my Dykes A, a textiles, merchandising and interiors master’s student, didn’t plan to be a professional musician. And, she certainly didn’t plan to become the center of a controversy that reverberated around the world before finally settling into support and praise for her and partner Dan Geller, who comprise the group “I Am The World Trade Center.”

“As a child I used to sit in my living room and sing Debbie Boone’s ‘You Light Up My Life,’” Dykes says during a phone interview she’s squeezed in between a trip to visit her parents in Alabama and a nationwide summer tour that begins the next day.

“Dan had started writing music on a computer and was planning a solo project, but he asked me to sing one song,” she says.

That one song led to Dykes joining Geller in a stage performance in front of 300-plus people during the annual South-by-Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, in March 2000, a CD in May 2001, and hate mail on September 11.

“We chose the name when we were living in Brooklyn,” Dykes explained. “We lived near the World Trade Center and there was this idea of the two of us being one entity.”
On the morning of September 11, Dykes was headed to a historic costume class in Dawson Hall and looking forward to traveling to New York City for a September 13 performance at the CMJ Music Festival.

“When we got out of class and found out what had happened my first thoughts were for my friends who worked near the World Trade Center,” she says.

Although Dykes wasn’t thinking about the effect the tragedy would have on her musical career, others were. Within 20 minutes a British music magazine was emailing Dykes’ and Geller’s representative in England asking what the group was going to do about their name.

“During that day, we got so many really rude emails,” Dykes recalled. “People used a search engine to find information about the tragedy and would find our website. Even though our site is really sophisticated, some people would think we had come up with the band’s name and website that day to capitalize on this tragedy.”

For the next three months, Dykes and Geller contemplated changing their name. For a few shows, they listed their name only as “I Am The …” before deciding to keep their original moniker.

Once word got out that “I Am The World Trade Center” had been around long before September 11, the public began to welcome Dykes and Geller, and their electronic pop sound and their link to pre-September 11. For example, the May 27 issue of New Yorker magazine highlighting Geller and Dykes’ upcoming performance in the Knitting Factory Club – their first performance in New York City since the tragedy – says, “Thanks to Geller’s earnest sampling and Dykes’ charming singing, the music is as appealing as the halcyon days when the words ‘World Trade Center’ conveyed only the notion of an architectural achievement.”

“There’s no question that we’ve gotten a lot of press because of the connection between our name and 9-11, and since it happened we’ve given a percentage of our profits to the United Fund,” Dykes says. “Since our new record came out July 6, I hope that the press begins to focus their stories more on our music.”

But between the tours in Europe and throughout the United States, Dykes hasn’t lost sight of a career outside of performance. She’s completed the first year of her master’s and although she’s taking fall semester off for a tour, plans to return in January to complete her degree.
“I’m obsessed with textiles,” she says. “I want to know the history of textiles. Where did a particular cloth or pattern come from? Why was it developed the way that it was?”

Currently, Dykes hasn’t settled on a master’s thesis topic.

“For a while, I thought I would look at textiles that were used for interiors,” she says. “Now, I’m thinking I may look at handbags. I have an obsession with handbags. There are so many different kinds from different cultures.”
Dykes says she’s interested in some day teaching at the college level, but she’s already making contacts that might someday result in a more applied career.

“We’re working on our second video now and I’m working as the stylist for it,” she says. “Maybe that could grow into a career of working as a stylist for movies or videos. It’s really fun to watch movies – particularly period pieces that were produced during the ’70s – and try and spot the inaccuracies. There will be clothes that aren’t accurately portrayed or hairstyles. There’s one movie that’s supposed to be set in the 1850s, but the actresses have feathered hair.”

Meanwhile, Dykes says she’s enjoying the fun and excitement that comes with being part of a music group.

For example, the British pop group The Pet Shop Boys, which has been around since the early 1980s, attended a recent performance, an event that could signal an invitation to perform as the group’s opening act.

“We play at all sorts of places,” Dykes says. “We’ve played shows before a thousand people in Austin and some with 600 people in the audience and we’ve played in really small clubs. We always try to get people to dance. Dan breakdances on stage and I like to dance. We want to get the crowd involved so that they are having as much fun as we are.”