Girl Noise Takes the Bowery Ballroom

The year 2026, thanks to the efforts of Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan, Doechii, Stevie Nicks, and more at the star-studded and popstar-packed Daisy Chain Fields music festival, has been viewed by many as a huge year for women in music. Why stop at Daisy Chain Fields? Artist Simone, 21-year-old musician and Brooklyn native, has brought the girl power to NYC for the third year in a row. The 47Magazine editors got the chance to talk to Simone about the impact festivals like this can have on young women and local communities. 

Lucy Anderson: What was it like putting together the festival lineup and choosing artists?

Simone: Every time I start planning an event, I have so much fun deep-diving into local bands and artists and seeing who might be a good fit for GIRL NOISE. I’m lucky to be in New York because there’s truly an endless list of talented and inspiring girls here. I do all the booking personally, and it’s a real joy to connect with artists and tell them about our mission. Everyone who plays these shows is really doing it out of the goodness of their heart. It’s really touching, and I’m so grateful to be able to share the stage with them. 

LA: Tell us about Brave House and their mission. What inspired you to collaborate with them?

S: The Brave House was one of the only organizations I reached out to ahead of this event because they were exactly the type of nonprofit I wanted to partner with. They provide a variety of free support to young immigrant women and gender-expansive youth, with a focus on survivors of gender-based violence. It’s been deeply disturbing to see our current administration treat immigrants with such brutality and inhumanity. I wanted to partner with an organization that’s doing work to combat this injustice. What the women at The Brave House do every day is beyond inspiring, and I’m so grateful they decided to work with us. 

LA: What inspired you to start Girl Noise?

S: I came up with the idea in the summer of 2024, right around the time I started writing my album. I was 19 and angry most of the time. I didn’t like how the people around me were treating me, like my voice didn’t matter and my opinion wasn’t important. All I wanted was to find comfort and community, and I realized that I’ve always found those things in women and music. I wanted to create a space where women could feel safe and supported, where they could be their most authentic selves on stage, and where everyone believed in the cause of protecting and uplifting girls. It felt like there weren't a lot of people doing something like this, so I thought, why not just do it myself? 

LA: What has it been like putting the festival together for the third year?

S: With every show, I learn more and more about what works, what doesn’t, how to write a good email, how to not stress out at all hours of the day. I also just learn to love it more and more. It’s been the most rewarding experience watching it grow these past few shows. After selling out our last show in March, we’re playing our biggest venue yet, Bowery Ballroom. I’m so committed to making these shows the best they can possibly be, for our audience and for our artists. It’s always worth it. 

LA: Girl Noise works with a lot of nonprofits; can you tell us about how you’ve connected music and community through this festival?

S: Music and community were really the catalysts for this whole thing. I wanted to make these shows fundraisers because I knew that would help people feel like they were a part of something bigger than just a show - which is true! So much of what community means to me is being proud of who we are and what we stand for. It was also important to me that we supported women in all different ways, which is why, with every show, we spotlight women-owned businesses, women-led music organizations, and women photographers and creatives.

LA: What has been your favorite part about putting Girl Noise together? 

S: Seeing it all come to fruition at the shows is always surreal. Being in a room full of women who want to celebrate each other is the most joyous experience. Talking to the artists in the greenroom, giving stickers and friendship bracelets to the girls in the audience, hanging up decorations with my best friends and my mom. They’re memories I will cherish forever.

LA: Why should people attend Girl Noise this year? 

S: Here’s an actual list, because no one wants to read full sentences anymore:

1. Free shit (stickers, temporary tattoos, zines, bracelets, etc)

2. Great music (I’m biased, but the lineup is STACKED and I never lie)

3. Great cause (all ticket proceeds go to CHARITY, so not only are you going to have FUN, but you’re also gonna be making a DIFFERENCE, and isn’t that just beautiful?) 

4. Community (make friends, bring friends, crack jokes, share secrets, fall in love, experience everything) 

5. FOMO (as in you will have it if you don’t come)

GIRL NOISE is a celebration of women’s voices in music, art, and advocacy. Founded in 2025 by artist Simone Lipkin, GIRL NOISE is creating authentic, community-driven experiences where women and like-minded individuals come together in an empowering environment. The festivals are led and produced by young, ambitious women, with a goal to uplift one another and encourage community and activism through music. The third GIRL NOISE event will take place on Sunday, October 4th, at The Bowery Ballroom, featuring seven local female artists and benefiting The Brave House, a nonprofit supporting immigrant women and gender-expansive youth in NYC.

Link to tickets here.

Beyond Red and Blue

Can you change your mind about politics?

It sounds like a simple question. But in 2026, it almost feels like asking whether you can become a different person.

Political identity has become more than a vote every four years.

It's become shorthand for who you are, who your friends are, what news you trust, where you get your information, even who you're willing to date. Somewhere along the way, "Republican" and "Democrat" stopped feeling like political affiliations and started feeling like identities people were expected to keep for life.

Except that's not what many Americans are actually experiencing.

Across the country, people are quietly rethinking where they belong politically. Some have walked away from the political party they once identified with.

Others no longer feel represented by either major party. Many now describe themselves as independent, "politically homeless," or simply unsure where they belong politically.

For some, the shift happened after one defining event.

For others, it came slowly through college, new jobs, relationships, parenthood, changing communities, or simply years of asking questions they hadn't asked before.

Those shifts rarely happen overnight.

"People's ideology changes a lot more slowly," says Matthew Williams, organizer of Triangle Common Good, a Raleigh-based community focused on bringing people together across political and philosophical differences.

Williams says most people don't arrive looking to change parties. Instead, they arrive because something feels off. "Most people...come through because they have some type of feeling that something's missing in current society," he says. "They're looking for ways to discuss that or answer that."

That observation raises a larger question: if political identities can change, what is actually changing?

More than Left vs. Right

For years, political conversations have been framed like a battle between two fundamentally different kinds of people.

Kurt Gray, a professor of social psychology at The Ohio State University and author of Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics and How to Find Common Ground, argues that liberals and conservatives aren't driven by fundamentally different moral systems so much as different perceptions of harm.

According to his research, nearly everyone is trying to protect someone they believe is vulnerable. The disagreement comes from who they believe is being threatened.

"Most people think those people pick evil views because they're evil," Gray says. "No one does."

Instead, he argues, political beliefs are shaped by the information people receive, the communities they belong to, and the experiences that teach them what danger looks like.

An evangelical Christian who believes being gay endangers a person's soul, Gray explains, will likely see LGBTQ+ issues differently than someone whose primary concern is protecting LGBTQ+ people from discrimination. Likewise, someone whose media portrays undocumented immigrants primarily as dangerous may reach very different conclusions than someone who sees immigrants first as vulnerable.

The instinct to protect people, Gray says, is often the same. What changes is who we believe needs protecting.

That distinction helps explain why political realignment often looks less like abandoning your values and more like reinterpreting them.

"I think there's a lot less change in values," Gray says. "Issues can change. Values kind of stay the same."

Rather than replacing one moral framework with another, many people are reevaluating how those values apply to the world around them.

Identity isn't built overnight, and it rarely changes overnight

If values tend to remain relatively stable, what actually pushes someone to rethink their politics?

According to Gray, it's usually not a viral debate or a single election cycle. It's life.

Starting college. Moving to a new city. Changing careers. Becoming a parent. Losing a job. Meeting people with different lived experiences. Even simply stepping outside the social circles that shaped your worldview can begin to shift how you understand political issues. Those moments don't erase someone's identity. They gradually reshape it.

"Our political orientation stays the same because there's the desire for consistency with our past self," Gray explains. Family, friends, and the media that people consume all reinforce existing beliefs, making genuine political change much slower than it often appears from the outside.

That gradual evolution mirrors what Williams has observed through Triangle Common Good. Rather than watching people suddenly abandon one ideology for another, he sees individuals arrive with questions they haven't fully answered yet.

The politics of belonging

Political identity isn't only about policy; it's also about belonging.

One Reddit user, who asked not to be identified, described himself as "politically homeless" after spending more than a decade identifying as a Democrat. He said he no longer felt represented by the party, but also couldn't support President Donald Trump, leaving him feeling politically adrift rather than politically converted.

His experience reflects a broader reality: for many Americans, leaving a political identity doesn't necessarily mean finding a new one.

Gray argues that communities play a much larger role in political identity than many people realize.

"No one is really born conservative or liberal," he says. "For the most part, you get all this stuff from your family."

Breaking away from those beliefs often requires more than changing an opinion. It can mean navigating new friendships, new communities and, sometimes, difficult conversations with the people closest to you.

At the same time, those conversations have become harder to have.

Research has shown Americans are increasingly likely to sort themselves into like-minded social circles, neighborhoods and even relationships. Social media only accelerates that process, rewarding certainty, outrage and quick reactions over curiosity.

"Trying to win makes it worse," Gray says.

Instead, he believes productive conversations begin with something much simpler: genuine questions.

"We're not very good at asking questions," he says. "As soon as someone starts talking, we're like, 'Yeah, but...'"

Looking beyond the labels

It's easy to think of political realignment as a dramatic moment: a voter switching parties, changing a registration card, or casting a ballot differently than before.

More often, it looks quieter than that.

It looks like questioning assumptions you've held since childhood. It looks like realizing a label no longer captures your beliefs. It looks like listening before responding, or becoming comfortable saying, "I don't know where I fit anymore."

While this quiet shift doesn’t mean America’s political divisions are disappearing overnight, it shows that political identities, like people, aren’t as fixed as they sometimes appear. And maybe that's the point: changing your mind doesn't always mean becoming someone else.

Sometimes, it simply means becoming more honest about who you've become.

Lucky Break brings it home.

Upon entering Night Club 101 before the show, I immediately felt that this space was for someone looking to build community through music.

Not only were the Lucky Break fans in attendance that night so lovely and willing to talk to a stranger, hugging the wall, but it also felt like a space where new fans are made.

Night Club 101 is known for staging new artists and musicians who are still finding their sound, or artists who have already established their base and are looking to host a space a safe space for other user music lovers to land.

That's why this venue was perfect to host Lucky Break’s East village show ahead of her tour across the U.S. Lucky Break played an amazing show that indeed captured the vibes of nostalgia, family, hope and most of all fun.

Inside night club 101

Before attending the show, I sat down with Emma of Lucky Break to chat about her new album, her tour and what’s in store for this new creative chapter. 

Ann Tankersely: You came out with your new album, made it!— Why now (for this album)?

Lucky Break: This album is an accumulation of me (at ages) 19 to 23. So I really wanted to take my time, and I wanted to jump into the visual world of Lucky Break as a character first.

AT: Why did you take this album on tour?

LB: That’s what it’s all about for me. The live aspect is the most important part of the whole equation. My mom was a singer/songwriter, and I grew up watching her play bars around here (in the East village). Watching her connect with people live solidified for me that being in a room with people is really the center of the musical experience and the job of the musician.

AT: You grew up here (in the East Village). You're here tonight with your friends. How do you feel about tonight’s show versus the rest of the tour? 

LB: It does feel like a homecoming, and it’s celebratory being with my friends. I get really nostalgic coming to the East village, I know it by heart. I feel so connected to this place, and it’s so essential to who I am. It feels like coming home, it feels really good.

AT: Are you traveling with the band on this tour?

LB: It’s just me and my guitar. I started this by playing at SXSW with tracks. I realized I just like playing with my guitar, I have more direct access to people. I like how intimate it feel, and it’s so essential to the kinds of artists I listen to. I like the “no-frills” aspect; it’s so simple.

Lucky Break on stage

 The character of Lucky Break bleeds through every song from the album and provides an interactive yet transcendent experience for every listener.

If you have the chance to go see Lucky Break on their tour, don’t delay your plans. Not only are there sounds to blast all Summer long from a hyperpop idyllic landscape of their album, but there is also the awesome indulgence of the Lucky Break character in the world that has been built for them. 

Follow their journey at linktr.ee/imyourluckybreak, listen to their album made it! streaming now, catch them on tour with upcoming dates in Memphis and across the U.S. this Summer, and check out their super cute merch on Bandcamp or at the show!

Lucky Break CD, Stickers, and Post Card

Lucky Break T-Shirt