Queercore 101: Make Use of Your Ears
My friend requested I write something like a Queercore 101. Queercore is queer punk music. It was a movement credited to being started by Bruce La Bruce and G.B. Jones with their zine called, “J.D’s.” They wrote about how they had an awesome queer punk scene in Toronto to amuse themselves because there really wasn’t any other queer punks except for them and a few friends. However, the movement took off and boom. In the 90’s there was queercore everywhere! Queercore is about being against assimilation and heteronormalitivity. It’s about being gay, I mean really gay. Some of the music is still in print while some of it is really hard to find.
I found a site last night where to download some out of print, hard to find queercore so it isn’t lost to time. Some queercore stuff has been lost to time like the animated Green Pubes by Anonymous Boy. The website for rare, out of print downloads is: http://soulponies.com/. It’s an amazing reference to get your feet wet with queercore. Such classics on the site are Youth of Togay, Gayrilla Biscuits, Mukilteo Faeries, and Fifth Column. As well as some riot grrrl; Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear. I also found a link where you can download the Go Team! here.
Hey! Thanks for the shout out! Green Pubes is a rad short, btw–yre awesome for posting it.
You know what I realized recently? How closely the recent rise of Taqwacore mirrors the beginning of the queercore movement. Muslim punks, too, wrote about a movement before there even was one and found each other through their writing (these days it’s the internet, though, not zines). Then, when they realized that none of the bands referenced in the novel actually existed, they went out and created their own.
I’m loving the parallels….
That’s pretty awesome! I am kind of hoping there might be a second wave of the queercore movement. Right now, queer punks are few and far in between. I wish I was old enough to have been involved with the scene during the 90’s. Thanks for the awesome website!