PERFORMER BIOS
BANDS
Other Weapons finds delightfully different ways of dealing with anxiety --Beth (Bubby Girl, 49 Traction, Cuerpo, The Transfused, Dr. Frockrocket) and Angie (loves Visible Panty Lines), baroque faggots and hunks of modernity 6/2/2004 from Olympia, WA.
Thunder! Thunder! Thunder! There are rumors the guitarist derives all her alternate tunings from listening to “Thriller” by Michael Jackson played backwards and constructs her riffs by inventing new calls for imaginary birds. There are stories linking the keyboardist with several identities and even more broken hearts across our great nation, which explains his need to wear a pair of sunglasses at every waking moment even in the darkest of dark (he sees just fine so stop asking him!). It has been said the bassist was borrowed from a seedy hotel lounge cool jazz quartet and never returned. There are speculations the drummer has embarked on a personal search for the perfect tropical landscape of Costa Rica using only her drums and field notes. In spite of all this balderdash and hearsay, Thunder! Thunder!Thunder! play epic dance punk with every conceivable pit stop along the way.
Rigamortis 19-year-old MC Tre Vasquez (and guests) is a broke ass, brown ass, queer rapper who takes to spittin' a mouthful of words on the mic to stay sane in this fucked up world. Based in Tucson, AZ: he spends his time working at a youth empowerment center, teaching all about sexual health in jr. high schools and being an avid promoter of vandalism. Keepin' it political- keepin' it spiritual- keepin' it gangsta.
Deadlee Los Angeles' most hardcore gay rapper turns raunchy sex, violence and rage into a shocking, volatile and decidedly apocalyptic new genre of music. A gay Ice-T? The lost season of HBO's "Oz"? The future of punk? It's the dawn of a new era - the homothug has arrived. Gay is gangsta!!!
The Scream Club the Electro Sex Hip Pop Punk Rock Rap Duo from Olympia, WA, are two freaky white rapper chicks stopping hearts everywhere. Cindy Wonderful and Sarah Adorable, two gaysymmetrical superheroes, have come to spread the message of fun to queerions, hip hoppers, and rockers all over the world. These queer icons write love songs, political jams, and party songs all with tight lyrics and killer hooks. The Scream Club energy is contagious and their beats are unstoppable. Scream Club has played with the likes of Gravy Train!!!!, Tracy and the Plastics, Busdriver and members of the Shapeshifters, and King Cobra. They've played LA’s Scutterfest 2003, Oakland’s Peace Out Homo Hop festival, Seattle's Bent festival, and will be playing Olympia's Homo-a -Go-Go this year and touring in the summer. If fortunate enough to attend one of their shows and see through the smoke and bubbles, you might see them rolling around on the floor while still keeping their raps tight. The Scream Club talent does not stop here, however, and both Cindy and Sarah are involved with other projects. Cindy Wonderful has her own TV show called Wonderground the TV Show. It is dedicated to showing videos, short films, interviews, art, and interesting underground subcultures to those stuck in the vortex of normal TV. Wonderground airs in Berkeley, Olympia, Denver, Portland, Chapel Hill and online at www.luver.com. Wonderful has also been releasing albums on her own labels, Stupid Records and Wonderground Records for many years and makes amazing music videos for Scream Club and other radical bands. Sarah Adorable has just finished co-writing and producing MalaQueerche: Queer Punk Rock Show, the next queer cult phenomenon. It is the story of the Mullets vs. the Mohawks, two queer gangs in pursuit of punk rock stardom and stars members of Romantic Retard Nation and SCREAM CLUB. From homo hot rods to all out queer gang fights, it as over the top as it is revolutionary. The soundtrack has songs from Erase Errata to Princess Superstar to the Gossip. MalaQueerche is showing at festivals and queer spaces all over the world including NYC's MIX Fest, Rome's Queer Gala, Amsterdam's Queeruption, San Francisco, Slamdance 2004, and London. The Scream Club album is a non-stop dance party that takes you from heartbreak back to the top of the world. With guest appearances by Amy Fantastic (of Rainbow Sugar, Cindy Wonderful's former band), Beth Ditto (The Gossip), Rachel Carns (King Cobra, The Need), Legendary LA rappers Busdriver, Existereo and Die of the Shapeshifters,Tara Jane O'niel, Mirah, plus S.F.'s sensational tranny heartthrob Katastrophe (and more!) each song is a masterpiece. They are avant-garde glam rock for the 21st century. Look for their debut CD DON’T BITE YOUR SISTER! Coming in June of 2004!!!!
Veronica Lipgloss and the Evil Eyes are performative, spooky, avante and trashy with saxaphone and dancers (beauticians in motion, if you will). Grown from the roots of San Francisco's fucked up sounds, their shows have been known to evoke spiritual frenzy and slutty behaviour. Its rhani lee remedes: bass, vox, Jasmine Caperton: sax guitar, Krispy Pickles: bass, keyboard and Andrey: drums Marget and Kitty on the dancefloor. They will be on tour july through september. love love and love love.
Davies vs. Dresch is punk rock as therapy, artistic catharsis incarnate. A raw, fast trio born out of pent-up creative frustration and limitless talent, Davies vs. Dresch are three amazing musicians doling out power cords and powerful, emotional lyrics. Led by Donna Dresch on guitar—legendary queercore revolutionary (Team Dresch), seminal zine publisher (Chainsaw zine), iconoclastic label founder (Chainsaw Records) and wryly self-described "Queen of Grunge" —Davies vs. Dresch is rounded out by demon percussionist Caitlin Love (Desert City Soundtrack) and the beautiful secret genius Kristina Davies (Half Seas Over, Tara Jane O'Neil) on guitar and vocals.
Secret Cock Bust out the Bic lighters and the Ben-Gay for your sore neck muscles, the Secret Cock line up of Jesse Zoldak on bass guitar and under-cooked lead vocals, Amy Tyson on the shredder lead, and featuring Tam Willey as the not-afraid-to-use-a-cow-bell drummer, is just the thing you've been waiting for. Secret Cock's classic rock is better than Meat Loaf and looser than Loverboy, so get on your knees, people, it's time to pray."...it's a hybrid of fun and gravity that makes this band tick...The band's appeal draws heavily from their 'want to rock-n-roll all night and party every day' attitude...Secret Cock's core audience - think skateboarders, students, artists, and musicians - their performances guarantee a surefire good time.–R.J. Grubb, Bay Windows, Oct. 2003Shoplifting We are Shoplifting. We share unmediated secrets only. Whisper in our ear and we'll whisper in yours. Email: yrshoplifting@yahoo.com
Grannies & Trannies A “PARTY SNACK PACK band, led by the Silas Howard & Leslie Mah (Tribe 8).
All the Pretty Horses Just your average Transgender fronted, Dark-Glam band?...perhaps not. Venus is the singer/songwriter/guitarist for the band, as well as a visual artist and the subject of the upcoming documentary "Venus of Mars." Drummer Jendeen Forberg is a powerhouse, long- respected in the jazz community as the leader of the Wolverines Big Band. More recently, after joining All the Pretty Horses, she also appeared in the Twin Cities run of Hedwig and the AngryInch. Tempest is the newest member of the band, having previously played bass with Blond Threat and Jesus Chrysler. Emily Star sings backing vocals and has also appeared onstage with Lords of Acid. Shannon Blowtorch, the modern primitive dancer, adds sparks, literally."
willpower (with will from Imperial Teen) "willpower" was conceived one night in july on 3rd street in san francisco when amy linton and i were at a tussle show and i was still smoking. we were talking about our love for r&b pop/hip hop and how she had lived in the same building in harlem as Sean Paul the summer before and our favorite songs on kmel. i gave her a ride home and the Busta/Mariah song "i know what you want" came on and we just listened in awe. as if she was reading my mind, she said we should get together and make a song using all the elements of pop that we've ever loved. a couple of days later we started working on a song in her basement. i came up with some vocal melodies and keyboard/guitar parts and left amy overnight with them. the result was the backing track for "onthefloor". after exhaustively stalking amy and trying to convince her to drop everything and work on this project, she told me she had to go on tour with her band the Aislers Set. i was left despondent in sf with a new computer and this music in my head. i met tomo through a friend and we hardly even asked each other on a music date before we were on a regular practice schedule furiously writing and recording music. tomo loves blippy bleepy yet melodic landscapey music the most. i had to coerce him a bit into some ass-shaking, but he eventually caved in. whether it's a hot beat or bass part or a strangely beautiful keyboard melody, he always brings something unique and inspiring to the music. we'll be hanging out and he'll be tapping out a beat with the keys in his pocket and we'll record that. i grew up listening to Michael and Janet and L'Trimm and pop that my sisters would turn me on to. as soon as I heard Sonic Youth and the Velvet Underground my world turned inside out and I started voraciously ingesting anything other than what was played on the radio. i became immersed in the indie music world with my band Imperial Teen, all the while reveling in the latest greatest pop/hip hop songs and records. "willpower" feels like something new and exciting and postmodern without being smug or ironic. although it's different from Imperial Teen, it makes perfect sense to me to be making the music we're making because it comes from what i love about music. when we're performing live and people are doin' their dances and making noise, we know it's right. dance is becoming a big part of our live show. chelsea starr and donal mosher are on dance detail and we have a good time synching up. i'm good with the chin scratchers and musicologists and philosophers too, but sometimes you have to let the emotions take over. let's dance now and we can talk about it later if you want. xoxoxo will
Neil Gust moved to the Pacific Northwest in 1991 and started Heatmiser with the late Elliott Smith. He started No. 2, his second band, in 1998 with Gilly Hanner and Paul Pulvirenti. No. 2 released their last record in 2002. This is Gust's first show outside of those bands.
The Hot Behind You is Jessie Atwood on guitar and vocals, Oakie on Bass, and sahar on drums. We formed in San Francisco two years ago.
Dynasty Handbag is the one-woman portable electro-ballad vehicle of Jibz Cameron (Dynasty, The Roofies). "Fantastically unwholesome and almost completely demented," in a shamefully mismatched leotard and giant sunglasses inadequately covering two black eyes, the Handbag sings along with thumping beats and simpleton melodies. Drawing equally on her background in theater and a love of San Francisco's underground music scene, Cameron created DH for maximum entertainment. Onstage, Dynasty Handbag is a spectacular tease; the terrific momentum created by her sparse dance tracks is fragmented by disorienting monologues and internal battles. As she fluctuates between self-loathing, delusion, and narcissism, these acts are half parody and half unabashed truth.
King Cobra a.k.a. cobes. meaning kwo & rachel. & more. so dare yourself to dance.
TJO and Gold Tara Jane O'Neill is an international superstar, guitar goddess, etc. She has played in about a hundred bands, including King Cobra. What more needs to be said? She will be appearing with her band Gold, which features northwest superstars. Ever been to a hootenanny? TJO's new record "you sound, reflect" will be available for the first time ever at Homo A Go Go.
Mirah, known for her engaging lyrics and intimate vocal style that will make you want to hug her, has been a fixture in the Northwest's independent music community since the release of her first album on the K record label in 2000. Her two most recent releases include 'c'mon Miracle' (K records) and 'to all we stretch the open arm' (yoyo recordings), a collaboration with The Black Cat Orchestra.
The Butchies Rising from the steamy heat of North Carolina, The Butchies (formed from the ashes of the legendary Team Dresch) are known for their smart lyrics, crazy on-stage antics, and tough + sweet lady rock and roll. The Butchies latest release, Make Yr Life (Yep Roc), remains true to the sound they crafted in their 3 previous albums, but shines bright with more BIG, more LUSH, more intensity and drive. The Butchies are on their way to world domination, you heard it here first. Their bio reads "If after listening to this punk-rock trio you don't feel like you just had one of the biggest epiphanies of your life, you clearly voted for Bush, and are immune to evolution..."
Triple Creme *** WANTED ***For insurgency Name: Triple Creme Named after: Decadent cheese Band members: 4, duh Hometown: Brooklyn, NY Physical description: Dashingly good lookin’ boygirls, matching hairdos, charm Agenda: The music Wanted for: Galloping crescendos, smart melodic rawk, tight enough pants Last seen: CMJ Battle of the Bands 2004; Queercore Blitz tour; Ladyfest East; CBGBs, Arlene Grocery, Knitting Factory NYC; Lee’s Palace in Toronto; Texas. Weapons: Rickenbacher 620, 1980 Rickenbacher 4001 bass, Gibson SG, 1960 Slingerland kit Escaped by: Climbing over a wall of sound Getaway car: Black Ford Econoline 150 van. With a bed. And tinted windows. Last words before escape: All the rock, none of the cock! Sucka!
Addicted2Fiction is an all-girl electronic darkwave band that hail from Brooklyn, NY but are now based in Los Angeles, CA. Hellskiss, Aisha & Chris' propulsive electronic instrumentation utilizes anything within reach to create a unique, dark, undeniably evocative sound. Their infectious songs are punctuated by addictive retro-pop industrial hooks, fierce guitar and bass riffs, sampled "found sounds", multi-layered drum tracks, haunting synth layers, processed vocals, and a myriad of eerily compelling effects. They also incorporate video projection into their performances to further compliment their music. Some of Addicted2Fiction's influences include; Depeche Mode, Jane's Addiction, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, Nitzer Ebb, Germs, Radiohead, Covenant and Siouxsie & The Banshees.
Lesbians on Ecstacy The Lezzies On X are a live dance outfit from Montreal, Quebec. Playing a mixture of hardcore breakbeat and house inspired party music, they are known for their shows featuring live drums (sometimes electronic drum pads, sometimes an acoustic kit), a bass player, samples, sequences and a mad dancing front woman. They steal liberally from the lesbian back catalogue, referencing artists like kd lang and the Indigo Girls, to create booty shaking dance hits that maintain the politically infused edge of many early sapphic songwriters. LOE bring beats with meaning while carving out their place in the boys-club world of dance.
Nomy Lamm is a an ex-Olympian currently residing in Chicago. While in Olympia she played in project bands, released two solo albums - Anthem (Talent Show Recordings, 1999), and Effigy (Yoyo Recordings, 2003) - and co-wrote The Transfused, an anti-capitalist genderqueer rock opera. She currently co-hosts a monthly queer open mike in Chicago called The Finger, and is working on a body-empowerment program for youth called Phat Camp. This is one of her first performances with musical collaborators Marcus Rodgers and Erin Daly.
Juha was last seen touring as the "Queer Arab Hip Hop" pair, and has now evolved into a crew of 5 multi-racial multi-spirited art rock funkateers. Based in Maui, their bloodlines represent just about every race in the world, and they sound like it - with a little inter-galactic action thrown into the mix. While Juha's Polari album has received much critical acclaim, none have been so visually rich as one fan's comment on the listening experience: "It's like getting spit-roasted by Valerie Solonas and Bootsy Collins." Juha has toured in support of Polari across the U.S. and in Europe, and the current Day Of The Dead show includes jams from both Polari and Jojoboy's upcoming solo joint, The Grooms Of God. Juha for this tour is: Ghalib, Jojoboy, Adam Capriccio, Will the Moore, and Lahela King. They're all very fuckin sexy.
Juba Kalamka Though he has been a recording artist since 1988, Juba Kalamka (aka Pointfivefag) is most recognized for his recent work as a founding member of “homo-hop” crew Deep Dickollective (D/DC) and development of the label Sugartruck Recordings. A former member of groundbreaking queer hip-hop group Rainbow Flava and staff writer/illustrator for the bisexual issues magazine Anything That Moves, he served as Festival Director for East Bay (Oakland) Pride 2003 and curator the accompanying PeaceOUT World HomoHop Festival, now in its 4th year. He appeared in three adult videos in 2003, most notably Good Vibrations’ "G Marks The Spot”. Noted for his dialogues on the convergences and conflicts of race, identity, sexuality and class in pop culture, he has served as a curator and panelist for numerous organizations and national conferences including The San Francisco Black Gay/Lesbian Film Festival, GLAAD, Hip Hop As A Movement @ The University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Burning Closets @ Oberlin College. Deep Dickollective’s second full length CD, "The Famous Outlaw League Of Proto-Negroes", was released in January 2004. Kalamka’s second solo CD "Oogabooga Under Fascism" will be released on Sugartruck in early 2005.
Katastrophe (AKA Rocco Kayiatos) is a hot-shit, somewhat reclusive, over analytical, FTM emo-hop MC who has rocked the mic, charmed the ladies and educated the masses across the USA. With his tongue-twisting rhyme style, political frankness and a disarming sense of humor, he has become a primary player in the growing national queer hip-hop underground.
The Dead Betties are a passionate, cyclonic artpunk trio from Brooklyn, New York that unleashes an angst-ridden sonic tsunami that is unlike anything you've ever heard before. Live, The Dead Betties are hypnotically intense; their music, utterly contagious; their lyrics, scathing and poetic. As David Ciminelli writes in his upcoming book about the history of Homocore, "Joshua Starr formed the Dead Betties in 2000 after his senior year in high school, tapping his drummer buddy Derek Pippin to help him create the rhythm section for a band Starr envisioned as combining the punk-rock crunch of Sonic Youth, the ballsy lyrical assault of Rage Against the Machine, and the raucous energy and sonic drive of Babes in Toyland. In early 2002, the Dead duo hooked up with guitarist Eric Shepherd. A tight-knit trio with a powerhouse of energy and contagious hooks, the band seamlessly melds together a molten-metal mish-mash of heavy, spiraling guitars, hard-thumping bass grooves and skin pounding that'd make Dave Grohl envious, and it's all delivered with an underground punk-propelled ferocity".
The Gossip When 22 year-old Beth Ditto soul-croons "Well honey honey, honey, honey /I could be so good to you baby," you want her to--badly. The Gossip's second full length outing Movement transcends elementary roots riot garage, injects it with a hefty helpin' of Arkansas-bred gospel and filters it backwards through Gories and Pussy Galore territory with a new, more pervasively unapologetic confidence. The band has grown new wings and given loft to some of their more expressive experimentalist leanings and put their back into the four on the floor stomp. The result? A swaggering throw down of hip-shakingly blooze punk fix, a party album for the revolution, a queer-positive call to arms - by way of the delta; or more simply - a brilliant album. "When we started, this whole roots-rock revolution bullshit hadn't blown, and we just got compared to Bratmobile and Bikini Kill 'cause there weren't any other girls out there to compare us with," laughs Ditto, whose pipes hint more at sixties soul songstresses than the icons of Riot Girl. Although the trio's inception in Searcy, Arkansas occurred five years ago, their musical pasts run deep. Age four for Ditto, to be exact. "My brother played drums," she drawls, "and I'd go stand in front of the drums and sing a song. Just a made-up song. My mother realized that I was singing completely in key. She said that if I was gonna sing, she'd help me do it right." Shortly thereafter Ditto started singing in choirs. Church choirs. School choirs. "My school was kinda a joke, and singing was the only thing that came easy for me," she chuckles. After Ditto happened upon feminism along with drummer Kathy Mendonca, they hooked up met guitarist Nathan Howdeshell, The Gossip was born. "I had a really vague idea of what feminism was, but just knew that I wasn't gonna wear dresses and play the flute." Movement shakes so hard because it's real. It's visceral, it's nothing other than simply what it is. The album treats blues and roots music with honest reverence that's wise beyond its years. It shanks punk-rocks formalized cliché like a bar-room brawl. With it splashy, lusty percussion, it's lone, down tuned guitar-howl and Beth's from-the-core-of-the-earth vocal urgency all give Movement a lush roughness that borders on divine. The last thing The Gossip wants is polish. Explains Howdeshell: "Kathy doesn't even have a hi-hat. I have a guitar with four strings. As long as you're passionate about it, people will respect it."
Imani Henry is an activist, writer and performer. Henry’s writing has appeared in several publications including the Lambda Award-winning Does Your Mama Know and the newly released IAC publication, War in Colombia: Made in USA. He is a graduate of the School of Performing Arts of Emerson College. For the last 2 years, Henry has toured the US and Canada with his first multi-media theatre piece,"B4T: Before Testosterone" which the Boston Globe called. “a well-made play... From start to finish, it is a delicate balance, and Henry never missteps.” 9/13/2003.Imani is currently performing his latest multi-media project, “Living in the Light” which weaves in out of time between the present-day life of the Caribbean community of Flatbush, NY and the not so distant memory of the Middle Passage of the African slave trade.Since 1993 he has been a Staff Organizer at the International Action Center (IAC), where his activism has ranged from opposing US military inventions in Iraq, Haiti, Somalia, and Yugoslavia to fighting to end the economic blockade of Cuba. He has worked nationally within the anti-police brutality and anti-death penalty movement in the US, in particular for his work to demand the freedom of political prisoner and journalist Mumia Abu Jamal.Allen Svenadaitor and the Amazing Fruit Experts Allen is an ex-Olympiaoid dirt fag who when not playing electrofied space music constantly finds himself picking up an acoustic guitar and suddenly singing songs to whoever may be in the room, making it up as he goes along. At one point a bunch of friends forced him to play a show of these musical channelings and he's been doing it ever since. Along the way he's also moved to Los Angeles where he has become an extremely knowledgeable fruit expert, and teaches others in the ways of fruit expertise to assist him at shows. Strange fruits of all persuasions should feel write at home in his gay musical living room. p.s.- bringing fruit to the show is highly encouraged!!
Tami Hart is a 3 piece from San Francisco. They believe in technology as a weapon of peace, not convenience, nor greed. Do not be confused by what you are reading, for Tami Hart is not only one person anymore, but now she is three. Her personalities have split, the atom divided. Long ago in a southern land far away, Tami Hart was a teenage punk whom reveled in queer punk/homocore and dreamed of escape. She did that with an acoustic guitar and a four track by the name of fostex. She made it out of the south thanks to none other than Mr. Lady records and Kaia Wilson. Though she still loves to croon a sad ballad now and then she has developed into a multi-personalitied noise loving punk....enjoy! For any more info on Tami Hart please sign up for Friendster, as it is now her "homepage" you can find her there as Tami Hart or email her punkslut@hotmail.com
Tracy & The Plastics is an electronic art/new media punk band made and performed by lesbian feminist video artist Wynne Greenwood, originally from Washington State. Culture for Pigeon is their second full-length record, which will be released by Troubleman Unlimited with an accompanying DVD. The music on this record is made with a stumbling fury of sampled drums, insistent bass loops, and weary keyboard melodies. Drum sounds sampled from Rachel Carns, bass grooves and beats with JD Samson, and vocals recorded at Studio G by Joel Hamilton and Tony Maimone.To watch Tracy and the Plastics perform is to watch a quilt get made, or a song get sung by you and the birds in the tree next to your window, or to watch one woman become and entire band. Greenwood takes the form of all three band members, live on stage and in prerecorded video projections. She sings live as Tracy while interacting with the other band members (Greenwood as Nikki, the keyboard player, and Cola, the drummer) on the video screen behind her.“We are really interested in creating new mythologies about the construction of cohesive identities from fragmented parts of fragmented culture, and performing that through the relationships of our sounds and images.” The shake of the nail polish bottle in the video becomes the tick of the high hat cymbal in the song. These elements play off of each other to create an imagined world that Tracy guides you through with her hopeful vocals.
Team Dresch The band that would later call itself Team Dresch began in the late summer of 1993; the coming together of 3 musicians who’d crossed paths throughout the years in their various musical & artistic endeavors, and converged upon the Lucky House basement in Portland Oregon for their first “practice”. Donna Dresch, Jody Bleyle and Kaia Wilson hippie jammed in that basement for a good 3-4 hours, breaking only to walk down the street to People's food co-op for hippie food (to go with the hippie jam). Several great drummers played with the band, including Scott Plouf and Teddy Pilgrim, but the majority of the drumming and recording was done by Marci Martinez and Melissa York, who played on the first and second records, respectively. They made herstory during their years together, bringing “queercore" music to a larger level, and putting out 2 records to massive critical acclaim. Come see Donna, Kaia, Jody, Marci and Melissa rock (and roll) at HAGG, their first and only reunion show.
Tamala Poljack is homopunkwestcoastmakingartandmusicforlife. She writes songs on her guitars and keyboards and records them sometimes. She also collaborates with people she likes and plays live shows loudly. Best known as the leader of the band LONGSTOCKING, she was also in bands like OILER, FLEABAG, THE AUTOMATICANS, INFINITE X"s with JODY BLEYLE and many other bands that only lasted a year or so. She has collaborated with folks in the punk community like PHRANC, EXENE, TEAM DRESCH & THE NEED to name a few and has released recordings on sympathy for the record industry, W.I.N. records, chainsaw, killrockstars and k. her current music project, called THE TAMALA, has rotating members and is really fantastic if you like pop songs that are sometimes out of tune, sometimes noisy, messy & repetitive and sometimes hard to get out of your head. She also makes graphic design and reads books. She can be found at theelusiveone@sbcglobal.net.
Phranc has spent most of her 20-year career in the music industry trashing gender stereotypes. As a member of the burgeoning punk rock scene in LA during the late '70s, Phranc cut her teeth in the performing world as a member of the synthesizer band Nervous Gender as well as the gothic reggae band Catholic Discipline. Her early exploits were even documented in Penelope Spheeris' heralded "punkumentary," "The Decline of Western Civilization." Just when the punk scene began to roil the commercial rock infested waters of the LA music, industry, Phranc's music took a sharp turn when she realized her fellow punks needed a history lesson. "During that punk period, around 1979, wearing swastikas was very popular with punks," she says. "Because I was Jewish, it really disturbed me so I wrote this song 'Take Off Your Swastika,' and I performed it on acoustic guitar so the audience could hear the words. When I got heckled at some of the harder core shows, I would just throw it back at them. I've always really respected the audience. That young slam dancing crowd might be a wild crowd but it was very intelligent. So it was exciting. It was always thrilling for me to go out there alone." Diving into her new found folk edge, Phranc released her debut album, the appropriately titled Folksinger, in 1985 on Rhino Records. The collection, containing originals such as "Female Mud Wrestling" and "One o' the Girls," also boasted a powerful interpretation of Bob Dylan's "Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll." With unique, humorous songs about her swim team, female sports heroes and, intelligent hairdressers, Spin magazine observed that "'earnest' isn't a dirty word in Phranc's vocabulary, and neither is 'laugh'...A sense of justice and a sense of humor don't necessarily cancel each other out." While celebrating the success of Folksinger, Phranc spent the next several years touring with punk and alternative bands such as X, the Smiths, Husker Du, the Dead Kennedys, the Pogues and the Violent Femmes Landing a deal with Island Records, her follow-up, I Enjoy Being a Girl, was released in 1989. The album contained instant Phranc classics such as "Rodeo Parakeet," the aforementioned "Take Off Your Swastika" and the hushed, moving tribute to her grandmothers, "Myriam and Esther" People magazine suggested that Phranc "brings novelty, self-conscious sensitivity and self-referential sarcasm to the neo-folk genre." Her third album, Positively Phranc, soon followed in 1991. Released to wide acclaim, the album contained many memorable moments including "Hitchcock," a quirky gem co-written with Dave Alvin on which Phranc found reflections of her lover in a cavalcade of movie heroines; "Surfer Girl," a stirring a cappella duet with Syd Straw; and "Outta Here," an elegy for the friends Phranc's lost to AIDS. "Tipton" hauntingly recalled the life and death of Billie Tipton, the remarkable Tacoma-based woman and jazz musician who passed as a man for 50 years. Two months after the album's release, Phranc embarked on a world tour with alternative icon Morrissey. Returning to her indie roots, Phranc's next project, a five-song EP called Goofyfoot, was released on Kill Rock Stars in 1995. The surf pop collection featured guest appearances from members of Portland's Team Dresch and Satan's Pilgrims as well as Bikini-Kill's Tobi Vail. Soon-to-be classic originals such as "Bulldagger Swagger" and "Surferdyke Pal" were contrasted with an interesting mix of cover songs On "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter," Phranc's masterful ukulele strumming and deadpan, delivery added a charming twist to the Herman's Hermits song. Her stirring cover of Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billy Joe" proved Phranc to be an equally powerful interpreter of pop classics.
Hawnay Troof is a never ending collective of electronic musicians. For the past few years members have floated in and out, from Berlin to Oakland, creating music and dancing on stages across the world. After selling 11,000 copies of their debut full length, Vice Cooler and Baby Donut (Allison Wolfe) toured with Numbers, Stereo Total, Mates Of State, Glass Candy, Quintron and Miss Pussycat. The last show I saw them play began with the two of them yelling about how amazing life could be if you made it so and ended with about 80 or so kids screaming back 'we're all alive'. There was crowd surfing, energy, nudity and the most dancing I have seen at the Echo. This is modern inspiration through celebration. Fuck all that haircut bullshit." - Eric Bauer, L.A. Tribe Magazine
SPOKEN WORD
Ami Mattison is an artist, community organizer, and academic who lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
A recovering cock-tail waitress, Ben McCoy is your favorite neighborhood diva; visual and performance artist as well as writer, Ben is also a Southern Belle from Hell. He does not dye his hair black and though a bat once flew over him once while performing, he still denies being goth. 23, originally from Kentucky and now living in Boston, McCoy is ready to turn you out and turn u on to more radical acts of personal living via verbal assault. Get it together with this Mattress-Actress, and GET INVOLVED. www.benmccoy.com is , like, totally coming soon! Re-apply and be prepared, kids!!
Beth Steidle has performed at Emerson College, Boston’s Charles Playhouse, Boston’s Oni Gallery, and Brown University. For the moment, she lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with two visually and socially impaired kittens and one girl/boyfriend. Currently, she is working on a memoir entitled Animals and Their Eatables, which details her bizarre dealings with her best/worst friend(s). (By which she means, her schizophrenic/ bipolar brain(s).) She co-founded and co-hosts Pittsburgh's K'vetsh with said girl/boyfriend after seasoning herself as a feature at Boston K'vetsh with Michelle Tea. Additionally, she aspires to a fashion sense similar to Edward Scissorhands.
Cheryl Coward is an afro-native-queer scribe and web artist from the deep heat of Florida. She writes novels, poems, academic papers, news articles and the occasional editorial. She has been published in a wide variety of publications including the Advocate, Black Enterprise, the Village Voice and Essence. She self-published her first novel, Sugarhill, in 2001. She is currently living in New England and working on a master's degree at Dartmouth.
Cooper Lee Bombardier is a transgender visual artist, writer, performer, and host of a monthly queer and trans performance cabaret in his new hometown of Santa Fe, NM called LISP. Cooper has performed across the country both with Sister Spit and by himself. He was also a featured visual artist in the 2001 National Queer Arts Festival. Cooper was recently published in the anthology Lowdown Highway, from Junkyard Books, and will appear in the forthcoming trans anthology on Manic D Press edited by Morty Diamond. He pays the rent by working construction, painting houses, welding, and as a union stagehand and set builder.
Justin Chin is the author of Harmless Medicine. He lives in San Francisco.
Laurel Albina is a Canadian born, US living, Palestinian-American poet and songwriter extraordinaire. Before joining a cult and moving to the nether regions of New England she performed in and around Vancouver, BC Canada wowing audiences with her straightforward and honest accounts of life, love and everything in between. She is thrilled to be performing this year at Homoagogo.
Matthue Roth is a performance poet who lives in San Francisco. He's performed with Carlos Santana, Michelle Tea, and Mos Def, and he sometimes writes for Bitch Magazine. His Orthodox Jewish punk-rock novel "The Goldbergs" will be published next year by Scholastic.
Miss Cookie LaWhore is Michael V. Smith, the only Canadian novelist to perform stand-up improv audience-participation nudist drag. Together, they produced the critically acclaimed public sex Œzine Cruising. Miss Cookie also stars in a number of underground film hits such as Girl on Girl: a documentary, Wayne Yung's Chopstick, Bloody Chopstick, and the tranny prostitution video, Femme, which have toured film festivals across North America. Her column, Blush, can be found on www.misscookie.com
Rebecca Brown is the author of 9 books of fiction and non fiction published both in the US and abroad in Japan, UK and elsewhere. She has written a play called The Toaster, which will debut in Seattle in 2004 , twenty years after the publication of her first book, and is working on an opera libretto with Better Biscuit Dance and composer Michael Katell.
Tamara Llosa-Sandor is a whiskey drinking, bruce springsteen loving, filipina jewish whitegirl. she was born in her much beloved state of california and now lives in self-exile in the nasal and hostile city of somerville, mass, where she foams endless pitchers of milk and makes dramatic attempts to write about her mixed heritage, eclectic family, and her obsessive love of hanging out with her friends and getting into other peoples' business. she has featured at boston k'vetch and attends faithfully. homo a gogo will be her first "big thing" and she is blushing with excitement and pride and the phenomenon known as "asian glow".
(K'vetsh co-host) Paige McBee AKA Mister Snackcake is currently co-hosts K'vetsh-Pittsburgh with her Missus (the unstoppable Beth Steidle), causing all kinds of havoc and gender destruction in the Iron City. Mister McSnack is a veteran performer of Homo-A-Go-Go, as well as K'vetsh-Boston (which she used to co-host), Brown University, Sarah Lawrence College, and the East Coast "Rock Paper Scissors" Tour. Mister McSnack has been published in "Lifeboat-A Journal of Memoir", Boston's "Weekly Dig", Pittsburgh's "City Paper", "Deek", and "Gauge", amongst others. The Snack just finished her first book, "The Milkman Theory", and is wasting no time getting started on her second: a pretentious memoir about loving somone crazy, dads who are not really dads, and memory itself.
Ivan E. Coyote was born and raised in Whitehorse, Yukon and now resides in Vancouver. Ivan is a writer and storyteller who first came to attention as a member of Taste This, who collaborated on the critically-acclaimed, award-winning book, Boys Like Her. Ivan's first solo collection was the award-winning Close to Spider Man, followed closely by One Man's Trash. Ivan was recently listed as one of Shift Magazines’ Top 75 Cultural Movers and Shakers from around the world, and this year collaborated with musicians Richard Spencer, Veda Hille, and the Longest Night Ensemble to create the first audio collection of Ivan's stories, entitled You're a Nation. Ivan is a monthly columnist for Xtra West, and freelances regularly for The Georgia Straight, and CBC Radio, and is currently at work on a first novel.
I'm Letta Neely, a Black dyke originally from the great midwestern state of Indiana. I now live in Boston, MA. I'm a writer of mostly poetry, plays, and rants. Right now, I'm a little obsessed with the number 2. I've written 2 chapbooks, two books of poetry (Juba and Here) and have had two plays go through a full production. What else do I want to share? Hmm, my daughter goes around yelling No Justice. No Peace in all kinds of random places these days. I try to follow her lead. Also, I can't wait to vote Bush out of office.
Laurel Albina is a Canadian born, US living, Palestinian-American poet and songwriter extraordinaire. Before joining a cult and moving to the nether regions of New England she performed in and around Vancouver, BC Canada wowing audiences with her straightforward and honest accounts of life, love and everything in between. She is thrilled to be performing this year at Homoagogo.
Michelle Tea is the author of three memoirs, most recently The Chelsea Whistle; the illustrated novel Rent Girl (with Laurenn McCubbinn); and the poetry collection The Beautiful. She is the editor of the anthologies Without A Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class, and Pills, Thrills Chills and Heartache: Adventures in the First Person (with Clint Catalyst). In the 1990s she helped found the legendary Sister Spit open mic series and national tours; she presently lives in San Francisco, where she curates, hosts and bakes cookies for the Radar Reading Series at the main library.