Tegan and Sara’s
Mixtape Memoir:
We Got Weird, Strange and Empowered
Tegan and Sara Quin were born eight minutes apart in September of 1980 in Calgary. The identical twins grew up with piano lessons starting in pre-school and young parents who were passionate music fans, so music was naturally a big part of their childhood. But it was when they found their stepdad’s discarded acoustic guitar at age 15 that Tegan and Sara found what would become the pathway to making music of their own, and to their career. Within a couple of years they self recorded a couple of demo albums, and by the time they were 19 independently released their proper debut album Under Feet Like Ours, got signed to Neil Young’s label Vapor Records, and in 2000 put out This Business of Art. They had, as they put it, a scary amount of confidence. But also, Tegan and Sara were largely alone in the music industry as young, female, queer artists, and even with the immediate success and recognition they received, not to mention huge international tours with big name artists, they continually searched for a sound and a space to carve out as their own. 2002 they released their third effort If It Was You, followed by So Jealous in 2004, which is widely considered their breakthrough album, partially due to the White Stripes covering “Walking With A Ghost”. This episode of Mixtape Memoir takes us up to about this moment in Tegan and Sara's story, and as you will hear it was actually that third album, If It Was You, that really marked the beginning of Tegan and Sara hitting their stride. That album has just hit its twentieth anniversary, and looking ahead, Tegan and Sara are set to release their tenth studio album Crybaby in just a couple months on October 21st, just a week after the TV adaptation of their best-selling memoir High School on October 14th. All of this adding up to a perfect time to create Tegan and Sara's Mixtape Memoir.
LISTEN HERE:
Episode Credits:
Host/creator/creative director - Carmel Holt @carmelholt
Edited/mixed/mastered - Phoebe Wang / @feebswang
Theme music - Lucius @ilovelucius
Cover art - Merle Cooper @m.c.cooper
Art direction - @carmelholt
Tegan and Sara press photo - Eluvier Acosta / @eluvieracosta
Guest: Tegan and Sara / @teganandsara
Label: Mom+Pop Music / @momandpopmusic
