Muscle Bound
August was an extremely busy month. Every time I turned around, I found myself in a hot, sweaty, sold out nightclub or venue seeing yet another bitchin’ act. When I wasn’t doing that, I was observing Madonna’s 33rd birthday and the 14th anniversary of the death of Elvis (die same day), sleeping or turning 29-years-old myself. Wait, don’t worry, this isn’t going to be one of those “Growing up Gay” personal essays. Nope, not here, no chartered tour from my chicken’ beginnings to my nesting gay maturity. In fact, if you’re even looking for maturity, you’re barking up the wrong byline. At the age of 29, the only thing I wish to say about this “growing up” thing is that I will not be an adult until I weigh 200 pounds. Count on it. But I am wondering about one thing: After reading the cover story of the August SF Bay Times on the subject of gay men touching, in which an 18-year-young Ryan explains how it’s clear to him that when an older man comes up and rubs his super-attractive burr-cut it’s likely because he’s intimidated by the fact that Ryan is so young and relatively together or whatever. Yeah, whatever, but I bet dancing in briefs with a raging woody at Uranus has something to do with it, too. But my question is, Why do gay men of all ages do that to me? Oh yeah, intimidated by how relatively together I am at 29. But I don’t know, is that still young enough to be intimidated by? Boy, next time I rub a youngster’s burr head, I guess he’ll have my number. This attitude is as tired as a chorus of 100 mincing, snapping queens screaming in unison, “After 25, it’s all downhill, girl.” In fact, it’s the same damn thing! Make that 101.
Speaking of all that royalty, I can’t let it go unsaid that The King, Elvis Herselvis, put on one of her greatest performances to date at Klubstitute last month in a benefit for the Street Patrol. She’s gotten perfect, and so has her ever-growing bevy of lovely, screaming, fanatic followers, reaching complete hysteria with newsreel-perfect timing. Among her fans I discovered the beaming Kris Kovick, cartoonist/writer/hot butch top extraordinaire, who explained to me, “I went straight for Elvis.” Elvis— a.k.a. Leigh Crowe—was a complete ball of fire. Her moves have long been perfected, but now she throws them out with such fierceness the words world tour” flashed in my vision like an applause sign. Not only an adept performer, E.H. has a very special relationship with any camera that gets near her, kind of the way Elvis did with his many co-stars, starting with Ann Margaret. Check the recent issue of On Our Backs for proof on that notion. Elvis Herselvis is cover star, and a feature photo layout inside provides one photo that would probably give Bruce Weber hot flashes and make Chris Isaak jealous. All I can say is, Where’s David Lynch when you need him?
Had he been there that night he may have been even more captivated by God’s Girlfriend, in what may have been one of his first performances. Standing well over six feet and still wearing heels anyway, thin enough to be a Jerome Caja impersonator, clad in fishnets and a snug crushed red velvet mini-dress with a tall shock of bleached white hair obscuring half of his/her face, God’s Girlfriend completed this striking ensemble with an electric guitar. Ironically, the queen played the hell out of that accessory. Accompanied by recorded rhythm tracks and some Bauhaus-like vocal effects, her set was a captivating flurry of transvestite rock and roll. I then learned that this person is local poet/stripper Danielle Willis’ new love, and they live together in Redwood City where they sometimes attend suburban S/M swap parties. They get my vote for the couple most desired to reproduce! More on them later—they invited me to a barbeque sometime soon. EMF
The following weekend I went to the Warfield to catch a show by a band that my hardcore anti-pop friends give me lots of shit for liking, and I love them. I also think that their debut LP, Schubert Dip, is one of the best records of the year so far. The band is EMF, and basically they were great, so there. At times I don’t understand the quickness of one’s judgment on a band as a sellout corporate money-raking pack of soulless dickheads, a giant scam aimed at your wallet, etc., based on the fact that they have a very successful overplayed hit single. When Deee-lite was conquering the world with “Groove Is In The Heart” it was all lovey- dovey hippy queen wig power— there just wasn’t a nicer band in the universe and everything was just beautiful.
Yeah, right. When EMF’s single “Unbelievable” first started getting heavy rotation in clubs, I predicted with great relief, “Now maybe they’ll stop playing ‘Groove Is In The Heart’ all the flicking time.” No such luck, but EMF did go gold in America with the single and the album, and they were quite the darlings of the New Music Seminar in New York this year, opening their showcase with a recording made the night before of one of their members banging away with an over-zealous groupie in his hotel room. Because of the median age of EMF’s members (21 years), many comparisons to New Kids on The Block were made as soon as their record hit the airwaves, which couldn’t be rnore wrong. The two bands have little in common (except one queer member, I hear), and musically they’re worlds apart. EMF took the stage in a flurry of bad-white boys-with-dreads/extensions attitude and tore right into their latest single, “Children.” The very young crowd had already burst into motion about 15 minutes prier to this, so all hell broke loose with the advent of their tougher but perfect rendition of the song. Their entire set carried that one quality, everything sounded just right, like on the record, but just a bit tougher. “Here’s one that you’ve never heard before,” the vocalist said, slipping into “Unbelievable. The crowd turned into a churning, tumultuous mass of glee, that familiar bath of sweat and testosterone that I’ve come to adore over the years of concert going.
They did a slightly different take of “Unbelievable” for an encore, similar to one of the many existing remixes of the song from flip sides and what not, and a surprising cover of Cream’s “Strange Brew,” which was almost comical if given much thought. Their final song was unknown to me and included a chant led by the vocalist that went, “E...ecstasy, M...mother fucker, mother fucker, F,” I couldn’t get the rest, but I’m certain New Kids On The Block wouldn’t dare say a thing like that on stage. At one point during the encore, the vocalist mocked out a “La da dee da” straight from the hit single “Gypsy Woman” by Crystal Waters, which reminded me of my next stop of the evening, Colossus, to see her. I wandered out to Market Street and saw kid Rose standing outside. It truly was a night of a thousand stars.
COLOSSUS
Perhaps I should say a night of a thousand pecs instead, because that’s what it was like at Colossus. I figured the newly crowned queen of House music would be going on around 12:30~1:00, so l found a vantage point upstairs against the guardrail and staked my claim. I stood there through last call, then the bar shut off and it seemed like forever. In that time I became almost manic. I gazed down at the corner stage of the dance floor, and, after watching two muscle queens doing their shirtless, short pants mock butt-flick steroid dance/exhibition cum ecstasy stomp, I truly began to hate this facet of gay culture. I could just hear them talking on the phone earlier that day. “Do ya wanna? We’ll wear our littlest shorts. Why don’t we just go to the gym, work out and go from there all pumped up. The Ex? I’ll put it in my gym bag right now. It will be great, House music... allnightlong! Girl, I can hardly wait. Oh, wait, I almost forgot. I showered right next to Joey Stefano at the gym yesterday.” Squeals, goodbyes, click. Aaaaarrrrgh. I began to climb the rail as if I were going to jump, saying, “This house music is so fucking beautiful I’m gonna take it with me!” The people beside me certainly didn’t understand. I then expressed my complete dismay with waiting and watching this hideous display of vanity and narcissism to the guy behind me, who responded by feeling me up. Sorry, that wasn’t a come-on.
I then remembered that at the EMF show, before the band came on the audience started getting really squishy and packed. A surge of movement suddenly had a young man slam into me from behind full on, and the shift of the crowd insured his placement as semi- permanent. He said, “Dude, what are you wearing under there? You’re hard as a rock.” I said, “Just a simple bomber jacket,” and he countered, “Man, you must be a Marine or something.” Loved that, and take that you muscle queens at Colossus. A comment like that from a hot, probably straight, dude grinding against my ass, and I never pressed one pound at your gyms, sweating beside you under your bod-assessing gaze, to get this way. Nor have l had to watch you trim your pubic hair in the locker room or slather depilatory cream all over your highly bloated, falsely tanned International Male Wannabe bodies that make your tiny dicks swell so much you just want to jump back and kiss yourself every time you look in the mirror. I find it regrettable that I might not live long enough to watch your tits fall. And why is it that these queens take every opportunity possible to take their clothes off in public? It’s not like we haven’t seen their picture ads in the back of the B.A.R. Oh, sorry, I don’t mean to drag my sex worker pals down to this level.
Anyway, Crystal Waters came on, la de dee la dee dee da-ed and left, but I actually liked her small set. There was something about her semi-non glamour stance, and that darn song is quite a sociological can of worms to open, and it has opened many eyes internationally to a huge problem, bringing protest songs to an arena where protest doesn’t dare, an arena where people pay to forget about anything but pecs and ex. No wonder everyone who ran the show was dishing her big time afterwards for being a former parole officer or whatever she was before now. TIRED! I couldn’t wait to get home and slam that new Metallica CD in.
AND MORE
Now look, I’ve nattered on so much I hardly left room for the other shows I saw last month. I’ll have to sum them all up in one or two sentences. First, Shonen Knife at the I-Beam were perfect. Those three Japanese women were apparently hyperventilating backstage with nervousness before going on. They seldom play to a sold- out crowd, or a crowd larger than 100 people in Japan. Here in America, touring against the wishes of the husbands, they played a fine set to a fanatic crowd, giving a whole new fresh cultural take on rock and roil. To the hot, sweaty crowd they said, “In Japan we have public bath; it is hot in here like bath.” The crowd completely adored them, in a way similar to a crowd adoring the Del Rubio Triplets. How could you not like the Japanese version of the Ramones crossed with The Go- Gos crossed with The Shags crossed with The Beatles, etc. My favorite moment was their short version of “Godzilla” by Blue Oyster Cult. Maybe they are the greatest band in the world. Finally, I saw Smashing Pumpkins at the I-Beam, and, with the demise of Jane’s Addiction, I would venture to say that this band could very well be the next big thing in rock and roll. They shredded.
The Klubstitute: Well, well, well, it’s moving again, that nutty club of clubs. This time its new home is Brave New World on Fulton at Masonic, a fine new bar to look out for, and Klubstitute will convene there every Saturday starting September 14 with an all-star lineup including Connie Champagne, Bambi, Danielle “Hell~ Willis, Elvis Herselvis, Miss X and more. The date also celebrates the birthdays of Miss Fag Hag Ruby Tuesday (God love her), Remix Von Popstitute, and Tony Vaguely. Be there.
Female Trouble: I’m pleased to announce the return of Nancy Kravitz’s Female Trouble, the last Thursday of every month at Night break. This is the place where the girls go to rock and roll, respectfully the first place, I might add. I can’t wait to return to the groundbreaking dyke bar with a big heart, a lot of class, and killer live acts from the rougher side of girldom. Be there.
