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Artist
Debora Iyall
12+ albums
singer-songwriteralternative
about
Debora Iyall (pronounced ile), a Cowlitz Native American, is an artist and was lead singer for the post-punk/new-wave band Romeo Void. She was born in 1954 in Soap Lake, Washington, but grew up in Fresno, California. She moved to San Francisco in the mid-'70s to attend the San Francisco Art Institute. While there, she fell in with fellow students Peter Woods and Jay Derrah, who had formed a tongue-in-cheek '60s revival band called the Mummers and the Poppers. Iyall became the group's singer and also began incorporating music into her own poetry and performance art projects, drafting Frank Zincavage, a sculptor who also played bass and electronic drums, as her work partner. Iyall, Zincavage, Woods, and Derrah formed Romeo Void on Valentine's Day 1979. Iyall has said that the name, meaning "a lack of romance," was inspired by a headline on the cover of a local magazine that read "Why single women can't get laid in San Francisco." After the demise of Romeo Void, Debora Iyall put together and sang in the groups Knife In Water and Lower East Venus. She also recorded one solo album, 1986's Strange Language, then returned to her previous career as a poet, artist, and teacher. Her new releases can be heard at: http://www.reverbnation.com/deboraiyall/ User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
