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September has arrived this week, as will three new pieces of my multimedia 90s memoir project.

MY 90s PHOTOGRAPHS:

Book & Exhibit

and

BASS WOMB ROOM:

My ‘90s 4-Track Demos x Field Recordings

All of which have been unearthed from the analog past, to purge and share, as a joint act of collective connecting and healing.

book and cassette in hand

The music comes from my 90s living room home studios, sketches of songs, experimental sound collages, connected by a heartbeat of NOW, and an actual mirror pyramid installation in my first museum exhibit. This is the first release of new sounds in 15 years….

My ’90s Rock Photographs, the book; and the exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario come to you thanks to a remarkable group of creators, designers, publishers, and art installers. A new kind of band for me, a group effort that combed through 15,000 photographic negatives and relics from our analog days passed.

I am the most expressed, and therefore grateful, that I ever have been.

In 2011, I decidedly withdrew from sharing my insides with the public, to become a mother of a daughter and art factory, this enormous change offered profound a metamorphosis. A decade into that transformation, I began to feel the percolation of a deep longing and need to re-connect.

When I began to write my memoir, the words began to spin the magic I hoped for; my way back home to the beginning when I found my love of music, photography and community united by the burning inside to share.

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2026 has been the year of integrating the past and the present for me, releasing the flood gates of emotions and creations not yet expressed, to assure that I can participate in life inspired, grateful and embodied, in order to do my little part in giving to a world that we want to live, love and share in.

I am reporting to you in transit between my two homelands; Canada and the USA.

Been quite a week and face off between the two this past week. I stand aligned with the good like-minded people of both sides of the border, who want to be kind and make good change.

Last week I had the pleasure to commune with both sides of the border; hundreds of music and book people at a public library in Kitchener Ontario, which was life affirming. A library standing tall, organized by passionate individuals who want to serve their community and a theater full of people who want to listen and share in what being human feels like together.

The very next day I headed with my teenage daughter to The Daisy chain Fields …. power action, woman and girl power, utopia as contrast to SICK USA.

Two phenomenal examples, back to back, of the kind of beautiful action and connection we can experience together…

Let’s take a moment to pledge to each other - the community in the utopian fields of music and fundraising, the members of the library and the subscribers on Substack - acknowledging that all we have is today and each other.

How lucky are we?

Let’s imagine how the gratitude and humility that we are so lucky, will spread like a deep, fiery love of life within each other…..

I am here with you.

Wave to the sky, say hello to a tree, kiss your cat, hug your friend, cherish your family and lets live our bests lives.

xMx

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There are three ways to join the xMAdMx journey, dear readers…

FREE — follow along with stories from my world + the archive.

PAID — $8/month — unlock subscriber-only stories, archival photographs, essays, playlists, voice notes + more.

xMAdMx MAGIC — $222/year — our founding membership, with deeper deepest archive access, special surprises throughout the year + a limited-edition archival print: Self-Portrait at The Chelsea Hotel, 2001.

Come September, I’ll begin opening a new chapter of my ’90s Rock Photographs archive. My book features over 200 photos from an archive of over 10,000, releasing the floodgates of visual tales of the last analog decade. I’ll be sharing the untold stories behind the images, the museum exhibition and life on the road with the book tour.

Come join me.

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Chapter 6: Grounding the Fairy.

I am born under the astrological sign of Pisces, of which the symbol is two fishes tied by their tails: one going upstream, and the other one going downstream.

In my esoteric / existential teen years while exploring and seeking the meaning of life, I discovered astrology and the symbol I am born under. It has echoed with me my whole life, and I’ve grown to understand that that tension between two directions - the ether and the earth, happiness and sadness, darkness and light - has ruled my disposition for a majority of my life. It’s my natural state, this sort of poetic conflict.

In my memoir, I suggested that the duality also rules our generation; one millennia into the next, this crossover moment that happened in the year 2000 at the end of the last analog decade. It is well known that Kurt Cobain was a Pisces, and anyone who follows any kind of astrology, knows that Pisces are known to be the dancers and dreamers, but often struggle with addiction or isolation. Kurt was, in many ways, the tragic, glorious symbol of our generation’s youth culture; so, indirectly, is the Piscean symbol.

In my life, in my generation’s life, and in anyone’s life, those who struggle between the two sides of themselves may discover that it is that very duality that creates the tension from which both the beauty and art we make, and the pain and despair we feel, emerge.

In this phase of my early Substack birthing, I’m giving a casual walkthrough of my origin story from Act 1 of my memoir, Even the Good Girls Will Cry: Act 1 — MAGIC. In Chapter 6, “Grounding the FAIRY,” I bring the reader, for the first time, into this esoteric seeker part of me. At this point in the book, in my late teen years, I’m inspired and in love with music and photography, but I’m also sad, melancholic, and seeking. My drive to find a voice through music and photography, and to find a community among music lovers and artists, is entirely driven by a sense of loneliness and longing.

I have a burning urge to connect with others, an internal hunger. In this chapter and with these photographs from the era of my art student days, I am reflecting. Reflecting on what it is to be a woman in the female form, to gaze upon oneself in a mirror. Contemplating both inside the frame, and outside the frame.

These photos, this moment, and this chapter of my memoir mark that crossing-over point where I begin to actually find my inner voice and manifest it in the outside world. That is what this memoir, this photo book, and this museum exhibition (or rather a multidisciplinary memoir project) are exploring: that hunt, and that initial time of coming of age and coming into womanhood.

So this is for all of us, who face the universal duality that make us both body and spirit.

Who is she on the inside?

Who is she on the outside?

What does her body want?

What is her body going through?

What is her spirit made of?

Where is her spirit going to guide that body throughout her life?

xMx

Chapter 5, 1991, the song that changed everything.

If you are a follower of the history of alternative rock music in the ‘90s, you could probably guess what song I am speaking about in this chapter. The song that changed everything. Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Interestingly, the photos I paired with this chapter in my memoir are early self portraits I made while studying photography at university in Montreal. Nudity and shadows, both reoccurring themes in my life. Self portraits, stripping down to the raw essential spirit of self to reflect on what the meaning of existence in this mere flesh and blood vessel of my body, and shadow play. Shadows are reflections of the light, and in the shadows, you can find the good, but usually through the hard or the dark shadowy side of life.

Read more

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Chapter 4, late bloomer, music lover.

Do you remember being 13?

Or might you be 13 right now?

What I can tell you about my journey into 13 through 14 through 15, is I was seeking, hunting, desperately for who, what and where will make me feel alive.

What will give me my voice?

My findings were a matter of life or death. How does one exist? Entering the world, seemingly alone, even though you’ve got parents or friends, you feel alone, at least I did.

Me and this horse Patches had a special relationship. It started with my arrival at a DIY riding camp called “Poverty Hill Stables”. My friend Rachel and I, who grew up together, were sent there for big chunks of the summer starting when we were ten. We rode horses and helped around the house for this interesting family who bred stallions. We lived in their basement, which was covered in AstroTurf and stocked with Lucky Charms cereal. The older stable boys, with their Mötley Crüe T-shirts and flipped out hair, made inappropriate sexual advances. Rachel succumbed to them, but I did not.

In those horses, I found power.

I remember so clearly hearing about the “popping of the cherry” that could happen on a horse, which would make losing one’s virginity less painful. I prayed for that, even though I had zero interest in losing my virginity or having any sort of penis near me, I hoped that the riding the horses would make me better prepared for the big unknowns.

During these summers that we spent at Poverty Hills Stables, I also experienced psychedelics. This photo of me in the oversized army sweater, flat-chested and hiding my femininity, was taken after I had already experienced my first psychedelic trip. The depth of strangeness I felt watching a baby doll with opening and closing eyes was life-changing. I found, forever, a new place inside myself… a private, solitary location that would serve me well all the way to today, as I speak to you from the belly of a giant museum in Toronto, where I am hanging a photo show that is the visual companion to the memoir I am speaking to you about…

So me and Patches found the big unknown and the power source that brought me here today, speaking into a weird phone, to you… an unknown listener.

My friend, Rachel Goldman and I, also found the Thunderdome, the Goth Club that defined me. The next photo is me and Alice Rosenbaum in London, where we would steal Volkswagen signs off of cars late at night with her father’s screwdriver.

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Those two friends of mine, whose cool fathers took these photos of our delicate teenage years, helped me discover the things that would ultimately bring me here. With Rachel, it was the horses and the psychedelia. With Alice, it was the music of England—the Cure, the Smiths—and then New York City: Blondie, the Velvet Underground, and Andy Warhol’s Factory. Those two friends, during that era of my life, defined me entirely.

I love my girlfriends of my late bloomer, music lover days.

I love the horses that popped my cherry.

I love the psychedelics that expanded my horizons.

And I love where I speak to you from today, a fleshed out, well rounded, woman in her middle life, that found what she was seeking on her shy hunt as a teenager.

Keep.

Hunting.

xMx

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Chapter 3: The city. She raised me.

Montreal, Canada.

For any of you listening who have not yet been there, I beg you for your own creative soul and seeker sake, book a trip. If you live in the Northeast, just get in the car and drive. If you live overseas, around the world, or across the continent, just pick a moment when you want to explore a world of its own.

The Old World, in the New World.

I often say that what makes my city - the city that both my parents devoted themselves to, culturally, politically, creatively - is that it’s divinely protected by cold winters and French language. It has stopped the infiltration of the rest of North America to erase the culture that is uniquely its own.

There is an incredible hybrid of the French settlers from France who integrated with the Natives in their own way. And then, of course, there was the impact of the monarchy and the great British Empire, which eventually conquered the territory. But while they conquered it politically, they never defeated the French spirit. What emerged is something uniquely French, its own distinct French identity.

It’s not like France (any Québécois would be very insulted to hear it compared to France!) but its roots are from there. It’s just its own remarkable culture that has grown over a few hundred years. The French language is dominant, as is the joie de vivre, and the way to live life primarily through love, food, joy, and art is really strong there.

There is a protection against corporate takeover. The government of Quebec itself puts more money and time into protecting its own local artists, independents and creators, more so than anywhere else in North America. So get yourself to Montreal.

This is my public service announcement. The little girl you see in that photo went to an experimental art school that could have only been born in Montreal in the ‘70s. The school was called F.A.C.E. which stood for Fine Arts, Core Education. My mother bravely enrolled me in the experiment of “What if children are taught art, performance, music, and theater over academics?” What if they prioritize the arts? How will it affect those children?

I’ll tell you how it affected this child who’s now 54…

I’ve built my whole life and my independent, unique voice around art and gravitated towards people and communities that do the same.

Even now, speaking to you from Hudson, New York, at Basilica Hudson, the arts center I founded with my partner, Tony Stone, it feels connected to that same impulse. We created Basilica Hudson in response to the growing corporatization of arts and culture in New York City. Creating a platform for independent arts and culture in upstate New York in 2010 was an act to protecting spaces for independent expression. The dream was to bring the best of the creative spirit that I grew up experiencing in Montreal, to a tiny almost forgotten town in the United States. This is proof that I am a product of that city and the school.

It’s worth a trip just for the beauty, the rooftops, the architecture. It’s on a little island in the middle of a giant river called the St. Lawrence. There’s a glorious mountain at its center, Mount Royal, which gives Montreal its name. The mountain park was designed by Olmsted, who also designed Central Park. It has winding Victorian walking trails and overlooks with sweeping views of the city and the river.

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Get yourself there. This girl is so grateful that the spirit of that city took care of me. My omnipresent parents had devoted themselves to her, and were very busy when raising me. They were independent, hand to mouth, passionate freelancers, and so I wandered that city freely from a very young age, and it took me under her wing. I got a job as a ticket girl at a punk club at 16, a job as a cassette DJ at 17. Montreal gave me my life in arts.

It’s there for you to receive just as a visitor.

I honor her. I honor every great city that gives a little girl the roots for a wild life.

I love Montreal.

I love cultural independence.

I love poetry in walls of an old city that embraces expression.

xMx

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Chapter 2. The Saint and the Wall.

Off the cuff, open heart, a little voice memo about my father, Nick Auf der Maur.

To speak of my father, is to speak of a larger than life man, not just because he was my father and the DNA I spawn from, but because he was as radical as any radical human I played in a rock band with, and we all know for those who followed 90s rock music, they were pretty radical.

My father was a rebel rouser, a fearless independent journalist and politician. But his roots are that of a child from deep poverty and immigrants in the 1940s in Montreal, in the neighborhood that I grew up in. Later in the ‘70s, I grew up in the bohemian version of Le Plateau Mont Royal. But he grew up there in the ‘40s when it was where all the immigrants landed at the turn of the century and during the depression to discover a New World, far from their Old World that they came from.

My grandparents arrived there in the ‘30s. From overseas, strangely from Switzerland, not escaping a war or depression, but actually escaping their own omnipresent families. My grandfather had dreams of finding his New World in the New World. He came from an ancient lineage, a 1000 year old name, Auf der Maur - which translates to “on the wall” in Swiss German. We were the family who participated in building the wall and lived in the wall that created; the town of Schwyz, in the canton of Schwyz l, in the country of Schwiiz aka Switzerland.

Mega mega family legacy DNA that my grandfather ran from, he wanted to find his own way. And brought his wife into complete poverty, and they lived like any other immigrants who came at the turn of the century to the New World. My grandmother worked in a bakery. My young father and grandfather lived off the grid, digging for diamonds and minerals. My grandfather was an engineer and prospector back home, and set up the Auf der Maur mining camp in the deep woods of Quebec.

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(This is a photo of him at the cabin - Severin Joseph Auf der Maur, is the one on the left, with his trusted dog “Petit Loup” (Little Wolf) and a visiting Texan mining investor)

My father Nick was the youngest of 4 kids. My grandmother held it down with her extremely religious beliefs and raised the 3 other kids in a Catholic infused poverty stricken world in Montreal. Whereas, my father, had his early days living off the grid with baby bears and wolves, scratching the ground and watching hydroelectric lights flicker that his father had connected to their little hand built cabin.

My father’s roots are wild. His life, that ended at the age that I am now, was an incredible adventure of 54 years of wild fire expression and self-destruction. He smoked and drank himself to death. This chapter of my book is an ode to a force, the masculine force that made me, and the tragic force that died too young yet still defined me.

This photo of him smoking a cigarette in a rare moment of no mustache was him as a beatnik poet in the ‘60s. He carried a pet rock and would recite poetry in bars in exchange for beer.

I love Nick.

I love wild hearts.

I love poets.

And I feel the pain of a tortured soul living in a broken man, who loved life. He had one daughter, and he loved me with a wild heart, one that barely knew how to love himself.

xMx

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Linda Gaboriau, 1969.

This much is true, and it’s the first line of my memoir: “I am a product of a one night stand between two radically beautiful and adventurous souls who, in their fearless independence, came together for a romantic weekend.”

My mother... her life... still today, in her 80’s, is an act of individuation and feminism incarnate. She came from a standard middle class, suburban Boston home, and never fit in. She fled from her roots, as an expat of America, moved to radical Montreal in the ‘60s to pursue her passion in French language and literature, and transformed herself into a dreamy frontline feminist. She had me alone by choice.

She raised me with three mantras:

“No woman should ever be defined by a man.”

“Every woman should be able to drive herself away from a bad situation.”

And

“Every woman should have a room of her own,” an ode to Virginia Wolfe.

My mother continues to be an example of what it is to march to your own drum, and to define yourself outside of how others might perceive, project, or want you to be.

I grew up gazing at many photographs of my gorgeous mother, and if you look at this photo, I think it’s hard to debate that not only is she a beauty, but an exotic beauty. Especially in 1960s America, she was very exotic, with these wide cheekbones, slanted eyes and giant lips. She wore no makeup and second hand clothes, many of which were her grandmother’s; Victorian velvet culottes, and bell sleeved Victorian jackets that I still have in my collection, that my 14 year old daughter recently archived in the attic of my home.

She is my muse. And while she raised me, told me all about the great musicians of her time. She was a music journalist who interviewed (and partied with) everyone from Frank Zappa and the Rolling Stones to Leonard Cohen, and brought me up with a passion to find the voices of my generation. When she would tell me the stories of these great men and show me the cover of these albums, it fused in my mind that I could one day become like these men that she admired… however I also aspired to be a beautiful woman like her, the woman telling the story.

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Her beauty and passion were also represented on the walls of the apartment I grew up in. Where many photos hung, of my mother, and often naked. One in particular, is her emerging from a car carcass in a junkyard, with a plume of hair floating around her face like smoke from a witch’s cauldron. She was one of the favorite muses of the man who took these photographs, Guy Borremans. He photographed her for years and she had these photographs on display stacked around our home. I looked at them with great admiration, overwhelmed to think of who this creature was, this naked, gorgeous woman fearlessly looking into the lens, and the even further mystery of the one who was behind the camera?

In high school, I expressed interest in photography, and my mother introduced me to Guy Borremans. He taught me the magic and mystery of the dark room and became a photographic mentor to me. Through this relationship with the man who admired my mother’s beauty, I became a photographer. Again, morphing the lines between muse, maker, creator, man, woman and medium.

This is my mother, Linda.

I myself, am now a mother to a daughter named River, and she, too, sees funny photos of me, sometimes naked, in and around my studio. But, you know, who took those photos? I did.

I love photography.

I love being a woman.

And I aspire to be an example for young women coming into their own... just as my mother is.

Pass. It. On.

xMx

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Act 1: MAGIC

Clouds.

To be in a rock band is to travel.

There’s various ways to travel. Planes, trains, automobiles, passenger vans, taxi cabs. Planes is my favorite of them all.

Flying in the clouds never ceases to amaze me. Taking flight as mere little humans.

Gravity imprisons us on Earth.

Birds get to fly…And one day, strange men (hopefully with some women in the background there) discovered we could fly in giant metal birds. I spent so much time in between cities, in the clouds. My favorite time and place to reflect.

I would read nonfiction books a lot on tour, philosophies on love, magic, the mysteries of the universe. But mostly, I’d write in my diary. I’d started keeping a little girl diary at the age of 12 and continued, through everything, right up until today.

But in those journals and on those flights in the ‘90s between my big rock destinations, is where I uncovered the messiness and the mystery of what it was, and is, to become a woman.

In my case, I was becoming a woman in the last analog decade. Immersed in a rare, one in a million chance of being on a global stage rock band, as a bass player, in a female dominated band called Hole.

Never forget: my bass was my vehicle. My original set of wings. It carried me to Seattle and, ultimately, brought me to Hole, where I became their bass player in the wake of unimaginable tragedy.

Not only the suicide of Kurt, Courtney’s husband and the father of Frances, but shortly after, the death of Kristen, Hole’s bass player, who died soon after the release of Live Through This. This was also during the wake of our generation losing our independent emboldened power of the zeitgeist of our “alternative” movement. It had become so explosive, that it took over the mainstream. Which was very unexpected for us who had dwelled in the underground clubs of North America in the late ‘80s and witnessed in real time, the explosion in the early ‘90s.

At the time, I worked as a ticket girl, and a cassette DJ. I’d never missed a show of the great roaming, alternative rock troubadours of our generation.

I had found my people. It was so beautiful. I’m not saying that the corporate power and major labels destroyed everything, but they have certainly ruined a lot.

But on these flights, looking out into the clouds and feeling my body float through the air - which indeed is the impossible of dreams - it allowed me to see the magic in everything.

To experience the wonder and what it is to be a woman, a human, a music lover, and adventure hunter.

I ❤️ CLOUDS

I wrote a memoir about coming into my womanhood in the last analog decade

I have 15,000 photographic images from that time

I am active online

I have come to Substack for a more substantial exchange, I love photos, hence my ease with Instagram lately, but I sure like to talk, write and connect with you.

This space is where the stories expand…I’ll be unboxing memories, photographs, journals, playlists, pilgrimages, conversations, and stories that didn’t fit inside my memoir or photography book.

My ‘90s Rock Memoir, Even the Good Girls Will Cry, tells the story of my journey through the ‘90s. Come September My ‘90s ROCK PHOTOGRAPHS book makes its way into the world. For the enhanced experience, be sure to learn more about my first major museum exhibition at The Art Gallery of Ontario, up from September 2026-June 2027. *** PLUS BONUS TRACK *** THE BASS WOMB ROOM, my soundtrack to the exhibit, available for listening HERE

This Substack picks up where these offerings leave off. I will share additional archives and stories untold, but also reflections from the HERE and the NOW, offering in-real-time reflections post-release of these works into the world. 2026 has been quite a deep dive and purge for me, and this is the place to capture the dynamic exchange occurring with you, the receiver.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be revisiting the photographs and memories from my memoir, sharing the stories that live behind the black and white photos from my archive that I included … enhanced reflections on what the images express, beyond the stories told in the book.

Then, come September and the release of My ‘90s Rock Photographs, I’ll begin opening another chapter of the archive, revealing the untold stories behind those photographs, the behind the scenes installation of my museum exhibit and moments on the road with my book tour...

I’d love for you to join me on this journey…Consider becoming a Paid Subscriber to unlock the full xMAdMx experience: subscriber only stories, archival photographs, essays, playlists, voice notes, and intimate glimpses into my creative world.

For those who want to venture even further into my realm, xMAdMx Magic Membership is an invitation into the first chapter of this new journey. Founding Members receive additional exclusive archive access, special surprises throughout the year, and the below limited edition archival print created exclusively for this inaugural community: Self-Portrait at The Chelsea Hotel, 2001, where I was living the dream when our world changed forever.

How about we keep mystery alive together?

Meet Me Here ….

xMx