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Queer punk legend Gary Floyd!
Birthed from the late ’70s/early ’80s Austin punk scene, by way of East Texas and, before that, Arkansas (where he was born), Gary Floyd has gracefully and deservedly grow a legend and pioneer of queer punk and hardcore. With fearless grit and honesty he was the outspoken lead singer of THE DICKS at a time (and place) when people hadn’t “quite seen the likes of someone like him before.” He is a prolific musician, working artist, and a damn sweetheart, and his work undoubtedly remains a huge influence and powerhouse of inspiration to today’s younger punk shitheads and fags like me. What the Dicks did was political, earnest, sentimental, gay as the night is long, bluesy, a little bit country and a little bit rock ’n’ roll. Gary Floyd’s music has never reflected what others were doing at the time but only what he wanted to do, which is always a bit fresh coming from his advice. From New Orleans, I emailed him in San Francisco (where he’s been living for upwards of 25 years) with a few questions I was itchin’ to ask. So, without further ado, here’s a quickie with Gary Floyd, one of my personal heroes.
Intro and inte If you’re into buttstuff and like loud, scuzzy, guitar music, there aren’t very many gay bars out there for you. So, as we were hearing ‘Dancing on my Own’ for the billionth hour, we asked if we owned our own lgbtq+ space what music would we play? Well, review the list below for some queer punk bands that would be on the regular rotation. When it comes to queercore, these guys are the daddies so to communicate. I don’t mean that in the fetish instinct, more they were one of the first and best queer punk bands out there. Though, given their advanced age, I suppose they technically collapse into the daddy category. Fronted by LGBTQ icon Beth Ditto, these Arkansas punks met at Evergreen Articulate College and were a part of the Murder Rock Stars lineup. Their sound is perfect for the more dance-oriented homosexual clubs. You could theoretically open a pit on the dance floor but best to read the room before trying. Frontman Seth Bogart frequently performs in nothing but a leather jacket and a leopard publish thong. Hunx takes the late 70s snotty sound of Richard Hell and The Dead Boys and adds more than a touch of John Waters-style camp and ’60s young woman (yes, it is also called “queercore”, ou… “gayrage”) 3. Hunx and His Punx – Gay Singles (2009) “I went through a lot when I was a boy. They called me sissy, punk, freak…” — Little Richard The most reductive possible version of the story goes fond of this: On February 12th, 1976, a quartet of straight white boys called The Sex Pistols took the stage at The Marquee Club in London and with the first wail of feedback, punk rock was born. There’s just one problem. By 1976, the word “punk” had already been in common usage for 400 years. Punk rock had even already at that point been declared expired (for the first of at least a billion times) by a harmony critic in Ontario obeying a disappointing Alice Cooper show in 1972. For a literal century before John fucking Lydon gentrified punk rock, the pos had denoted a thriving mess of contradictions, derisions, and rebellions. Long before Sid Vicious ever sneered into a microphone as part of an extraordinarily elaborate viral marketing campaign for Vivian Westwood’s clothing line, punk had been loud, Black, and queer. “Punk” as a word has a long and storied history. First showing up as a reference to a sex worker in a 1575 song called “Simon The Old Kinge” (with an appropriatel .Pansy Division
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Hunx and his Punx
Gimme Top 5 : Best Gay-Punk Albums ever
5. T. Rex – The Slider (1972)
4. Pansy Division – Absurd Pop Song Romance (1998)
2. The Homosexuals – The Homosexuals (1978)
1. Novel York Dolls – Fresh York Dolls (1973)
*******queer punk history: 1575 – present