Queercore

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Not to be confused with
LGBT hip hop
.
For the zine inspired by this movement, see Homocore (zine).
Queercore
Stylistic origins
Musical
Ideological
Cultural originsMid-1980s, Canada (Toronto), United States (Portland / San Francisco) and United Kingdom (London)
Other topics

Queercore (or homocore) is a cultural/social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of the

DIY
style through magazines, music, writing and film.

As a

electropunk, indie rock, power pop, no wave, noise, experimental, industrial
and others.

History

Origins

In the early 1980s, several U.S.

U.S. bands such as MDC and 7 Seconds also introduced anti-homophobia messages into their songs at this time, while the Nip Drivers included a song titled "Quentin", dedicated to Quentin Crisp
, in their repertoire.

The zine

anarchist scene, at first the editors of J.D.s had chosen the appellation "homocore" to describe the movement but replaced the word homo with queer to better reflect the diversity of those involved, as well as to disassociate themselves completely from the confines of gay and lesbian orthodoxy.[5][6]

The first issue was released in 1985, with a manifesto entitled "Don't Be Gay" published in the

DIY
ethos in its place in order to create a culture of its own; and opposition to oppressive religious tenets and political repression.

1990s

Pansy Division performing at a club

In 1990, the J.D.s editors released the first queercore compilation, J.D.s Top Ten Homocore Hit Parade Tape, a cassette which included bands from Canada, such as Fifth Column, Big Man, and Bomb from the U.S.; from England, The Apostles, Academy 23 and No Brain Cell; and, from New Zealand, Gorse.[7]

During the period from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, many of the punk rock bands involved in queercore were not necessarily queer but their ethics were motivation for supporting this movement. Other bands, such as Los Crudos and Go!, had one outspoken member who was homosexual.

Other early queercore bands included Anti-Scrunti Faction, who appeared in J.D.s, and Comrades In Arms, Homocore editor Deke Nihilson's band. Shortly after the release of the tape J.D.s ceased publication and a new crop of zines arose, such as Jane and Frankie by Klaus and Jena von Brücker, Shrimp by Vaginal Davis and Fanorama by REB. The zine BIMBOX published statements such as "You are entering a gay and lesbian-free zone...Effective immediately, BIMBOX is at war against lesbians and gays. A war in which modern queer boys and girls are united against the prehistoric thinking and demented self-serving politics of the above-mentioned scum."[2]

The first queer zine gathering occurred at this time; "Spew", held in Chicago in 1991, offered an opportunity for all those involved in the scene to meet. Although organizer Steve LaFreniere was stabbed outside the venue at the end of the night, he quickly recovered and the event was deemed a success.[8] Spew 2 took place in Los Angeles in 1992,[9] and Spew III in Toronto in 1993. These Spew events also included musical performances by queercore bands.

Among the better-known bands from the early 1990s are Fifth Column; God Is My Co-Pilot; Pansy Division; Pedro, Muriel and Esther (PME); Sister George;[10] Team Dresch; Tribe 8; and Mukilteo Fairies. As these bands gained popularity and awareness of the movement grew, zines began appearing from around the world; The Burning Times from Australia, and P.M.S. from the UK are examples.

In Chicago, Mark Freitas and Joanna Brown organized a monthly "Homocore" night that featured queercore bands performing live, offering a stable venue for the scene to proliferate; most of the bands mentioned played at Homocore Chicago. As well, as Amy Spencer notes in DIY: The Rise of Lo-Fi Culture, "Through Homocore events, they aimed to create a space for men and women to be together, as opposed to the sense of gender segregation which was the norm in mainstream gay culture – They attacked the idea that due to your sexuality you should be offered only one choice of social scene..."[4]

In 1992 Matt Wobensmith's zine

Lookout! Records, Yoyo Recordings and Candy Ass Records
also supported and released material by queercore artists but in the mid to late 1990s several other small labels, alongside Outpunk, sprung up solely devoted to queercore.

Donna Dresch's zine Chainsaw became a record label as well, and began to release recordings by newer bands such as The Need, The Third Sex and Longstocking. Heartcore Records is another label, whose bands have included The Little Deaths, Addicted2Fiction, Crowns On 45 and Ninja Death Squad. These bands, many of whom are no longer together, constituted the 'second wave' of queercore bands which also included IAMLoved, Subtonix, Best Revenge, prettypony, and Fagatron from the U.S., Skinjobs from Canada and, from Italy, Pussy Face. Of these early queercore labels, Chainsaw and Heartcore are still active and are still releasing new material.

By the mid-1990s, zines in the U.S., such as Marilyn Medusa, and in Canada,

DUMBA provided an ongoing venue in New York City for queercore bands,[14]
continuing in the path of Homocore Chicago and leading the way for other, similar clubs to come in the 2000s.

2000s

In the 2000s, queercore club nights and events continued to take place throughout Europe and North America. In Los Angeles' Silver Lake neighbourhood an underground queer music scene was in existence at the monthly queercore club called "The Freak Show" hosted by the leather bar The Gauntlet II for three years, where bands such as

Los Angeles, California in 2001, 2002, and 2003.[15]
The Bent Festival was held in Seattle in 2002 and 2003.

The festival Homo-a-go-go was held the summers of 2002, 2004 and 2006 in Olympia, Washington, featuring queer films, zines, performance and musical groups during the week-long event; in 2009 the festival was held in San Francisco.[16][17]

Queeruption, which takes place in a different city each year, has been hosted by Berlin, Rome, New York and London in the past. In 2004 and 2005, a group of queercore bands toured throughout the U.S.; the tour was called Queercore Blitz and was yet another way to connect the like-minded. Queer groups active in the UK included Edinburgh QueerMutiny, Queers Without Borders, Queer Mutiny North, Cardiff Queer Mutiny and Queer Mutiny Brighton. A number of these are organised as Queer Mutiny groups.

In 2002, Agitprop! Records released a compilation titled Stand Up & Fucking Fight For It, which collected new music from queercore bands. It was the first release from the label, which features many queercore acts in its roster. 16 records is a queercore label that releases albums by such Pacific Northwest bands as Shemo, The Haggard, and Swan Island, as well as the Brazilian band Dominatrix. Other new labels include Queer Control, which features the bands Pariah Piranha, Tough Tough Skin, Nancy Fullforce, Once A Pawn, and others.

In September 2005,

Homocore: The Loud and Raucous Rise of Queer Rock by David Ciminelli and Ken Knox was published by Alyson Books. It traced the history of the movement in the 1990s in the United States, and included interviews with some of the contemporary musicians who have been inspired by it. Queercore became an increasingly international phenomenon in the early 2000s, with bands such as Low End Models, Triple Creme from NYC, and Rhythm King And Her Friends from Germany, Kids Like Us out of Norway and She Devils, from Argentina. From Toronto, Canada came Kids on TV, whose industrial background offered a new, more electronic direction for queercore. Similar electronic instrumentation was explored by Lesbians on Ecstasy from Montreal. Canada also birthed The Hidden Cameras, an anti-folk band from Toronto[5]
and Eekum Seekum, a queercore band from Halifax.

The 2000s also brought a new crop of bands to prominence in the

Oakland, California, known for their sexually explicit lyrics and onstage antics, has released several albums on Kill Rock Stars label. One offshoot of Gravy Train!!!!, Hunx and His Punx, are a power pop act more indebted to girl groups and 1960s garage rock. Three Dollar Bill from Chicago are an eclectic band whose sound ranges from punk to indie rock to metal. Three Dollar Puta was a synth punk queer core band from Los Angeles. Also citing metal as an inspiration are ASSACRE, a one man fantasy metal/spazz noise act by artist Ben Aqua from Austin, Texas, and Gay for Johnny Depp, a hardcore band from New York City
.

The Shondes, a four piece rock band from Brooklyn combine riot grrrl punk with classical and traditional Jewish music influences; similarly, Schmekel, an all-transgender, all-Jewish Brooklyn band combines punk rock with klezmer.[18] The Homewreckers are a riot grrrl / pop-punk band, also based in Brooklyn. Your Heart Breaks are a multi-instrumental low-fi band with a fluctuating line-up based in Seattle, Washington. Along with these new bands, queercore pioneers Team Dresch reunited in the mid-2000s for several tours. The underground Chicago DIY punk scene remains a safe haven for queercore artists to flourish and share their art. FED UP fest is a yearly three-day festival of music, zines, and workshops which celebrate queer culture in the punk community. It also serves as a benefit project for PROJECT FIERCE CHICAGO which aims to reduce the number of LGBTQ youth who are homeless through transitional housing and support services.[19]

In the

Trash Kit, Truly Kaput, Valerie and Wetdog.[20] Members of these bands later played in Electrelane, Shopping, Dream Nails
and others.

Club-wise, Psycho:Drama in Bristol was a passionate advocate of queercore and maintained a presence for alternative queer youth in the city for over 4 years. Collectives in the North West of England such as Manifesta, and Lola and the Cartwheels, promoted and organised alternative queer events whilst simultaneously having a strong feminist identity.

2010s

In the UK, record label

Wolf Girl, Martha, ONSIND, Colour Me Wednesday and Guttfull.[28][29][30][31]

In the US, the 2017 book Queercore: Queer Punk Media Subculture by Curran Nault[32] brought renewed attention to queercore via a historical overview and theoretical exploration of the homology[vague] between queer theory/practice[vague] and punk theory/practice[vague] at the heart of queercore mediamaking. Retrospective documentary Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution, directed by Yony Leyser[33] was released the same year. An oral history put together from the transcripts of the film as well as additional interviews called Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution: An Oral History by Liam Warfield, Walter Crasshole and Leyser was released by PM Press in 2021.[34]

Film

Filmmakers such as

The Yo-Yo Gang in 1992. In 1996, J.D.s contributor Anonymous Boy
completed the first animated queercore film, Green Pubes.

Documentary films about queercore include the 1996 releases

Rise Above: A Tribe 8 Documentary
was released in 2003, and Pansy Division: Life In A Gay Rock Band by Michael Carmona debuted in 2008, both films playing regularly at film festivals around the world.

2003 saw the premiere of the

Mark Ewert, Vaginal Davis, Jane Danger of Three Dollar Bill, Jen Smith, Joel Gibb, Anonymous Boy, Scott Treleaven and Gary Fembot of Sta-Prest, with music by The Hidden Cameras
, Anonymous Boy and the Abominations, Bunny and the Lakers, Jane Danger, Swishin' Duds and Mariae Nascenti. All these films impacted the scene and broadened the scope of queercore to include film as another of its mediums of expression.

Lynn Breedlove (Tribe 8, writer), Matt Wobensmith (Outpunk Zine and Label, Queercorps Label), Jody Bleyle (Candy-Ass Records, Team Dresch, Hazel), The Psychic Sluts (Queer Performance Group), Wendy-O Matic (spoken word artist, writer), Laura Litter (Fabulous Disaster), Mia d´Bruzzi (Mudwimin, Fabulous Disaster) and Anna Joy (Blatz, Cyper in the Snow, The Gru´ps, writer) were interviewed in the documentary Step Up and Be Vocal - Interviews zu Queer Punk und Feminismus in San Francisco, a DIY-documentary made by German filmmakers Uta Busch and Sandra Ortmann in 2001.

2016 saw the premiere of the queer punk rock musical Spidarlings directed by Selene Kapsaski.[35] The film was released in 2017 by Troma Entertainment.[36]

Zines

As with punk and hardcore, queercore culture existed outside of the mainstream, so amateur-produced and inexpensively photocopied

DIY attitude of punk was integral to queercore as well.[37][8]

In the 1990s, as the availability of the internet increased, many queercore zines could be found online as well as in print. Queercore forums and chatrooms, such as QueerPunks, started up. The Queer Zine Archive Project is an internet database of scanned queer zines that continues to grow.[38] All these developments allowed queercore to become a self-sustaining and self-determined subculture, expressing itself through a variety of mediums independent of the straight and gay establishment.

See also

References

  1. ^ Ivy, Jade (6 January 2022). "Queercore: What is it? And Six Bands You Should Listen to – FOR THE PUNKS". Retrieved 2023-05-01.
  2. ^
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  3. ^ a b c Dickinson, Chrissie (1996-04-21). "The Music is the Message". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Archived from the original on 2010-07-16. Retrieved 2008-12-15.
  4. ^
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  5. ^ a b c Krishtalka, Sholem (2007-01-04). "Art essay: We are Queercore". Xtra.
  6. ^ Miller, Earl (2005-12-22). "File under anarchy: a brief history of punk rock's 30-year relationship with Toronto's Art Press". C: International Contemporary Art.
  7. ^ Doyle, J. D. (July 2009). "QMH Script: Pansy Division & Queercore Special". Queer Music Heritage. Archived from the original on February 2, 2011. Retrieved 2009-07-09.
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  10. ^ Sullivan, Caroline (1992-12-17). "Queer to the core – The pop establishment has always had a handful of gay stars colourful, eccentric, lovable. But now there's 'queercore', a radical gay music movement with attitude". The Guardian. p. 9. - Gale Document Number: CJ170793462
  11. ^ Brown, J; Nyong'o, T (June 15, 2020). "Queer as punk: A guide to LGBTQIA+ punk". NPR.
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  13. ^ "Larrybob, Dirtybird 96 Queercore Festival Press Release". 1996.
  14. ^ "Trebay, Guy, "Queers in Space", The Village Voice, May 12–18, 1999". Villagevoice.com. Retrieved 2013-12-03.[permanent dead link]
  15. ^ Ziegler, Chris (2002-06-20). "Queer As Punk". OC Weekly. Archived from the original on 2009-06-27. Retrieved 2010-10-23.
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  17. ^ B., Marke (2009-08-12). "Teh ghey". SF Bay Guardian. Archived from the original on January 10, 2011. Retrieved 2011-01-20.
  18. ^ Reiss, Jon. "Schmekel: Your Friendly Neighborhood All-Jewish, All Transgender Punk Band". Jewcy. JDub Records. Archived from the original on April 7, 2012. Retrieved October 1, 2011.
  19. ^ "FED UP FEST: FED UP FEST Website". Archived from the original on May 2, 2014. Retrieved April 30, 2014.
  20. ^ Downes, Julia (2009). "DIY Queer Feminist (Sub)cultural Resistance in the UK" (PDF). etheses.whiterose.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
  21. ^ "Music | Tuff Enuff Records". Riotsnotdiets.bandcamp.com. 2012-05-21. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
  22. ^ "Reviews | Various Artists". The Quietus. 2014-07-31. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
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  24. ^ "Edinburgh gets Pussy Whipped again". The F-Word. 13 June 2014. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
  25. ^ "HAF: Queer Riot at the RVT - Cabaret - Time Out London". Archived from the original on 2017-12-26. Retrieved 2017-12-25.
  26. ^ "Have a queer old time at Wharf Chambers". Archived from the original on 2017-11-07. Retrieved 2017-11-02.
  27. ^ "Queers to the Front! Bent Fest & the Queer DIY Punk Scene". Archived from the original on 2017-11-07. Retrieved 2017-11-02.
  28. ^ fortherabbitsmusic (2018-05-30). "Queer Summer Jams – A Mixtape by Wolf Girl – For The Rabbits". Fortherabbits.net. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
  29. ^ "Text-Only NPR.org : The Pop-Punks Of Anarchy". Text.npr.org. 2014-10-09. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
  30. ^ "Issue #3 by Delinquent Magazine". Issuu. 2017-09-09. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
  31. ^ "Guttfull". Loverboy Magazine. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
  32. ^ Sullivan, Beth (2017-10-03). "Queercore's Punk Media Subculture: Curran Nault's book sheds new light on being queer and punk - Qmmunity". The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
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  34. ^ "Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution: An Oral History". www.pmpress.org. Retrieved 2020-07-30.
  35. ^ "Spidarlings (VoD Review) – Anyone for a punk, LGBT, musical, body horror, comedy, indie film? - Big Gay Picture Show". Archived from the original on 2018-06-23. Retrieved 2018-06-22.
  36. ^ "Salem Kapsaski's Punk Rock Musical, Spidarlings World Premiere on Troma Now July 1st". Troma. Retrieved 2020-01-20.
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  38. ^ "About QZAP". QZAP. 2 November 2022.

External links

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