HAPPY PRIDE! Now some queer bands well worth checking out

Part 1 — CNY locals and OGs

A little while ago I threw at you some trans bands whose work excites me. This post will be less categorical except to say we’re going to touch on the wider rainbow of queerness. Once again, this is a list of personal favs, artists who grabbed my attention, where at least one member is openly (eventually, at least) queer. I am fond of them not solely because they’re queer (though that fact certainly doesn’t hurt), but that they are great musical artists who dwell to this day among my playlists (which mostly come in the realm of shuffling everything I fucking have on my phone, cuz streaming just doesn’t cut it).

And not being mentioned here doesn’t mean an artist sucks. Some I love didn’t make it here because there wasn’t a clear statement about their queerness, and I don’t do these to out anyone. Total respect to anyone who wants to keep themselves the fuck to themselves, so calling me out about any wrong info in my post is welcome. And omission is simply an expression of personal preference on my part, not a judgment of quality. Every band is someone’s favorite band, every song is someone’s favorite song. Feel free to comment with further recommendations. I hope you name people I’ve never heard, cuz I love finding out about other shit to check out! (But don’t out anyone — privacy is a right.)

This list started growing and growing, so I’m splitting it into two posts. Part Une is going to cover CNY locals and some Original Gangsters of Queerness.

When possible (or even necessary), I will offer Bandcamp links, cuz support includes contributing to their efforts in substantive ways: buying music and merch, going to shows. Remember, streaming gives artists so little.

So here we go…

CNY bands

For starters, in light of my Weirdo CNY! List here on Medium, I want to start with local bands I’ve had the huge pleasure of seeing and getting to know personally. I would ESPECIALLY love to hear more recommendations in this particular category:

Trash Handsome

Fell in love with Trash Handsome’s energy and musical outlook from the very first time I saw them (which happens to coincide with the very first post I wrote for this account). This Utica trio mixes surf, funk, jazz, and Runaways into their sets. Their own songs and their choices of covers offer just the kind of diversity this music hound craves. Erica Zalatan is a wicked sharp guitarist and an electronic virtuoso to boot, as you’ll find also under the label, Robotic Tooth, curated by bandmate Tim Shram.

Halo Bite

O my mutherfucking god! Halo Bite is hardcore out of Albany that has been my primary motivator to get back to Albany a couple or so times…though goddamn it, can y’all get back Utica-ways again?!? Still, I must admit, the crowds you find in their stomping grounds are just wonderful — weirdos who love a good push or mosh and who love and take care of each other. A vibe that clearly starts from the stage, cuz HB offers up loud HC that channels rage but doesn’t incite it, except only where it needs to go. “All Saints Pay” and “Real Guns, Fake Holsters” are a couple of my fav tracks, but every time ANY of their tracks comes up on my shuffle, I get a big-ass smile going. And they got me a big-ass band tee for my big-ass body, for which I am ever huge-ass grateful.

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Home Visitor

Yes, I’m going to talk about Home Visitor yet again. Yes, I rave-reviewed their album. Yes, I’ve gushed (and gushed and ever-lovin’ gushed) about their live performances, cuz they got the weirdness and the sadness and the joy and the humor and all that going the fuck on. Brilliant lyrics with utterly playful musical backing.

Rae Bleu

CNY drag and burlesque is a frightfully good scene, with a crew of performers and organizers who never fail to entice and raze the ever-lovin’ roof with their potency, and Rae Bleu came up through that scene to add live singing to the mix with a solid diva sensibility that she’s confident enough to make fun of when necessary. Such a great stage presence!

CNY Weirdos! Add to my list! I know there are other performers I could name here, but I don’t have links to provide. And if someone isn’t out, respect their privacy!

Queer OGs

All right, let’s move on to OGs, queer performers who helped contribute to the bedrock of queerness in music, which is easily antediluvian and then some, as queerness was a thing before there was even music. Some of these artists may not have always been out, but they certainly sculpted a unique sector into the galaxy of music. (Not gonna put links here, cuz shit, I have a feeling you know pretty much all these folks.)

Rob Halford/Judas Priest

I’m gonna start with Rob Halford, just for the way he made metalheads, who can be WAY the fuck too toxic, question their whole fav genre when he came out. Because he set the tone of the metal screech, and the tenor of leather studded with metal looking, well, metal. And even better, how that look was Halford finding his own way to express his queerness, as he famously said he couldn’t get why people hadn’t picked up on the fact that he’d been dressing like Glenn ‘Leather Man’ Hughes of The Village People (I know he was considered The Biker, but no, goddamn it, on Cruisin’ he was tagged simply as ‘Leather Man’). There’s so much Priest I dig, and so I’m going to say I love “Turbo Lover.” Cuz fuck its haters. I’ll crank that shit.

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The Village People

And speaking of The Village People, they may seem like an easy nod, but still, disco made for some megamainstreaming of queerness, and TVP were absolutely a huge part of that, young man. And for anyone who wants to groan that Disco Sucks, just remember that the slogan is rooted in extreme queerhating (and racism, as a good chunk of the records that had been detonated in the famous Disco Sucks rally were R&B as well as disco).

David Bowie

Bowie probably first made me cognizant of fluidity. I was barely a teenager when I saw Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars in a little art theater (literally — it was called The Little Art Theater) in South Jersey. I knew who David Bowie was, but as I looked at Ziggy I saw my sister. But that was Bowie. But that was my sister. Ah — my world expanded a little bit more. Bowie gets a fuckton of praise for so much of his music, but my personal fav album is Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), and the song that really thrills me is also parenthetical: “It’s No Game (part one).” So abrasive and dissonant and featuring an absolutely belligerent Michi Hirota. Gorgeousness! And for those of you who hate on Tin Machine, Bowie said it was the project that made him love making music again. So thank the Sales boys for keeping Bowie on the radar.

The B-52's

The B-52’s didn’t make me weird. They just gave me trajectory for the weirdness that had been churning in me for a good long time. I first heard them at a party when I was in high school. It was also the first time I got stoned, and while I was trying to locate about a half-dozen pulsating energy points in my body, the first side of their eponymous album was playing. I monologued in my interior, “This band is probably called The Dangerous Broccoli or some shit like that.” When I later (somehow) learned the truth, I just fell in love with their playfulness and brazen notgivingafuckness to do whatever struck their fancy of what they could do in a song. “Rock Lobster” is an easy fav, but sooooo good. Wild Planet might be the album that tightened up their sound, but the first side of The B-52’s is weirdo gem after gem after gem.

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Freddie Mercury/Queen

For decades, I had a false interpretation about “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Odd to say as a writer, but I’m not much of a lyrics hound. If a song makes its lyrics a focal point of itself, sure yeah, I’ll dig into the lyrics, but I don’t have to have good lyrics to like something (case and point, “Surfin’ Bird” is, to me, a monumental song). So my first read of “Rhapsody,” that stuck with me for ages, was the result of not hearing the comma after the first iteration of Mamma. In other words, I thought it was Mamma who killed the man, with the narrator’s gun! I thought it was a tragedy, a son who goes to operatic prison to shield his mother from Galileo, Scaramouche and doing the fandango. And I had no need to investigate further, cuz the song is such an opus of a banger of a ballad of a theatric as fuck piece of music. And if you ever hem and haw about Mercury’s talent, note that at the benefit concert shortly after he died, only two singers the whole night did not tune down Mercury’s vocal range when they performed Queen songs: Annie Lennox and Seal. No one else could get anywhere near close to Freddie’s vocals.

Gary Floyd

Gary Floyd is a legend who absofuckinglutely does not get the legendary status he fucking earned. A guy who flamed up the punk scene in Texas, before there was such a label as queercore, so I have absolute respect for the entire discography of The Dicks, but the Floyd project I adore is Black Kali Ma. One album, but it’s so potent.

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Joan Jett

Joan Jett lives her queerness, which means that she may not have made an unambiguous declaration of being out. But she is righteously kickass, the Ripley of rock, who might be known by some for her covers, but her originals far far FAR outweigh that consideration. Many a band has put out a song that pales to “Bad Reputation” and has lived well off of that one effort alone, but Joan (with The Runaways and post) has continued to Juggernaut forward.

And the adjacent

I am going to end this particular list with a couple of other artists who proved that binaries are bullshit. So some adjacents, artists who didn’t come out as queer (as far as I know) but certainly offered more alternatives than the uncivilized Man-ThunkThunk-Woman pigeonhole:

Prince

Prince. Do I have to explain? If I do, you don’t fucking know shit about The Artist Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known As.

Jello Biafra

Dead Kennedys and alllllllllllllllll those one-offs he did with so many other bands (with NoMeansNo is sheet masterpiece, and he fit right in with Mojo Nixon & The Toadliquors) made this gutter punk happy. And he did so without having to be utterly lousy with machismo at the front of the stage like so many other punk leading men (yes, Henry Rollins, that includes you, though I am glad you’ve fessed up to that over time).

The Cramps

The blueprint of weird and wonderful. Lux Interior with rubber pants that barely cover his junk fellating a microphone? If I had a bucket list, I’d be forever pissed at Lux for already breaking that ground.

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And since I’ve touched on that utterly wonderful piece of cinema, Urgh! A Music War, in which you can find Lux’s tour de force (and Joan Jett!), I gotta get back to full queer and give props to Klaus Nomi. I’m not sure this performance can ever be beaten, visually nor vocally, all at the same time:

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Still to come in Part 2, queer composers and off-the-main-drive artists who make me swoon! Happy Pride!

image courtesy of the Oneida County Pride Alliance website