Life & Work with Dolly Spectra of Long Beach and DTLA

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dolly Spectra

Hi Dolly, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I’ve always been inspired by the artsier and more experimental side of pop music. From earlier artists like Talking Heads and Kate Bush, to more recent acts like Caroline Polachek and SOPHIE, there is a bold and maximal lineage of pop that’s always captivated me. My solo project originated from the older “new wave” of this lineage as a synth punk band, and eventually evolved into a multimedia electronic pop project as I expanded my technical capabilities to grow into my ideas.

I now perform, code, and produce electronic pop with a hypermodern twist.

I’ve created a motion-capture based performance setup for live shows, comprised of a wearable exo-suit which controls audiovisual media via body movement in a pop concert setting. The impetus for creating this was a need for visceral, realtime storytelling in a live setting as an electronic solo artist who no longer has to rely on a backing band for every show. How do I re-inject much of the energy of a band, with only myself and a computer? I landed on the use of tech-connected gestures as an additional medium, turning body movement into an instrument to control sounds and motion-reactive visuals in tandem with live vocals. I didn’t know how to do any of this when I started – rather, I figured out how to do it as my sound was shifting organically and I wanted to create a unique and powerful live experience to go with it.

These days I’m recording and releasing music, performing with my music and motion capture setup, and running an emerging event ecosystem and budding collective at the heart of LA’s hyperpop and experimental event tech scenes called A/D/S/R. I’m extremely grateful to have found a community of supportive friends and fellow creatives here and online, and it’s wonderful to get to collaborate and share in each other’s increasing successes.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Haha, no! There are extreme ups and downs in the world of being a music artist, and it really doesn’t matter whether you’re solo or part of a group. Each scenario has its profound pros and cons. I think some of my biggest challenges have been time management and mental health. How do you create your best most authentic art if you’re exhausted from other life demands, if you feel pressure to document and advertise yourself constantly, if you’re hanging around the wrong people who expect you to be someone you’re not? All of these things drain energy and make it so hard to get in the zone (and be more inspired and excited than anxious and overwhelmed) if you don’t carve out the time to center yourself and introspect with honesty and kindness.

Here’s something important I’ve learned: One of the best things you can do in optimizing a creative lifestyle is to surround yourself with people who are rooting for your authentic self to succeed. The worst thing you can do is let people who don’t do this take up your time and energy. Obviously sometimes you need to hear criticisms and hard truths about yourself, but I could’ve saved myself a lot of trouble if I had started cultivating a supportive inner voice sooner. That’s what has helped me filter critical feedback through a discerning lens, and only listen to those who are interacting in good faith and from a not completely selfish perspective. It’s hard to consistently make clear decisions around how to make income, how to make better art, and how to reach more people, if you let people into your inner circle who will continue to drag you down. It’s hard enough as it is to improve an overly critical inner voice – you don’t need unkind or manipulative outer voices compounding the problem.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m pretty hands-on as a multi-faceted music artist with a DIY spirit. Creatively and technically speaking, you could say that I specialize in singing and vocal processing, producing electronic music in Ableton, event production and community building, and developing new gestural multimedia performance technology.

I’m most proud of the ways in which I’m a self-starter. I did go to school for music, and the best thing I was taught there is how to learn more on my own. Nobody there told me “here’s how to organically build community as an event promoter,” or “here’s how to fully produce electronic pop music as a solo artist,” and certainly not “here’s how you become a hardware hacker, a programmer, an inventor.” I took my knowledge of how to acquire new skills, and applied it to my own goals.

Growing as a musician around externalized pressure to embrace the more traditonally feminine aspects of the field presents its challenges for those of us who have the minds of leaders, engineers, technicians, and producers. We are often taught to be specific parts of a whole – singers, front people, songwriters, auditioners, piano players. We’re taught to leave the tech to someone else, and are not often told we are capable of growing into leadership roles and take audio production into our own hands. Studying music in LA was actually very freeing in that the people around me encouraged breaking out of that, but when the industry and society as a whole has been more rooted in traditional roles, misogyny rears its head in strange ways and you have to have a thick enough skin to push past those who refuse to take you seriously and be like “no, actually, I do know what I’m doing enough to be putting out work that people like, I can do complicated technical things to bring my vision to life, and I do deserve to have my voice heard as a producer and a leader.”

Finding myself in a community of predominately LGBTQ artists is very freeing in that we all reject this sort of loose gender segregation in the arts. If you have a good idea, it’s valued no matter who you are or who you’ve been. There’s not a whole lot that sets me apart from the scene I’ve co-created here, because I’ve intentionally surrounded myself with incredible artists, producers, technicians, community builders, and more. In working together we create things that are bigger than any one of us alone. I suppose one thing I bring to the table is the tenacity to always have something in the works for people to collaborate on, no matter what’s going on in my personal life. I’m a person that many artists can come to and ask “is there anything going on that I can be a part of?” and somehow I always make sure there is.

Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
For anyone reading, I have a piece of advice and a request.

Advice: No matter who you are or what your skills are, there’s room in the world for your creativity. Make stuff and share it, and join communities of other people doing creative things – in real life or online. Being a part of a creative community is a special kind of fulfillment that’s hard to put into words.

Request: If you’re interested, follow me! Reach out if you want – I’m always looking for collaborators, opportunities, support, new friends, etc.

Pricing:

• I have songs on Bandcamp for $1: https://dollyspectra.bandcamp.com/
• My Patreon tiers are $5 and $15: https://www.patreon.com/c/user?u=24273791

Contact Info:

• Website: https://dollyspectra.wixsite.com/dolly-spectra-epk
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dollyspectra/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@dollyspectra
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/dollyspectra
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4WI10akJKIvVsxnT4xWLkY?si=tYVLsfPcTMyfKi2F_LysnA

Image Credits
Various pictures credited to Videomancer, J Vincent, Weirdo Music Forever, Scott Free, L Lusardi, and Neotropolis Festival