The Sound of Queer Music, Vol. 4

Here's the latest in my series of blog entries featuring LGBTQ musicians. It's all about the sights and sounds of talented people fucking with the heteronormative cultural bias in some quietly breathtaking and flamboyantly splendid ways.

Well-Strung. They're an all-male singing string quartet. The sound is classical meets Top 40, covering everything from Mozart and Vivaldi to Rihanna and Lady Gaga. And the adorable quotient is kinda off the chart.

Well-Strung
From the left, Christopher Marchant, Edmund Bagnell, Daniel Shevlin & Trevor Wadleigh

Here's their mash-up of Mozart's "A Little Night Music" and Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone." If you can't find something to like here, there's a real good chance you're a curmudgeon.

You can find their YouTube channel here and a pretty good article about them here. The music is on iTunes.

Extra Fancy. Led by openly gay and HIV+ frontman Brian Grillo, this post-alternative punk band made two damn good (but largely unappreciated) albums in the late 1990s.  Grillo has a commanding presence and a great voice -- thankfully, he never resorts to the kind of screaming vocal work you typically find in this genre. He was superbly supported by bassist D.A. Foster, guitarist Mike Hateley and drummer Derek O'Brien.

Extra Fancy lead singer Brian Grillo.

The video for the band's most successful tune -- "Sinnerman" -- regularly appears and disappears online, but you can hear it below. Grillo's aggressive swagger is wildly effective, but it's his lusty voice that gets me every time.

I became curious about Brian Grillo recently, hence the inclusion of Extra Fancy on this list, and decided to see if I could find out what's going on with him these days. He lives in Los Angeles, still performs occasionally, and is a sexy fiftysomething dude who can still rock the house. Here's your proof. Both Extra Fancy albums are available on iTunes.

Zebra Katz. His real name is Ojay Morgan. He's ambivalent about being categorized as a queer rapper, but had this to say to UK's The Guardian in May 2013: "Creating a strong, black, other, queer male is something that really needed to happen because you don't see that often, especially not in hip hop. But it's terrifying standing up as a queer man. People are getting attacked all over the world, but you have to use your sexuality as a tool, instead of having them use it against you."

Zebra Katz

His formidable single, "Ima Read," made a big impression last year when it was used at a Paris fashion week show. Featuring guest vocalist Njena Reddd Foxxx, the track exploded, in large part due to it's repetitive use of the word bitch. Says Katz, "It's seen as a very misogynist word in hip hop, but we're trying to numb it." The song is deceptively minimal, requiring a bit of explanation to really understand. It's an homage to New York's voguing and drag culture scene immortalized in the 1990 documentary, Paris is Burning. In that context, the phrase "Ima read" means to cut someone down to size by flexing your bitchiness. Here's the creepy, menacing and visually striking video for "Ima Read."

The Zebra Katz website is here. His music is on iTunes.

Tom Goss. This native of Kenosha, Wisconsin spent his high school and college years as a wrestler. After a brief stint as a teacher, he moved to Washington, DC and entered a Catholic seminary in 2004. He abandoned his quest to become a priest and started playing music in DC coffeehouses.  That led to recording and music videos and appearances all over the country. While building a dedicated national following, this very busy guy even managed to find love and get married in 2010.

Super-cutie Tom Goss

Goss is an unabashed romantic, known for his songs about love, but recently he made a departure from pensive pop ballads to record an ode to gay bears. The video was an instant hit.

Check out his YouTube channel here and his website here. All his music is available on iTunes.


John Grant. Sometimes you discover a musician that just moves you in some remarkable way. Like John Grant. He used to front the Czars, a Denver-based alternative rock band, but when every member of the group departed, Grant was left solo. I admire the Czars, but I love John Grant. His first solo effort, Queen of Denmark (2010) was filled with smart, evocative, autobiographical angst. I wondered, Could he get any better? Happily, yes. His latest album, Pale Green Ghosts, is filled with some deeply personal stuff and surprising arrangements. Wisely, Grant's rich, caramel-coated voice is always above the mix, where you can hear the wry, painful or bitter lyrics. Grant's been out for years; in 2012, he publicly acknowledged that he's also living with HIV.

John Grant

One of several standout cuts from Pale Green Ghosts is "GMF," which features Sinead O'Connor singing backup and a bridge (beginning at 3:10) that's just one of the most lyrically exquisite things I've heard all year. And don't worry, you'll know exactly what GMF stands for about a minute into the song. Here's the video, which follows Grant around for a day, presumably a day not long after a break up.

John Grant's music is on iTunes. Check out his YouTube channel here.

Peace out,

David

Avoiding Tired Old AIDS Queen Syndrome

Over the past couple of years I've seen this easily recognizable biohazard symbol...

... appear in some unexpected places -- like the bodies of other gay men.

Including gay porn performers...

Treasure Island Media's Ethan Wolfe

And at least one gay porn company has incorporated the symbol into its logo.

The biohazard symbol dates back to 1966. It was created for Dow Chemical Company by environmental-health engineer Charles Baldwin as a means of designating "containment products" -- biological materials that carry a significant heath risk.

The first time I ever saw the symbol tattooed on a guy's body, I thought, "Oh, he's probably got HIV." I eventually did a Google search for biohazard tattoo and Ask.com convinced me I'd probably jumped to the right conclusion.

What does a biohazard tattoo symbolize?

Answer

A bio-hazard symbol tattooed on someones body could have several meanings but it is a very common tattoo used among gay men who are HIV Positive. Depending on the individual, it is a warning sign to potential partners, a sign of strength that they are dealing with the illness, or a discreet way to find people who have the disease in common with them. However, not everyone who has a bio-hazard tattoo on themselves is gay or HIV positive, many people have gotten the tattoo just because it has a personal meaning to them or they enjoy how it looks.

(It's a good thing I don't work for Ask.com. I'd be correcting grammar all day.)

Then I wondered if there was a real gay man with HIV who'd ever explained his own tattoo to a media outlet. Another Google search turned up this two-minute CNN video from 2011. Description: Michael Lee Howard, like many HIV-positive men, lives with a biohazard tattoo. He explains the significance of this "ink."



All this got me thinking about my own journey with the virus...

I was infected with HIV twenty years ago; June, 1993, a couple of days after my birthday. Yes, I know exactly when, where and with whom. There has never been an ounce of comfort in knowing... because knowing exactly has meant that I can relive it, turning it over and over again in my head until I want to take a hatchet to the memory. I'd rather be one of those people who couldn't recall the specifics of getting infected if their life depended on it.

My father died of esophageal cancer barely two weeks after I seroconverted. My mother succumbed to lung cancer a year and half later. If they had lived longer and known I was positive, I have no reason to believe they would have been anything but supportive. But many times I'm relieved they never had to witness the toll HIV has taken on my body, my career and my mental health. When I eventually got around to telling my siblings, my sister, a nurse and college professor, said, "I love you; please don't shut me out of your life over this." My brother's only comment on the matter was, "Man, I always thought you were smarter than this." Well, so did I.

Even though HIV has been inside me for two decades, I've lived with it much longer -- three freakin' decades. I started working at CNN in the summer of 1983, around the same time that the mainstream media began its dangerously maladroit reporting on the epidemic. I remember the first time I saw something about it. I was sitting at work reading the Associated Press wire stories in preparation for my shift and there was an article about how this thing that started as "gay cancer," and then became known as GRID (Gay-related Immune Deficiency) was now called AIDS -- Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. I shuddered; it felt like my lungs had collapsed. I scrolled past the story, but my brain delivered a chilling synopsis: I'm barely out of the closet and I've had sex with exactly one man. What does this mean? Shit. 

And then people started dying -- the famous, like Rock Hudson, and the friends, like Darrell, a guy I had known since first grade. They weren't beautiful deaths, like Ali McGraw in Love Story. They were horrible, slow motion departures that came one after another, made all the more excruciating by fervid judgment. I vividly recall a news report in which the leader of a Christian organization cruelly and casually remarked, "Well, as far as we can tell, this disease is killing all the right people."

AIDS was everywhere in the '80s and '90s -- the news, magazine covers, TV shows and movies (Beverly Hills 90210, thirtysomething, Designing Women, An Early Frost, Parting Glances, Longtime Companion, And the Band Played On). It came to dinner with friends. It wandered around my eccentric pal Aubrey's annual Easter egg hunt. AIDS hung out at the bar. And it cast a shadow over every sexual encounter. Sometimes you knew who was positive because it was painfully obvious, or because they just told you. And sometimes you found yourself sucked into gossip about who has to have it because, you know, he's slept with everybody.

I remember hanging out with my mom on a day off  back in 1985 when she turned away from All My Children and said, "I'm afraid I'm going to get AIDS." I gingerly explained to her how that was not possible. I'll never know if maybe all she was really looking for that day was some kind of reassurance that her gay son wasn't going to get it. A few years later, the most heated argument I ever had with my boyfriend of two years, Tom (circa 1987-89), was whether or not to get the test. I said, "Isn't it better to know?" He said, "What could you do about it if the test is positive?" That was not an uncommon point of view at the time.

Unless you lived through that period, you simply cannot possibly imagine how pervasive AIDS was, or how hopeless things felt. And because I worked at CNN, it was literally impossible for me to escape the daily onslaught of stories. Sadly, the network eluded excellence on the subjects of HIV and AIDS, embracing a frequently irresponsible, overwrought style that regularly made me queasy. Yeah, I was there when one of our worst anchors went all bug-eyed for the camera, clutched her copy and exclaimed with hysterical urgency, "The AIDS virus has been found in tears!" I was also there in '95 when Olympic diver Greg Louganis revealed that he'd been HIV-positive during the '88 Seoul Olympic Games. To me, the story was: Here's an athlete under enormous pressure to compete and win (with the entire world watching) while simultaneously living with HIV and taking the first (and very toxic) AIDS drug, AZT. He suffered a concussion after hitting his head on the springboard during preliminary rounds, but went on to win the motherfucking gold medal anyway. CNN chose to frame the story differently: Greg Louganis cut his head and bled in the pool and we don't really know what that means, but we're just gonna go ahead and imply that he endangered everybody who got into the pool afterwards, you know, because he's got HIV. By this time, I'd really had enough, so I summoned the spunk to tell the supervising producer that we needed to change the way we were reporting the story because HIV is no match for thousands of gallons of chlorinated water. I reminded him that it was 1995, not 1985, so any doctor or scientist from the CDC could confirm that fact. He changed the story. Next shift, different producer, the story went right back to being all about the cut, the blood and that goddamned pool.

When I tested positive in 1993, the first thing I did was get the test again. Sometimes you just have to slap denial in the face, hard. Then I went to an infectious disease specialist who immediately prescribed AZT, the only approved antiretroviral drug for HIV at the time. I said no. Everyone I knew who took that drug was already dead or desperately ill (which makes the Greg Louganis story even more remarkable to me, frankly). The doctor said, "If you're not going to take this medication, then I don't even know why you came here." So, I never went back to see him. Instead, I volunteered at several AIDS service organizations and surrounded myself with all things HIV. Know your enemy. I became a peer counselor, a peer group facilitator, a safer sex educator, a workshop creator, and an expert on disclosing my status before sex -- and yes, I continued to have my fair share of sex. I chose, however, not to disclose my status at CNN. It wasn't safe to do so; that was my judgment call. (Side note: I am bewildered by people who won't shut up about liberal bias in the media. It's bullshit. Newspapers and newsrooms are filled with people from all corners of the political spectrum. For a period of time, I was supervised at CNN by a guy who voted for Pat Buchanan in the 1992 Republican presidential primary. Seriously. He didn't like the fact that I was gay and he certainly wouldn't have been okay with me having HIV.)

I was gone from CNN by the end of the '90s. It was difficult to abandon a career in broadcast news -- something I'd wanted ever since I watched the first episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show as a kid -- but I sincerely believe it would have killed me to stay in that business. You see, I progressed to AIDS in roughly four years. Why? Was it the stress of working in an environment with insane deadlines and crazy hours? Was my body simply unable to juggle the virus, a demanding career, a relationship and an intense schedule of volunteer commitments? Should I have taken the AZT? Did I wait too long to start combination therapy once the drug "cocktails" arrived? If HIV has taught me anything, it's that you can't change a second of the past. I've learned to live with my decisions and navigate the consequences as best I can. I've definitely fucked up a few times, but I've also made a bunch of smart choices.

So, I carved out a niche for myself in HIV/AIDS work and stayed busy writing dozens of articles, facilitating workshops and serving on committees and boards. I met thousands of people living with HIV and got emails from readers all over the world. I was asked to do more -- a blog, PowerPoint presentations, panel discussions, podcast interviews, TV appearances. I'm not even going to pretend that I didn't consider becoming a famous gay poz dude that would eventually end up chatting with Oprah, but I just didn't have the energy for it. I walked away from it all in 2008, choosing to focus on running a non-profit spirituality organization for gay and bi men for a while, and enjoying a sweet, three-year relationship with an adorable cub named Greg.

Now, somehow, it's 2013 -- thirty years since the first time I heard about AIDS and twenty years since my own infection with HIV. I made it to my 50s and reinvented myself more times than Madonna.  I've lived long enough to see one of my HIV meds go generic, to read articles about "the graying of the epidemic," and to witness the release of an Oscar-nominated AIDS documentary called How to Survive a Plague (2012). Over the past few years I've read multiple blogs written by newly-infected gay guys half my age who are promoting a new adage about living with HIV: it's all good. I confess that I wince a little bit when those bright-eyed, self-assured bloggers advise everyone not to worry because it's all manageable now, the drugs are better and everyone with HIV is going to live an average lifespan. Surely it will be better for their generation. I genuinely hope so. I just can't forget that it's been pretty devastating for mine -- innumerable deaths, discrimination, stigma, and that first wave of drugs that kept a lot of us alive but ravaged and disfigured our bodies in all kinds of unexpected ways while simultaneously elevating our lipids and spiking our blood sugar. Some, (okay, many) of us probably have Post-traumatic stress disorder. Me? I desperately want to avoid becoming a Tired Old AIDS Queen who waves his arms and shouts, "Hey, you HIV kids! Get off my history!"

Here's the thing. Right now, to me personally, it feels like there's a huge paradigm shift happening around gay men and the virus. It's feeling more and more like testing positive is becoming an acceptable, inevitable rite of passage. Get it. Get over it. Get on with your life. If I could illustrate what I think is happening with a meme or JPG, it might look something like this:

This is one of my Facebook friends. 
At first I thought he was being ironic. Now, not so much.

So, finally, that brings me back around to this phenomenon of HIV-positive gay men tattooing biohazard symbols on their bodies. I think it's... curious. And a little troubling. I mean, I LOVE tattoos, but I'm still wrestling with the fact that the symbol stands for toxicity, contamination and danger. As a means of communicating your HIV-positive status to someone else with HIV, I don't think a tattoo is a surefire shortcut. On the other hand, if it starts a conversation that gets everybody on the same page before sex, I'm all for it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I really need to go find a biohazard-tattooed poz dude half my age and have some raucous... um, intimacy. It might be the only cure for Tired Old AIDS Queen Syndrome.

Peace out,
David

Planetary Video Mixtape #3

Another in my series of video mixtape blog entries...

Here's a handful of artists/bands I've happily discovered, but that haven't garnered much attention in the U.S., yet. The set up: I pick five, but only one can originate from the United States. Enjoy!

Slowolf. That's the stage name of producer and singer Andreas Asingh. There's very little info out there about him, but his Twitter and Facebook pages declare that he's "rising from the cold north of Copenhagen."

Slowolf (Andreas Asingh)

I fell in love with the first single I heard, "Dance Floor," a successful mix of metal, hip hop and dream pop that features iconic rapper Raekwon. Killer hook, terrific video.




Disclosure. These south London brothers started out making music in their bedrooms a few years ago.

Disclosure -- Howard (left) and Guy (right),  the Lawrence brothers

Fusing a handful of musical styles -- garage, house and soul -- they managed to concoct a gorgeous dance single, "Latch," with the help of guest vocalist Sam Smith. The video is like sensual icing on the cake.




The Ruby Suns. In the event that you can't think of a single indie pop band from New Zealand, here's one. The Ruby Suns have been around since 2004 when Californian Ryan McPhun moved to Auckland and hooked up with local musicians.

Ryan McPhun, frontman of The Ruby Suns

The Ruby Suns have a glistening, eclectic sound and McPhun's voice is a perfect fit. Seriously, get over to iTunes or Spotify and listen to this band. In the meantime, enjoy "In Real Life, a swell electro-pop single from their fourth album and its goofy video, which features McPhun playing all the parts in a parody of reality competition shows entitled Are You Good at Something?




Fucked Up. Hailing from Toronto, Ontario, they've been around since 2001. You're either going to love this band's name, or dismiss them simply because of it. You're either going to like the fact that they're unapologetically punk, or you won't. Fact is, Fucked Up is a great band. In 2009, they even won the Polaris Music Prize for producing the best full-length Canadian album. The award is based on artistic merit, regardless of sales, genre or record label.

This is Fucked Up. That's lead singer Damian Abraham in your face.

And this is what Damian Abraham usually looks like when he's performing...

Damian Abraham routinely performs shirtless.
You're either turned on by this, or you're not. I am.

In 2011, Fucked Up released their critically acclaimed third album, a rock opera entitled David Comes to Life. And here's the video treatment for one its songs, "Inside a Frame," featuring an emotionally charged choreography session for a punk dance crew.




John Fullbright. This singer/songwriter hails from Okemah, Oklahoma, the birthplace of folk music legend Woody Guthrie. Fullbright shares some of Guthrie's gifts, so make your comparisons. Hell, you might even hear echoes of Tom Waits or Neil Young in his music, too.

John Fullbright

After a 2009 live album, Fullbright released his first studio recording (From the Ground Up) in 2012. It received a Grammy nomination in the category of Best Americana Album. Considering where he was raised, it's not surprising that some of his songs are sprinkled with Biblical allusions. The surprise is that fan favorite "Gawd Above" is sung from the perspective of the deity Himself.



Peace out,
David

Planetary Video Mixtape #2

My second stab at the concept of a mixtape blog, in which I present some artists/bands I've happily discovered, but that haven't garnered much attention in the U.S., yet. The catch: I pick five, but only one of them can originate from within the United States. Enjoy!

Father Tiger. From their website: Father Tiger is a modern indie synthpop duo with a love of vintage analog synthesizers and everything mid-century modern. Having grown up on opposite ends of Los Angeles county, members Greg Delson and John Russell now both reside in Hollywood, where they met in 2005 at audio engineering school.

John Russell (left) and Greg Delson (right) are Father Tiger.

I accidentally discovered them last December when they released their second EP, Winter Solstice. It contained a terrific tune entitled "On Christmas Day," but the real pop gem of the collection is "Head Hung Low." Fortunately, it's been released as a single with a knockout video. Also, Delson delivers the chorus at fever pitch, so here are the lyrics in case you miss a line.

Well enough is enough 
I may have broken your heart
But I never did anything to rip it apart
Told you my doubts right from the start and oh
I never cheated or messed around 
Or spread my love all over town
I gave you my all baby that's a fact
Please tell me what's so bad about that
I know that you're sad that it's over but even so
I'm tired of walking with my head hung low
With my head hung low




Frightened Rabbit. They've been around since 2003, but I only discovered this Glasgow, Scotland band last year as they gradually released singles from their fourth studio album, Pedestrian Verse. The restrained urgency of their folk-rock style has really grown on me.

Frightened Rabbit (lead singer Scott Hutchison is on the left)

Their music videos always veer off in some unexpected direction, and this one for "Backyard Skulls" is no exception. How great would it be to have Frightened Rabbit perform at your homecoming dance or prom? Well, at least one person at this high school likes the idea.




Japandroids. I discovered this Canadian duo last year when they released their second album, Celebration Rock. The "semi-factual promotional biography" on their website claims that "Japandroids are maximal -- a two-piece band trying to sound like a five-piece band" with "the boys ripping off too many different bands to sound like any other duo making music right now."

Japandroids -- David Prowse (left) and Brian King (right)

And here's the video for their damn fine rock anthem, "The House That Heaven Built," a song that's been named the entrance theme for the Vancouver Canucks professional ice hockey team.




Dry the River. If you've been paying attention at all the last few years, you already know that folk-rock has made a huge resurgence the last few years -- and the best of it (to me, at least) is coming out of the UK.  London's Dry the River released their debut album, Shallow Bed, in 2012, and it's a shimmering mix of spiritual/religious imagery, tribal grooves, melancholy nostalgic glow and boisterous shifts in mood.

Dry the River

Here's the hauntingly peculiar video for "No Rest," one of the best tracks on the album.




Passenger. In the early part of the last decade, UK's Passenger was a critically acclaimed five-piece band. But when the members chose to go their separate ways in 2007, singer/songwriter Mike Rosenberg opted to stick with the Passenger moniker and do his own thing.

Passenger, aka Mike Rosenberg

He sounds a little bit like the love child of Cat Stevens and Macy Gray, and his earnest, world-weary music has a certain charm and discernable streak of optimism that may bother folks who prefer their angst straight up. I had trouble deciding which video to show you, but finally settled on this live performance video of a fan favorite, "I Hate," from his latest album, All the Little Lights. Even nice guys can be cheeky bastards sometimes.



Peace out,
David

Planetary Video Mixtape #1

As 2012 drew to a close, I mentioned that I was flirting with the idea of changing up the format of this blog a bit. Every once in a while I just feel like posting music videos rather than mixing them in with the latest movie trailers, queer comedy, and the never-ending public displays of political and religious insanity/hypocrisy happening on a weekly basis. So, this is my first stab at the concept of a mixtape blog, in which I present some artists/bands I've happily discovered, but that haven't garnered much attention in the U.S., yet. The catch: I pick five, but only one of them can originate from within the United States. This week, diverse sounds from Israel to Duluth, Minnesota. Enjoy!


Asaf Avidan. He's an Israeli singer/songwriter and musician that recorded a couple of albums with a band called Mojos.

Israeli folk-rocker Asaf Avidan

No one really paid much attention outside Israel until a German DJ named Wankelmut remixed Avidan's "Reckoning Song" from a 2008 album and this cheap, but effective video hit YouTube in the summer of 2012... where it now has over 74 million views. The splendid remix obviously struck a chord.




The Young Professionals. Also known as TYP, this Israeli electro pop band consists of producer Johnny Goldstein and singer/songwriter/producer Ivri Lider.

TYP. That's Johnny Goldstein, left, and Ivri Lider, right.

In 2011 these guys remade a Eurodisco track from 1979 -- "D.I.S.C.O.," originally a hit for French duo Ottawan -- and took it all to the next level with a brilliantly goofball video.




Trampled By Turtles. It's a damn shame that there will be people who dismiss this Duluth, Minnesota, band as soon as they find out their sound is a mashup of indie folk, alternative country and bluegrass.

Trampled By Turtles; lead singer Dave Simonett is front and center. 

Slip outside your musical comfort zone and give 2010's "Wait So Long" a fair listen. It's fierce and sweet and wise all at once. Lead singer Dave Simonett has a helluva voice, but I'm guessing that face has prompted some swooning, too.




The Wilderness of Manitoba. According to their Facebook page, the five Canadians behind this band have agreed to call their sound "chamber folk/alternative." A music critic for Time Out
Chicago characterized it as "totally modern yet captivatingly anachronistic at the same time." Yup, I agree.

The Wilderness of Manitoba

Their latest single is "Morning Sun," a shimmering beauty that's eerily reminiscent of Crosby, Stills & Nash. They've married it to a perfectly winsome little video, too.




Professor Penguin. Despite the scale of their seven-piece line-up, this UK band's sound is masterfully intimate, placing lead singer Jonny Abraham's lilting, folksy voice front and center in their delicate (but dynamic) compositions.

Professor Penguin. That's ginger lead singer Jonny Abraham with his arms folded.

Here's the video for "Pirate," one of the singles from their 2012 debut album. It's a beauty of a song, elevated by Abraham's disarming style and some dreamy countryside visuals.