Summer Salon
A Conversation with
Roddy Bottum and JD Samson
Stanley Kunitz Common Room
Please join us at 5:00 PM for a reception on our courtyard, followed by the Summer Salon event starting at 6:00 PM in the Stanley Kunitz Common Room. The event will include a short reading, a conversation between our two guests, and a moderated Q&A with the audience followed by a book signing.
Roddy Bottum is a musician, writer, creator, and actor based in New York City and Provincetown. He first emerged in the early 1980s as a founding member of the influential rock band Faith No More, touring internationally and helping redefine alternative music culture. In 1992, Bottum publicly came out, expanding visibility for queer identity within rock music, and co-founded the critically acclaimed band Imperial Teen, widely recognized as a pioneering force in alternative queer rock. Since relocating to New York in 2010, he has collaborated on a range of musical and performance projects including Crickets, JD Samson, Nastie Band, and Man on Man, the band he formed with his partner Joey Holman. His multidisciplinary practice spans music, performance, theater, and writing, including the development of a Sasquatch-inspired opera project.
Bottum is also the author of the memoir The Royal We, a lyrical and deeply personal reflection on queer identity, addiction, music culture, and survival. Tracing his journey from suburban Los Angeles to San Francisco’s underground music scene and the global rise of Faith No More, the book moves through the AIDS crisis, heroin addiction, fame, and artistic reinvention with candor, wit, and emotional clarity. Alongside stories involving iconic figures from the worlds of music and culture, Bottum offers a vivid portrait of a transformative era in American queer and artistic life.
JD Samson is best known as a member of the groundbreaking electronic-feminist-punk band Le Tigre (alongside Johanna Fateman and Kathleen Hanna) and as the lead singer of the radical queer band, MEN. With a career spanning way over two decades, JD has made her mark as an artist, musician, songwriter, curator, producer, and DJ, blending music, contemporary art, activism, and fashion. She has toured globally, composed for Grammy-winning artists and Emmy-winning TV shows, and written for outlets like the Huffington Post and Creative Time Review. In addition to her musical contributions, JD has created multimedia artwork, hosted documentary programs, acted, modeled, and founded a record label, all while supporting a wide range of progressive social and political causes. She serves as an Associate Arts Professor and Area Head of Performance at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at Tisch School of the Arts. JD is also working on various collaborative music and performance projects after coming off the international Le Tigre Reunion Tour in 2023. Recently, she has been touring her score for the Oscar Shortlisted live performance documentary 32 Sounds, directed by Oscar nominee Sam Green, for which she won Best Original Score at the Cinema Eye Honors in January 2024.
About Summer Salons
The Summer Salons events are designed to encourage a lively exchange of ideas by bringing together prominent figures from the arts and culture community to the Work Center. Scheduled over three Friday evenings from mid-June to late August, this series provides a unique opportunity for audiences in Provincetown and beyond to connect directly with some of today’s most influential creative minds. Set against the historic backdrop of the Stanley Kunitz Common Room, the Summer Salons invite these notable leaders to share their insights, experiences, and knowledge during an evening of conversation, learning, and community engagement. The result is a rare form of creative communion.
Proceeds from these paid events ensure that the Fine Arts Work Center is able to provide free arts and culture events for the Outer Cape Cod community year round.
