queer children with my ex and her partner, and one of our queer children is, identifies as trans and My mother, who does not identify as a progressive, I can't say if she's a Trump supporter or not, I really don't know, I don't think so, but she's definitely not, an activist or a progressive.

[00:09:41] Vickie Starr: And she married a guy in her later years who was a good old boy. Southern white guy, super nice to her and us, but very like good old boy, white boy, Southern, racist, homophobic, the whole nine. So one day they were supposed to come. [00:10:00] visit us.

[00:10:00] Vickie Starr: it was the summer before last, I think. I get a phone call from him one night. It's 10 o'clock at night. And this is a guy who never calls me unless my mom's in the hospital or something. So I immediately answered the phone.

[00:10:10] Vickie Starr: I'm like, Bob, what's up? And he's he proceeds to tell me that he's very concerned. about their upcoming visit to us because he's concerned that he's not going to be able to handle being around our youngest child who was born biological male and no longer identifies as a biological male and, identifies as a femme leaning, gender neutral person. And, I'll spare all the details but he was really concerned and he felt bad but I said, Bob, I'm really glad you called. This is really important that we Talk about this and that you share your feelings with us this is how we grow.

[00:10:58] Vickie Starr: I said, listen, this is a learning experience [00:11:00] for all of us. We're on a journey here, but the most important thing is we love our kid and This is their journey and this is how they want to be treated and how they want to be seen in the world. And we need to respect that and we need to embrace them with love.

[00:11:14] Vickie Starr: But we can have this conversation ongoing. You can call me anytime and I'm really happy to have the conversation. I said, if you don't think you can handle it and you want to stay home, totally fine, totally understand. Not a problem. or you can come and we'll continue to work through this as a family and not only did he come but on the last day he was there he pulled aside our youngest child and The one who's now gender neutral and apologized to them and said, 

[00:11:50] Vickie Starr: I just don't really understand this. I'm an old guy. I have really old fashioned viewpoints. My experience, is informed by X, Y, and Z from a million [00:12:00] years ago when I was in the army or whatever. And it wasn't like, he was offering an excuse, but it wasn't like we were meant to excuse him.

[00:12:07] Vickie Starr: It was just a gesture.

[00:12:08] Dori Fern: Right.

[00:12:09] Vickie Starr: And however limited it may or may not have been, He made the effort to put his hand out

[00:12:14] Dori Fern: brave of him to put himself out there from where he started,

[00:12:19] Vickie Starr: extremely. And for someone who was starting from where he was starting, It was a huge step towards creating bridges of understanding between us as a family.

[00:12:33] Dori Fern: And we can do that without coddling people. We can do that without going overboard and congratulating them for doing. a good thing, but yeah.

[00:12:49] Vickie Starr: But we cannot do it without being willing to be uncomfortable, and let me tell you, both of them were uncomfortable. The, my, my mom's husband was uncomfortable in [00:13:00] that moment, and so was our kid.

[00:13:01] Dori Fern: Right.

[00:13:02] Vickie Starr: They both felt awkward and probably anxious and scared. It was probably scary for both of them.

[00:13:08] Dori Fern: Right.

[00:13:09] Vickie Starr: But we have to be willing to do

[00:13:12] Dori Fern: And that's where the empathy comes in, because if you can do that with empathy, then breaking that wall of non communication, and I struggle so much with this, I don't get involved in these conversations nearly as much as I would like to.

[00:13:29] Dori Fern: Sothank you for, for having this conversation here with me. There's another conversation you had with, and I cannot believe that this is the second time. that Ice-T is going to come up in conversations with people I've interviewed, but that's how I roll.

[00:13:50] Vickie Starr: Tell us about the conversation with Ice-T Now that was a fun one. It was a long time ago. This was back when CMJ still existed.

[00:13:57] Dori Fern: CMJ, College Music [00:14:00] Journal.

[00:14:00] Vickie Starr: This was the early 90s. it was before we even had Girlie Action. In fact, I know it was because this is how I met my partner, Felice, who I ended up being at Girlie Action with for all those years.

[00:14:12] Dori Fern: And Girlie Action is, was your, well, we'll talk about that in a minute. PR marketing 

[00:14:16] Vickie Starr: company I had with, my partner Felice for over 25 years. But this was back when I was a journalist and I had a radio show on WBAI and I worked for a magazine called Outweek. So I was an openly feminist, openly queer pop culture journalist on the air and in print. And I got asked to be on a panel at CMJAnd I remember that Ice T was on the panel and so was Nona Hendricks. 

[00:14:40] Dori Fern: You describe Nona Hendrix's music?

[00:14:44] Vickie Starr: the great LaBelle was legendary. LaBelle was, a quick little side comment because I feel like they don't get props for this enough, LaBelle was the very first girl group, originally Patti LaBelle and the Blue Belles, who [00:15:00] decided to shed the girl group image and become badasses

[00:15:03] Vickie Starr: So anyway, we show up at the CMJ panel and we go back to the panel ready room, you show up like 45 minutes in advance and you talk about what you're going to talk about. And we all go in there and Ice-T has an agenda from the moment we sit down. He's got some new organization he's launching or some, activist initiative and we're going to all talk about that.

[00:15:22] Vickie Starr: And Nona Hendricks and I just looked at each other no, we're not.

[00:15:28] Vickie Starr: Cause we all had agendas, right? So anyway, we go out on stage, we're all sitting on this panel. We're talking about all sorts of things. And then, and it's a packed room

[00:15:39] Dori Fern: and I'm going to guess most of the people were there for Ice-T. Cause he was the most current and biggest person on the panel. And so they were a lot of them from the hip hop community. And as soon as. The audience commentary was open, the women were lining up at the mic, and [00:16:00] calling him out for stupid shit he said, and one person said, why do you go on stage and say, Everybody in the audience, raise your hand or whatever it was he would say, except for the gay people. and probably using not that

[00:16:17] Vickie Starr: Probably not gay, except for the fags,

[00:16:19] Dori Fern: yeah,

[00:16:20] Vickie Starr: or homos, or whatever terminology he said. This was a long time ago, and anyone who knows me knows that I don't always have the exact details accurate 20 years after I'm, 

[00:16:29] Dori Fern: yeah, that would, that would make you very unique.

[00:16:32] Vickie Starr: But anyway, long story short. Someone says this to him and his answer is, I just don't like it when guys try to hit on me in a bar. And I'm sitting literally right next to him and I turn and I look at him and I'm like, Dude, now you know how we feel as women all the fucking time. And you probably think you're giving us a compliment. So tell you what, why don't you just take it as a compliment when [00:17:00] a guy tries to hit on you and just be like, Thanks, but no thanks. And there's a pause and he thinks for a minute and he looks around the room and he looks at me and he's you know what, you're right. And that's why we're here today so that we can talk to each other because that's how we learn and grow. We're going to kick it together and we're going to learn and grow together. And I felt God, can I marry you? I couldn't have asked for a better response. I will never forget that as long as I live.

[00:17:30] Vickie Starr: And that is exactly what we're talking about

[00:17:33] Dori Fern: exactly what we're talking about. How did you, okay, so talk about not remembering the details. How did you end up with a show on WBAI?

[00:17:48] Vickie Starr: Oh, that's just, that's okay. I moved to New York. 

[00:17:53] Dori Fern: and I wanted to meet people who were like minded, activists, maybe. I don't, I'm not someone who goes and meets people in bars. [00:18:00] I was never that person. Don't get me wrong, I like to drink, I just don't.

[00:18:03] Dori Fern: was gonna say, she likes bars.

[00:18:05] Vickie Starr: I like bars, but I like to already have my friends with me when I go to the bars.

[00:18:10] Dori Fern: Fair.

[00:18:11] Vickie Starr: No, I just wanted to meet people in, in meaningful ways. So I joined the Women's News Collective. 

[00:18:16] Vickie Starr: And because it was a women's music, women's news show Somehow it kept coming down to Sweet Honey in the Rock and Holly near for the music. And for the most people probably have no idea what I'm talking about, but I'm, there was a time back in the day where women's music where like crunchy granola, hippie lesbians doing like touchy feely hippie crunchy music.

[00:18:38] Dori Fern: Joan Armatrading also,

[00:18:40] Vickie Starr: Yeah. Yeah. She was the more commercial version of that. But and don't get me wrong. I love Sweet Honey in the Rock. I loved a lot of those artists. But I'm like, guys. What about like Susie and the Banshees? What about Queen Latifah? 

[00:18:55] Vickie Starr: so after about a year, I ended up getting a music show. Started one day a week, eventually became two [00:19:00] days a week that was women in music. But it was very intentionally trying to open people's minds about what that meant. I would play New Order. which most people didn't know New Order had a female keyboard player because New Order's whole shtick

[00:19:16] Dori Fern: did not know New Order had a female

[00:19:18] Vickie Starr: part of New Order's shtick was to not focus on the band members and to be they're just New Order.

[00:19:23] Vickie Starr: It's just stuff like that. Women in hip hop, women in dance music, all kinds of stuff.

[00:19:31] Dori Fern: Is that when you became Vickiee Starr?

[00:19:34] Vickie Starr: It is. The name was given to me by someone at the radio station.

[00:19:38] Dori Fern: Cause my name is Vickie Steller 

[00:19:41] Vickie Starr: My family called me Vickie growing up.

[00:19:43] Vickie Starr: My legal name is Valerie, but 

[00:19:45] Dori Fern: I was already Vickie Steller and I went into the radio station one day and some guy was sitting there who I hadn't met yet and I introduced myself as Vickie Steller and he's Victoria Starr, [00:20:00] what a great name and I was like, yeah, that is a great name.

[00:20:03] Vickie Starr: I'm going to take that. And that, from that day forward on the radio, I was Vickiee Starr. And then I got stuck because I never meant to lose my family name. I'm like my family name,

[00:20:15] Dori Fern: Stellar is a pretty good name too.

[00:20:16] Vickie Starr: stellar mean star. 

[00:20:17] Vickie Starr: Then when I went into formally working in the music business, I had to keep the name because that people knew me. Like then I already had this legacy of being a journalist and a radio host and radio producer as Victoria Starr. So I couldn't then suddenly just not take that

[00:20:35] Dori Fern: right.

[00:20:36] Vickie Starr: with me into my profession.

[00:20:38] Dori Fern: It was your kind of like your married name,

[00:20:42] Vickie Starr: Kind of. Yeah.

[00:20:44] Dori Fern: married to the music. did you get into what you ended up doing in the music industry?

[00:20:53] Vickie Starr: Totally by accident. The the CMJ thing I was talking to you about that same year, There [00:21:00] was a panel on women in music that I was not on, but I was in the audience. And that year, I think it was like 92,

[00:21:09] Dori Fern: Mm

[00:21:09] Vickie Starr: 91, 92. Back then, most of the women on women in music panels, We're up there telling us, the rest of us women, that the way we could succeed is to learn to behave. Be very careful about how you conduct yourself in meetings. Be very careful about what you say. Don't offend the men. And about halfway through the panel, a bunch of us just got up and walked out. Like clearly incensed, like throwing out some comments as we walked out the door and we all walked out, not everybody, but those of us who walked out, we all congregated outside of the door in the hallway and we were so upset. We, so we started a group called SWIM, Strong Women in Music,

[00:21:59] Dori Fern: Mm[00:22:00] 

[00:22:00] Vickie Starr: and it was about 10 of us, 12 of us, couple of local it was Ann Powers, who was writing at the time for the Village Voice, Evelyn MacDonald, who was writing at the time for the Village Voice, Felice Ecker, who was a publicist, did a record label, and who became one of my, became my partner at Girlie Action eventually this is a very long winded story but we started this group called SWIM, Strong Women in Music, and we intentionally wanted it to be like what we loosely referred to it as Riot Girls for Grownups.

[00:22:27] Vickie Starr: Meaning, and not to, not in any way belittle Riot Girls, but Riot Girls was a movement of like young, college and 20 something, mostly artists and feminist activists, right? But we were people who were trying to have a profession. in the music industry. So what we wanted to do is to create this support group for women in the music industry to be actively and openly feminist.

[00:22:52] Dori Fern: And make a living.

[00:22:54] Vickie Starr: And still be able to make a living in music, in the music industry, and not be like putting our jobs in danger. We had [00:23:00] meetings, we had some showcases where we showcased artists, we did a boycott of the Grammys the year that they, there was one year, I think it was also 92 or 93, where the Grammys cancelled the best female rock category. Because they said there weren't enough good rock albums by women that year. And this was the year Liz Phair's Exit from Guyville came out. This was the year Tina Turner's triumphant solo album came out after she was like, fuck you Ike, there were some huge records that came out that year and the Grammys just decided they weren't worthy.

[00:23:36] Vickie Starr: So we did a huge. Picket line outside of Radio City Hall that night and got a lot of press coverage for it. So stuff like that. Anyway, long story short through that I met Felice Ecker and I was at the time a journalist and also writing a book and when the when I finished writing the book I Didn't know what I was, it was a biography of KD Lang, but when I finished the book, I [00:24:00] didn't know what I was going to do with myself.

[00:24:01] Vickie Starr: And then Felice Ecker decided to leave her job at the record label and start her own PR and marketing firm. And asked me if I would, I started by just helping her out.

[00:24:14] Vickie Starr: And then she asked me if I would. Become her partner. And I did. And the rest is history.

[00:24:21] Dori Fern: And so you did the marketing part of the book. Business?

[00:24:26] Vickie Starr: No! For the first few years we were only PR.

[00:24:29] Dori Fern: You were only PR,

[00:24:30] Vickie Starr: And it was just, Felice and I, and we had one other person who started as an intern, who we eventually hired, and then we started to grow. She was front of the house, so she would be pitching all the journalists, press stories.

[00:24:41] Vickie Starr: And I was back of the house, meaning I did all the client relations, but then eventually we grew and started other divisions and I became the biz dev person, so it was, became my job to start the thing about the music industry that anybody who works in it knows is that it's [00:25:00] more than probably any other industry I can think of has been through such enormous evolutions in such a short amount of time that like.

[00:25:10] Vickie Starr: We had to constantly keep offering new services just to stay relevant as a company.

[00:25:16] Dori Fern: do you think your best professional skills are?

[00:25:21] Vickie Starr: Oh, the ones I'm best at probably, I'm really boring. Like I'm super organized. I can, my my executive functioning skills are very high. So that's boring, but helpful in the kind of work I do because now I'm an artist manager and being an artist manager is like running an artist business.

[00:25:43] Vickie Starr: I run my own business. I run her business.

[00:25:45] Dori Fern: Okay, so let's talk about that. So you were with Girlie Action for how long?

[00:25:50] Vickie Starr: Over 25 years.

[00:25:51] Dori Fern: 25 years. Who are some of the artists that you worked with during that time?

[00:25:55] Vickie Starr: Oh God,

[00:25:56] Dori Fern: I know it's a lot. 25 years is a

[00:25:58] Vickie Starr: Going back

[00:25:59] Dori Fern: Just like what kind of [00:26:00] music

[00:26:00] Vickie Starr: One of the first bands we ever represented was Bikini Kill. Still around. We think Ice-T, someone who was at Ice-T until recently still represents them. No doubt.

[00:26:11] Dori Fern: right.

[00:26:12] Vickie Starr: When they had their first big, when they had their very first big record, which everybody thought thinks probably was their first record, but actually it was like their fourth record, but it was the one that put them on the map.

[00:26:22] Vickie Starr: Yeah, there's just been so many, we've worked with everybody from. Anthony and the Johnsons, who's now . Anoni, Michelle Deguicello, Tori Amos, Wyclef Jean. Just tons and tons of artists of all different genres.

[00:26:37] Dori Fern: What made you decide to go out on your own and do artist management?

[00:26:41] Vickie Starr: I was doing artist management for 10 years within the company. And we just, at some point it, it like, At some point, it just made more financial sense for Felice and I to spin the company into two bits, two parts. Just from a, just the way the economics of the business were going, it became more [00:27:00] viable for me to be an artist manager without having to also think about the PR and marketing division and vice versa.

[00:27:09] Dori Fern: Right. And you are managing

[00:27:12] Vickie Starr: Now I'm only managing one artist, which is Adi Oasis. I had eight management clients and then during the pandemic I also realized I was tired of working 60 hours a week and which I've been doing for over 25 years. So I let go of a lot of my management clients in those two or three years during the pandemic as well.

[00:27:33] Dori Fern: So that's a good time to talk about the second thing I really wanted to talk to you about, which is what it's like to be us as we age in our careers. what is it like to get older in the music industry.

[00:27:52] Vickie Starr: That's a good question. And I don't know that I know the answer because I don't, [00:28:00] as many people who know me know, I don't think about or care a lot about my age. Maybe because I'm a lesbian, maybe because even if I wasn't a lesbian, I would probably never wear makeup and high heels, whatever it is.

[00:28:14] Vickie Starr: A lot of the sort of, Tropes around aging that women seem to have even more than men. I just never really embraced and thought about much. Nowadays I'm aware that I look a lot older than I used to. But I also feel like, Ironically, maybe not ironically, it's not ironic for those of us who live in it, but I've actually been getting more and more involved in the DJ and dance music world than ever before.

[00:28:40] Vickie Starr: And I think most people who don't know that world think of, would think that's a very young world, but in fact, it's not. I feel like DJ, electronic and dance music at least certain sectors of it are unbelievably respectful of the elders and

[00:28:57] Dori Fern: I mean, many DJs are our [00:29:00] age,

[00:29:00] Vickie Starr: Most good DJs are old, with a DJ it's like the older you get, the better you get if you continue DJing.

[00:29:07] Vickie Starr: It's just a

[00:29:08] Dori Fern: like a lot of things.

[00:29:09] Vickie Starr: Yeah but also I think that people who are in that space understand and appreciate, like I know in house music, the whole concept of appreciating our history is very important. Musclecars, who I know you and I both share as, a local DJ crew that we both adore two young kids, 

[00:29:28] Vickie Starr: They talk about this in interviews, how one of the things they love about their audience is how it's all ages. And I didn't realize until, last year that they are actually descendants of Parents who have hung out at shelter, they grew up with it, I have that with my kids, I go out

[00:29:46] Dori Fern: was a

[00:29:48] Vickie Starr: legendary dance music

[00:29:51] Dori Fern: party from, when did the Shelter party start?

[00:29:55] Vickie Starr: pretty early on, I think after the loft and maybe after Paradise

[00:29:59] Dori Fern: So [00:30:00] like, well, yeah, so like in the 90s? No, because the Paradise Garage was a shorter period of time and that was in the 80s.

[00:30:08] Vickie Starr: so maybe towards the end of the 80s, I

[00:30:10] Dori Fern: Yeah, that sounds right. And it still happens.

[00:30:14] Vickie Starr: Like my, my kids are into DJ music and they don't think anything of us all going to the same club. to listen to the same DJs. That's not weird for them at all.

[00:30:24] Dori Fern: Right. My kids still don't like going out with me, but that's a, maybe different. What do you think you've, learned, whether it's from the music industry, from being in these underground or independent communities?

[00:30:47] Vickie Starr: Interesting. In terms of what's important to me, I think with every passing year, and I think this was heightened by the whole Trump era, and also heightened by the [00:31:00] pandemic, but I always have felt this is the importance of community. And I know, and again, I think in particular, certain genres of music in particular, and the types of music we like in particular.

[00:31:13] Vickie Starr: It's all about community.

[00:31:15] Dori Fern: It's all about

[00:31:16] Vickie Starr: It's all about community. It's about the fact that it's about the fact that I could go to a nightclub by myself, and I might not know anyone there, but I still feel like I'm with my people. Yeah,

[00:31:31] Dori Fern: New York is special in that regard, and probably at this point, Brooklyn is the epicenter for that.

[00:31:45] Dori Fern: One other thing I think about a lot is 

[00:31:47] Dori Fern: how as I get older, the outside gaze is so strong about, as [00:32:00] an older person in a scene that is majority, I mean, even, even if it's mixed in New York, it's still a majority youth scene. Cause one big thing is most of the parties are late at night, so that's hard for us too. But there's this change that's happening to me that I'm very aware of that there are some things that I just do because I've always liked to do it like going out dancing.

[00:32:27] Dori Fern: People look at me and are like, wow, you're so cool. You still go out dancing or that's such a Brooklyn thing. It's like, well, don't we all have things that we always liked to do that we still like to do? Woo woo. There's a million kids out there now and some percentage of them will never go dancing again after they start having families or just getting older or whatever it is and then there will be some that just continue to do it because they love it so much.

[00:32:59] Dori Fern: [00:33:00] That connection to community, like you said, super important for me as a thinky person all the time. I love being in my body and very. all about just that kind of connection to the music and, and my body and, and a physicality that's super important to me. It's my gym in a lot of ways.

[00:33:23] Dori Fern: I don't, I was going to say I don't like to go out late as much as I used to, but I never really liked being out late. the thing I love about since the pandemic is how many more early parties there are. And also I've

[00:33:37] Vickie Starr: Day Parties! Day Parties!

[00:33:39] Vickie Starr: So what's next for you, Vickie Starr? What, what are, what's something that's, you've got on the hopper for your future?

[00:33:48] Vickie Starr: Oh gosh, I don't know. Oh, I do know actually, I'm going to go back to DJing. I was never a club DJ, but I did do a fair amount of DJing at my friend, Brooke Webster's [00:34:00] legendary lesbian bar called Meow Mix.

[00:34:02] Vickie Starr: And now I've decided I'm going to relearn my DJ skills 

[00:34:05] Dori Fern: what I observe, Vickie,Is that you're doing the thing that I always talk about, just keep moving forward. 

[00:34:12] Dori Fern: you just took the proverbial deep breath and started putting one foot in front of the other. I love this for you. 

[00:34:21] Vickie Starr: you were instrumental in that too. You gave me some coaching along the way and I have to say, you really helped me just take that deep breath.

[00:34:29] Dori Fern: I'm glad to hear

[00:34:30] Vickie Starr: And your podcast last year, or was it last year, the year before

[00:34:33] Dori Fern: already, it was already like a year and a half ago already.

[00:34:36] Vickie Starr: Yeah, I listened to every episode.

[00:34:39] Dori Fern: Thank you. All right, my final question for you it's been said that the only thing that remains of us when we're gone are stories about us that people say of what we do, of who we are.

[00:34:58] Dori Fern: What do you hope your [00:35:00] story or the legacy you leave will be?

[00:35:03] Vickie Starr: I thought about that. 

[00:35:04] Vickie Starr: the first thing that came to my mind was I think legacy is overrated.

[00:35:08] Vickie Starr: what I want to do more than anything. is create more time and space for me to experience joy with my family, my friends, and my community. That's all I care about. That's how selfish I am. I just want to enjoy my life. I want to be a good person. I want to bring love and happiness and joy to the people around me. I want to get love and happiness and joy from being around my people.

[00:35:34] Vickie Starr: And I want us to go out and fucking dance.

[00:35:39] Dori Fern: Boom, I love it. You are a shining light in the world and in my life. Thank you for being here.

[00:35:49] Vickie Starr: Thank you so much, Dori. I love you to pieces and this has been a lot of fun.