.:.GIVING VOICE TO VELVET RAGE.:.
Expressions of Queer Identity in Noise
by Thomas Boettner
Dedicated to the memories of Jaime Carrera,
John Barber & Antonio Urdiales
Straight Panic/Monowolf Split - Liberation Not Assimalation - Black Ring Rituals Records 2015.
Part I:
Why You Never Became a Dancer
“The aim of art is to represent not the outward
appearance of things, but their inward significance.” —Aristotle
As time goes by, the argument for
representational art seems to come up more frequently as society grows more
aware of intersectional struggles and forms of identity. The Gamergate and Sad
Puppies scandals both grew out of reactionary movements towards diversity in
the video game and science-fiction worlds, respectively. Even Vox recently ran
a piece illustrating why Diego Luna‘s Mexican accent was important within the
Star Wars universe. Rewind the clock back a decade, however, and representation
looked far less widespread than it does today.
When I first started to bill my Fire Island,
AK project as “queer noise,” I was pushing against several walls all at once.
The venues in my South Carolina hometown were not used to much more than cover
bands, bar rock, and nu-metal. Throwing a sexual/political identifier into the
mix probably didn’t help, but at the time it felt like the best an angry fag in
the South could manage; the mass amounts of Marx, Butler, Lenin, Hocquenghem,
and Foucault I had ingested probably didn’t help either. By this point in my
artistic development, I had already discovered, and become bored by, most punk.
The Mukilteo Fairies, Huggy Bear, and Limp Wrist were good starting points, but
Crass boasts more full-length albums than those three combined. The painfully
earnest, disjointed pop sensibilities of Xiu Xiu hold far more sway in my mind
than Elton John or Freddie Mercury. Anhoni was still performing with the Johnsons,
but even their Romantic balladry felt too safe an outlet. I attempted to
perform at the first ever Pride event in my hometown, but was deemed “too
aggressive” to perform.
As a latecomer to noise, I was voraciously
devouring what I could find. Wolf Eyes hit my radar in 2006, but it took
another two years before I got led towards Whitehouse, Prurient, Sutcliffe
Jügend, and Non. Unfortunately, idealism left me wanting. While power
electronics, as a genre, frequents the use of sadomasochistic imagery as a
means of reflecting society’s own misogyny, inherent violence, and sexual
addiction back upon itself, there is also an extremely boring amount of
heterosexual fantasy bundled together with the aesthetic language. Where was
the harsh noise sibling to Plague Mass? Surely somewhere out there was a
History of AIDS from someone who lived through the height of the epidemic.
Thanks to the social magic of MySpace, DList,
and the still-young Facebook, I managed to slowly string together some contacts
and names. Richard Ramirez was one of the first major queer noise artists I was
able to discover, and in true noise fashion, he agreed to do a split with me
simply by merit of asking. His work in the fields of HNW and harsh noise still
continues to be at the forefront of what could arguably fall into the “queer
noise” category; what does such a designation say, though? Is it the noise
itself that is queer? In Queer Theory, then yes, since noise takes the approach
towards “music” by resignifying and subverting the definition and presentation
thereof. However, I want to stick with “queer” as a means of saying not
heterosexual, not cisgendered. I want to look at artists that share, in a
certain sense, a camaraderie beyond genre. This is not to say that such artists
are willing (or able) to be pigeonholed, however.
Where I tend to view my own work as political
by nature, Richard Ramirez disagrees. “I don’t see [my work] as political,” he
writes, though he does affirm that his work under his name, and that of Black
Leather Jesus, are “explicitly gay themed.” The same way straight men’s
aesthetic language often trends toward the female form, Ramirez’s own leanings
are what have informed his work’s aesthetics. “For many years […], I would see
other artists use pornographic images of women. I didn’t see any of men at that
time. I decided to use pornographic images of men then and continue to do so.”
In a genre that so often flirts with shock tactics, there is a sincerity to his
presentation which is refreshing, albeit still encoded with innuendo and
symbolism that is probably lost on certain parts of the audience.
Black Leather Jesus live at Hospital Festival, New York.
Ramirez’s husband, Sean Ramirez-Matzus, takes
a much more straightforward approach, however. His art and politics are
intrinsically linked, regardless of whether he’s performing as Bog Queen (a duo
with Ramirez, separate from their Obsession project), A Week of Kindness,
Shudder of Anguish, or any of his myriad other projects (most of which fall
under the HNW category). “My work is extremely political. I am extremely political,”
he explains. “But the work is not always easy to read. I have a tendency to be
obtuse and abstract, but it all comes from a very politically charged place.
[…] I’m from a rather old way of thinking, that all experimental art is
inherently political. In my world, I can no more be separated from my queerness
and the political struggles inherent therein than I could be without
consequences separated from my arm or leg. It is me. It is at the core of who I
am.” Ramirez-Matzus’s most (overtly) political work is arguably still the Pink
Triangle Series: a succession of
cassette releases curated from various queer artists focused on, as he
explains, “agitprop protest against the preachers and politicians of hate on the
American and international stages.” While many of the Pink Triangle Series
releases had different performers, and each its own subject, the aesthetic
language and design was all Ramirez-Matzus’s own, thus generating a unified
statement of intention and resistance.
Subtlety has a time and place, however. Each
Straight Panic show I perform includes a prominently displayed pink triangle
flag. Surprisingly, I get questions regarding its usage and meaning. Some
audience members simply don’t recognize the symbol (frightening), while others
have made accusations of Fascist politics (disheartening). I like to imagine
that Nebraska’s Plack Blague receives far fewer inquiries. Decked from head to
toe in studded leather, Raws’s project stands out as a one-man industrial / EBM
powerhouse, mixing the energy (and draw) of a dance party with the aggression
of industrial and power electronics. What the Daily Nebraskan calls
“scandalous,” Raws calls “100% in-your-face homoerotic!” Moving beyond
spectacle, Plack Blague is “basically forcing any audience to interact with a
gay man. […] All [the] songs are about homosexual interactions, people, and
personal experiences.” His willingness to mix threatening aesthetics with humor
draws on the absurdist nature of noise itself, juxtaposing what is too often a
staunchly serious genre against theatrical performance. “I’m a constant target
for ridicule from the general public,” Raws admits, “which is a constant
reminder to be more gay than ever.”
Straight Panic
This desire to engage the audience is a
driving force for many queer artists, among them Brooklyn’s Michael Foster (the
New York Review of Cocksucking, the Ghost). Foster describes his own
improvised/free jazz as a “conscious effort to present more overtly queer
work.” The driving motivation is a mixture of a “response to the lack of queer
visibility in various experimental music scenes,” as well as “a personal
challenge to come to a more embodied and autonomous concept of my own queer
identity and practice in relation to my work.” Foster echoes Ramirez-Matzus and
Plack Blague when asked about any political nature his work may or may not
have. “I think it’s impossible to make apolitical work when we live in a highly
politicized society,” Foster continues, stating that “I see being queer as
radical because it rejects the heteronormative concept of binary
sexuality/gender/etc., in favor of something that is personal, indeterminate,
fluctuating, and autonomous while (hopefully) promoting a concept of
compassion, sensitivity, and community that defies basic categorization.”
Michael Foster (Photo by Peter Gannushkin)
This notion of community is what led me to
connect with two “rising stars” of the contemporary scene. Forbidden Colors
(Enrique Hernandez, San Francisco) and Dreamcrusher (Luwayne Glass, NYC) have
both received a fairly impressive amount of coverage in their own cities in
relatively short time periods; both are queer people-of-color, and both tend
towards an abstraction of dance music. I’ve had the pleasure of getting both on
a compilation (Trigger Warning, FMLR 2016), and Forbidden Colors is also on a
double-cassette, four-way release with Richard Ramirez, Body Stress, and
Straight Panic (Deviant, Moral Defeat 2016).
Forbidden Colors, Black Leather Jesus, Straight Panic, Body Stress - Deviant. (Split Cassette Moral Defeat- 2016)
Their shared confluence of identifiers
continually informs the work they create, especially in a live setting. Where
Forbidden Colors sets the stage with “Santeria Candles, field recordings, and
‘found footage’-style video, […] physical interaction with the audience using
empty PReP bottles,” Dreamcrusher is much more visceral on a tactile level. “I
feel that because my music is so aggressive, and my stage presence is
confrontational, that it makes me and what I make innately political and queer
driven.” Glass explains, “No matter what, this body is under constant scrutiny
and observation. Sometimes it overshadows how I express myself and why.” That
level of scrutiny drives the physical confrontation that has made Dreamcrusher
shows infamous, however. “When people see me setting up to perform, they have
these set up stereotypes in their head—whether they have merit or not—that I
know white queer noise people never have to deal with. Finding commonality with
other queer folks gets grayish because of that, but other trans*/genderqueer
performers I know get misgendered just as often as I do.” Hernandez is equally
as conscious of the way in which audience perceptions taint ability and talent:
“I feel like it’s necessary to give another narrative to the predominantly
straight, white male gaze that is so common within a lot of extreme music. […]
Being queer is a political stance. As a queer latinx person, I feel like my
projects are another channel to vent my frustration and feelings regarding our
current climate.”
As is often the case with extreme and
experimental art, the confines of the physical body have long served as a
source of inspiration and frustration. From Vito Acconci’s Seedbed to Chris
Burden’s Shoot, to the body modification of Australia’s STELARC, the physical
boundaries of the body have often served as a veritable playground for artistic
expression and exploration. Transgender artists are no exception, and
understandably so. Without minimizing anyone’s experience, there remains a
strange postmodern element to the social/cultural understanding of Body
Dysmorphic Disorder. Eames Armstrong (D.C./Brooklyn) has been treading similar
strange grounds with their mix of ritual harsh noise and performance art
wherein they’ll “often do actions that are blatantly about
gender—chest-binding, make myself a cock out of whatever, and sexuality—stick
stuff in my pants or in my mouth, take off my clothes, get bound up, leak
fluids. […] It’s ultimately about reinforcing the body as a process of coming
together, falling apart, reconfiguring, collapsing, becoming and becoming. I
came to making noise through a more body-based performance practice so it’s no
surprise that my work is shaped by and against the particularities of my
physical and social body.” Though Armstrong is just as wary of being labelled a
“Trans* Artist”: “There is a danger in
reading work simply through perceived aspects of a person’s identity—it runs
the risk of really missing what the person is doing or saying in favor of a
simpler more stereotypical interpretation.” Their aversion to initially
identifying as trans* was, understandably, informed by the fear that the
identity “would function as an endpoint explanation of my work, even if it
really was a big influence[.]”
In regards to sheer frustration, however,
Sonia Dietrich (BRUT) holds nothing back, in either her work or her
motivations. Though, as far as her work as BRUT is concerned, being “political”
is less an aesthetic than a way of life in as much as one “can be queer but only
on this spectrum, you can be an activist but only to ‘this’ point. You can fuck
who you want but don’t talk about it. It’s the ‘I have a gay friend, I am cool,
I am an ally’” mentality. “[M]ake people uncomfortable, you are too much,”
Dietrich says. “No one wants to hear about the history of gay rights and that
nothing really changes and that politics are moving backwards.” Arguably, in
contemporary America, the argument she makes is difficult to dismiss.
For-profit prisons, militarized police, police brutality, and rising tides of
fascist activity all make for a rather bleak landscape, especially for people
who already find themselves on the margins of “polite society.” While
openly/primarily a project focused on women and women-identified people, BRUT stands
proudly as a statement of political intent. Dietrich is pretty straightforward
with the admission that she’s “just fucking angry! […] I think the accurate
answer would be that there is a choice to be queer and political and dedicate
life to the resistance, speak up and fight back. […] But one thing has to be
clear, to them you are still different.”
Part II: Interior, Noise Show
“The oppressed are allowed once every few
years to decide which particular representative of the oppressing class are to
represent and oppress them.”—Karl Marx
The date is March 28, 2015. After much
positioning, ideological arguing, and pleading, Straight Panic is finally set
to perform at a queer arts’ space in Minneapolis. Despite a seemingly stacked
bill in an underground space, most of the meager audience turns out to be
staples in the noise scene, and hardly any of the general LGBTQ+ crowd that
normally attend their themed dance parties. The space makes their money back,
the hosts are pleased by how polite and accommodating the audience is, and by
all accounts, the show is a success. I wonder what they were expecting
otherwise. More so, I wonder where my intended demographic was.
The high profiles generated by G.L.O.S.S. and
Laura-Jane Grace (Against Me!) are tentatively inspiring. Seeing a basement
show packed with queer and trans* kids is a welcome change from basements of
predominantly straight white men clad in black (no offense, noise bros). After
G.L.O.S.S. played Minneapolis in late 2015, I noticed that more trans* people
began slowly showing up in my own audiences. Once a space had been made, once
people saw that they were just as welcome as anyone else in the “underground,”
then they began to feel comfortable enough to venture out to shows. I won’t
claim that all of them understood (or enjoyed) the shows, but a few were struck
enough to talk to me afterwards, and a couple even picked up some tapes. The
general consensus I was able to gather from these limited interactions was that
Straight Panic was an affirming, empowering project that gave queer audience
members a sense of belonging, strength, and power. As an artist, that kind of
conversation is worth more than any merch sale.
Sonia Dietrich (BRUT) is not far off though,
when she points out that “it’s a two-sided stick. Queers don’t come out to
performances in fear of rejection or ‘persecution,’ but promoters don’t invite
them, or just stick to the typical fifteen bands they have on [rotation]. And
what do we get? Same festival […] in different countries of same bands
promoting new albums or old once reissued.” When the acts are aggressively
queer, the audience tends to follow suit; or at least logic would seem to imply
as much. Perhaps, by its nature, extreme music is continuing to “queer the
pitch” by being difficult and challenging. On the face, the whole notion sounds
discriminatory, but the notion of “queer spaces for queer bodies” is still
valid. Over the week of Mardi Gras, three transwomen of color were murdered in
a 48-hour period in New Orleans; eight transwomen of color have been murdered
this year alone. Mike Pence is Vice President, and queer people all over
America are watching with bated breath as their newly acquired strides towards
recognized social equality waver in the political breeze. Or to put a different
spin on it: Some male-oriented gay bars
still have what are known as “Berlin rules,” wherein certain hours/days/rooms
are only accessible to men. The issue isn’t one of misogyny, but rather one of
community—a space apart from the general melting pot of society to connect,
interact, or unwind.
I’m reminded of a story, relayed anecdotally
to me by Dolores Dewberry. Hirsute Pursuit performed in Minneapolis, MN during
PRIDE week 2013. Despite being a pretty straightforward industrial project, where
the beat is very front and center, I remember the utter dejection that came
with her admission that the show was under-attended, and generally ignored or
maligned by the queer community (which is superficially shocking, considering
how highly the Minneapolis “leather community” regards itself). What is it that
makes a drag show and beer bust (weekly occurrences) more intriguing than
supporting actual queer art? Safety? Predictability? Comfort?
Sean Ramirez-Matzus (A Week of Kindness, Black
Leather Jesus, An Innocent Young Throat Cutter) has a similar story from his
own performance history. “[Richard Ramirez] and I did an Obsession performance
at a famous leather bar that was, in the eighties and nineties, a big part of
the Houston industrial scene. Dream gig for us. It did not go over well. At
all.” The admission seems, initially, like the expected outcome (what with it
being Texas and all), but shouldn’t queer spaces be more open to queer art,
regardless of its easy digestibility? Compared to Raws’s (Plack Blague’s) own
performance last year at the Eagle Tavern in San Francisco, as part of the
“Folsom Street Fair Pre-Party,” the case could be made that it’s less the type
of bar than it is the geographic location. Raws admits that he never thought
Plack Blague “would even be considered […], and it really showed that gays want
interesting entertainment and more than just pop stars and boring DJs.” Or at
least they do in the Bay area.
Black Leather Jesus (Live at Hospital Festival, NY)
I remain unconvinced. The Minneapolis
EagleBolt liked to brag that it was a leather bar, but every time I put Slayer
on the jukebox they’d skip the track. The usual music of choice? Broadway showtunes. My own efforts to book
Plack Blague, operating on the assumption that the prestige of the San
Francisco Eagle would be enough to influence the Minneapolis EagleBolt, were
met with the delayed, disinterested response of “we don’t really do shows.” To
be fair, Minneapolis does not want for venues, but there’s a certain allure to
being able to perform in a gay bar, when you’re a gay artist. Somehow the adage
about leading horses to water seems, while appropriate, also inverted.
Even stranger still is the fact that almost
every queer artist I know is very aware of the early influences that queer
people had on electronic music, experimental music, the avant-garde, techno,
etc. Kenneth Oblivion (Contact Low) has been making self-described “doom
electronics” in Montana, and asserts that “[queerness has] always been a part
of the scene. From Jhonn Balance and [Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson], to
Richard Ramirez, we’ve always been here and we’re not going anywhere anytime
soon.” COIL, Throbbing Gristle, Patrick Cowley, Merce Cunningham, even the most
mainstream of all, David Bowie, were all not only innovators and influencers in
their stylistic fields, but openly queer, and more than willing to play with
gender roles and sexuality for the sake of their own art. So where’s the
audience, and does it matter?
Contact Low - With You I Shall Fear the Light No More.
There is no real, definitive way to escape
internalized bias, but each and every artist I spoke to at one point or another
agreed that visibility was important, if not a driving factor. For our own
sense of self-worth, for the sake of the “scene,” for our art, our sanity, our
integrity. People hate “posers” and “sell-outs,” and claim to laud
“authenticity,” but just as often, the case could be made that such statements
are nothing more than empty value signaling, easy buzz-words to let other
people know that you are, in fact, “authentic,” “legit,” “TRVE KVLT.”
Maybe the question really is one of geography.
Enrique Hernandez (Forbidden Colors), based in San Francisco, seems to have
“found that the queer community has been very supportive, not so much your PRIDE
Inc., but [..] the punks, weirdos, faeries and drag queens, and High Femme
Synth Sisters. As I stated before, I live in a very special place (the Bay
Area) that lets the queer community grow; this includes a very fertile
experimental and noise scene.” Granted, the Bay Area has always been known as a
place for both queer people and experimental art, but even Alaskan Andrew
Schmitt (MISANDR, Lord Ennui) agrees that “there is a growing support base for
queerness in extreme music[.] That said, the larger opposition to queerness in
extreme music has also grown much more vocal and visible in recent years.”
Angel Marcloid (Pregnant Spore, fire-toolz,
and many more) points out that people are more conscious of scene diversity
these days, “and not only that, they are seeing it as important to try and
include queer people (and people of color for that matter).” The conflict,
however, is “hyper-focused […] negatively by some, and positively by others,
but we are still others. We are still special, we are still oppressed, we are
still something else other than regular-ass human beings.” There aren’t any
mental gymnastics required to understand the complications by being shoved to
the extreme end of a spectrum. Especially in a field which is often (correctly
or not) described as a “Boy’s Club.” Marcloid describes her own experience,
while not wholly hostile, as one of more casual identity redefinition. “Even
though I am a trans girl, and I present very femme,” she explains, “I’ve
experienced more male privilege in the noise scene than I’ll ever be
comfortable with. […] I can show up to a show decked out in makeup and a slutty
skirt, and people will still call me ‘bro’ because they think that’s what makes
me comfortable. They want to let me know they’re cool with me.” The fine line
between condescension and respect blurs, but whether or not there’s malicious
intent seems almost too complex an issue to define on anything but a
case-by-case basis. Unfortunately, that’s not how political power works.
Angel Marcloid (Fire-Toolz)
Minus a couple of bad reviews (quality, not
content), Straight Panic has had very little in the way of a negative response.
My affectionately dubbed “noise bros” are mostly white, straight, cis men, and
be it due to political ideology or nihilism, none have cared that I’m a self-identified
faggot. Is this luck? Is my acceptance due to the fact that I “pass” as
straight? That I’m butch enough? That I’m talented enough? Or am I really just
an overly critical, high-strung fag, lounging in shock art? How come I never
get angry street preachers, Nazi skinheads, or bona fide bigots at my shows? Am
I too loud for them to bother, or am I too “underground” for them to notice? At
this point, I’d be happy to perform with Brethren, if just for the potential
for some genuine conflict.
Straight Panic
Luwayne Glass (Dreamcrusher) seems to share my
concerns that “most harsh noise fans [don’t care if a performer is queer],
which also poses a problem when it comes to misgendering and tokenism
especially.” Even more troubling is the shared sense that “most queer organizations
are just as bad as Urban Outfitters or Ivanka [Trump]. Placating to, being
docile, submitting to, or assimilating to white straight norms just enough to
sell, but still attract a queer audience to fawn over you, [for the] the sake
of money and fame. Oldest story in the book.” Though, we both agree that we
have our spaces, even if they aren’t as culturally visible as The Advocate or a
spot on Logo: “The queer people and
organizations I fuck with are like me,” Glass admits, “in that I will never
dumb down who I am or what I do. I would be in utter shock if OUT magazine
asked to do a shoot with my crazy ass, but then I’d ask them to triple the
check[.]” Considering how many straight, white, celebrity men have been on the
cover, I’d say they could easily afford the tab.
“After I started doing more overtly queer
work, there was some pushback from straighter elements of the scene, but it’s
led me to seek out (or create) more open environments, communities, and avenues
for my creative and curatorial work,” Michael Foster (The New York Review of
Cocksucking) says. “For example, I do not book ‘straight white guy bills,’
because that’s not an environment that I want to be in socially, creatively, or
promotionally, so this means I have to push myself to become acquainted with
more diverse artists whose work I like. […] I’ve made some minor efforts in the
past to get LGBTQ+ publications to advertise some events but never with any
success.” Having said that, however, the recently established “Queer Trash” series
of improvised music, free jazz, and electronics that Foster has been organizing
has gained traction, as well as an audience from both inside and outside of the
noise underground. After relocating from D.C. to NYC, Eames Armstrong is more
than happy to relay that “I am super pleased that one of the first shows I’ve
played since being here was the wonderful Queer Trash series.” Such a report is
inspiring, especially when compared to an earlier event in D.C. where Armstrong
“did a noise set with a friend at a queer film festival party—we did a shitty
cover of a song from Les Misérables (“I Dreamed a Dream”) and we got booed and
shouted at, cut off, but mostly ignored. I sort of get it; this was like a fun
love-fest dance party situation and they didn’t like us screaming and making a
mess […] they just wanted to dance to a recognizable beat, not be confronted
with whatever the fuck we were doing, loudly.” When faced with such an
audience, I say set the house P.A. to eleven.
Relevant Links to artists featured in the article.
Richard Ramirez - https://richardramirez.bandcamp.com/
Black Leather Jesus - http://blackleatherjesus.blogspot.com/
Straight Panic - https://straightpanic.bandcamp.com/
Plack Blague - https://plackblague.bandcamp.com/music
https://soundcloud.com/plack-blague
Michael Foster - https://michaelfoster.bandcamp.com/
Forbidden Colours – Enrique Hernandez - https://forbiddencolors-seithcommuniti.bandcamp.com/
https://ehernandezmusic.bandcamp.com/music
https://ra.co/dj/ehernandez
Dreamcrusher - https://dreamcrusher.bandcamp.com/
Eames Armstrong - https://eamesarmstrong.com/About
Sonia Dietrich (BRUT) - https://sonia-dietrich.squarespace.com/
G.L.O.S.S.- https://girlslivingoutsidesocietysshit.bandcamp.com/
Against Me – Laura – Jane Grace -
http://www.againstme.net/
Hirsuite pursuit - https://www.facebook.com/Hirsute-Pursuit-183178768761/
Sean Ramirez Matzus - https://seanematzus.bandcamp.com/music
Angel Marcloid - https://angelmarcloid.com/
Fire-Toolz - https://fire-toolz.bandcamp.com/
Contact Low - https://contactlow.bandcamp.com
