Spew: The Queer Punk Convention

Bill Hsu

University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana
<hsu@csrd.uiuc.edu>

 

 

SPEW. The first queer punk fanzine convention. May 25 1991. Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago.

 

"NO panels. NO workshops. NO keynote address. VANLOADS of noisy dykes and fags."

 

While hardcore in the early ’80s was mostly a straight white male phenomenon, gender-bending had often been a feature of punk in the ’70s. Queer punks were ostracized by both the mainstream gay communities (for being punks) and the mainstream hardcore communities (for being queer). Letters from queer-identified punks began appearing in punk fanzines in the mid-80s, usually provoking responses from homophobic punks. Queer versions of the traditional punk fanzines started soon after.

 

Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll, the bastion of politically progressive hardcore culture, has occasional columns by Tom Jennings of HOMOcore (one of the first queer punk zines), and gave some coverage to the queer punk scene in its April 1989 “Sexuality” issue. The original plan was to devote a full issue to queer punks, but apparently lip service is all the hardcore establishment is willing to give.

 

Queer punks built their own network, with their own fanzines and events. There are still relatively few openly queer punk/hardcore bands, but some established bands are supportive; Fugazi and MDC have played at HOMOcore benefits. Queer punks have encountered only limited acceptance in the hardcore establishment. Some have found more support from gay activist groups such as ACTUP and Queer Nation, and the more radical arts communities.

 

The queer punk “movement” is not as strong in Europe as it is in North America, perhaps because the punk fanzine network is stronger in the US and Canada, and it was through this network that queer punks started organizing. Also, the European hardcore scene has strong ties to anarchist youth movements and tends to be less homophobic; perhaps queer punks in Europe have found a more supportive environment in European hardcore communities, and do not feel the need to establish their own network. Most of the queer punk fanzines that I’m aware of (and that attended SPEW) are based in the US or Canada.

 

For SPEW, Randolph Street Gallery was divided into a display area for zines and merchandise, a video area and a performance area. Most of the major queer punk zines were in attendance: JDs (one of the first and most visible, usually featuring G.B. Jones’ stylish photographs and graphics and Bruce La Bruce’s gritty and affecting writing), the exuberant and ornery Bimbox, the campy and literate Thing, Vaginal Creme Davis’ hilarious Fertile LaToyah Jackson, etc. Most zines that were not attending sent recent issues and merchandise for display. Chicago’s ACTUP and Queer Nation both had tables.

 

The performance area buzzed all afternoon with readings and music. Novelist Dennis Cooper, who had performed earlier that week at Club Lower Links and Medusa’s, read again from his brilliant new book Frisk and from older work. He was a nervous reader, shuffling his feet around and stubbing his toes on the floor (“from a distance people think I’m a kid.”) The delivery was mostly deadpan and lowkey, and he was charming and funny.

 

The other readings were not as interesting. Many of the readers are excellent writers, but they were not very careful about how their texts came across when read, and what kind of delivery was necessary for good effect. Drag was once again subversive and dangerous rather than merely polite: Joan Jett Blakk (Chicago “mayor” in drag) and Elvis Herselvis (the female Elvis impersonator) performed to backing tapes, and Vaginal Creme Davis (a 6’6 African-American self-styled “blackstress”) did her usual hilarious cabaret song-and-dance routine, with boisterous gospel and blues wailing. Club Lower Links regular Andy Soma was a religious icon almost with that Pierre et Gilles gloss.

 

I missed most of the videos (spending more time in the performance room and at the tables), except for Bruce LaBruce’s No skin off my ass, which has been making the rounds at gay film festivals all over. Unfortunately the sound was very bad and I couldn’t understand much of the voice-overs. The film is in grainy black-and-white and very well-crafted. Bruce plays a hairdresser (GB Jones is his “sister”) who has a fling with a skinhead with the usual attitude (“I can’t be a fag, I’m a skinhead” etc etc). The usual comparisons have been with Warhol but the camera in No skin is much more active: there are some really nice tracking shots and very effective montages. More a punk Mala Noche with ear and nipple-piercing sequences than, say, Flesh or Chelsea Girls.

 

The post-convention party at Hot House Gallery featured house and hiphop grooves from Thing dj’s, and performances from Joan Jett Blakk, Vaginal Creme Davis and Toronto all-female post-punk band Fifth Column. Fifth Column was without a guitarist and the first few songs with G.B. Jones on guitar and guests on lead guitar and drums (and supporting drum machine) were a little ragged, but the band really came together when G.B. Jones switched to drums. Fifth Column started sounding like their tight, vicious first album. At their best, they recall a raw garage-y Throwing Muses with more interesting rhythms. The set ended with their strongest songs, Kangaroo Court with the nervous jerky rhythms and their “hit”, Fairview Mall Story (about police entrapment of gay men in Toronto bathrooms).

 

The event ended on a sour note: Steve Lafreniere, one of the main organizers, was stabbed in the back by passing gay-bashers. (He has since recovered.)

 

I found it interesting that very few people from the traditional hardcore crowd were at SPEW. Instead, more of the attendees were from the “new allies” of the queer punk movement: ACTUPers, Queer Nationals, and radical queer artists and performers. Apparently, despite all the rhetoric about liberal/progressive politics, the hardcore establishment still has to come to terms with its homophobia.