I was going to write a column about trendy names I heard at the recent South By Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, the big music industry powwow that alerts critics to what's hep.
I always dig the funny names bands come up with - monikers such as I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness, Shesus, Swearing At Motorists, God Drives A Galaxy, What Made Milwaukee Famous - witty titles that grab the eye. What do you suppose MC Trachiotomy raps about, if anything?
And DJ Mum's The Word: Do you reckon his is a very quiet set?
I also notice trends. Are bands coming up with similar names? This year, as with all previous conferences, I discovered bands all over the globe operating on similar wavelengths.
With names, I saw themes. See if you do.
Here's one batch:
Pretty Girls Make Graves
Graves At Sea
Scatter the Ashes
The Graves Brothers
A Place to Bury Strangers
Another:
Scientific American
I Love Math
Statistics
Schrodinger's Cat
Granted, it helps if you know your physics for that last name.
Maybe coincidence played a role, too. Shooter Jennings, the country-rock crooning son of Waylon Jennings, was in Austin performing. So was a band called the Wailin' Jennys from Canada. Unfortunately, the two acts were not at the same venue. Neither were the Catheters and the Urinals, though I suppose those two didn't need to be.
I decided to steer this column in a new direction after noticing the names of a few bands. These bands played at different venues, but have something in common.
The Butchies
The Fags
The Gay
Dykehouse
The names made me think of a few more bands, not at SXSW. The Queers, the Homosexuals.
Like the Fags, the Queers are a punky band, whose members, to my knowledge, aren't gay. The guys chose the name to be bratty, sort of like when grade-school kids call each other "queer" to be cruel.
The Homosexuals, a 1970s British punk band, chose their moniker to further alienate themselves from mainstream society. They wanted their fans to feel alienated, too. Saying "I love the Homosexuals!" the band reasoned, would be more cause for ridicule for the mohawk set.
Nowadays, however, bands such as the Butchies, a punky pop lesbian trio from North Carolina, wear the name with pride. The band is led by Kaia Wilson, who in the early 1990s co-fronted the pioneer "lesbo-core" band Team Dresch, which went on to inspire the riot grrrl movement in the Pacific Northwest.
Out of that fruitful feminist political and musical movement we got awesome tunes from Bikini Kill, Bratmobile and Sleater-Kinney, among others.
None of those bands' members would have a problem with being called a "queer." Or a "dyke."
Not Kathleen Hanna, the straight front woman of Bikini Kill. Hanna, who shacks up with Beastie Boy Adam Horowitz (Ad-Rock), went on to form Le Tigre with JD Samson, an out-and-proud lesbian. That band preaches feminist and queer-friendly politics backed by hot-rocking electronica beats.
Certainly Carrie Brownstein, the dynamic guitarist of Sleater-Kinney, wouldn't flinch at being called a queer. Brownstein, who is gay, is featured in this month's Venus, a chick-rock magazine, philosophizing about music and gay marriage.
I'm not sure of any of the SXSW musicians' political proclivities, but many were out-of-the-closet, including Fred Schneider and Keith Strickland of the B-52's, half of Denmark's lovable dance-club duo Junior Senior, folk-rocker Melissa Ferrick, former Come and Live Skull singer Thalia Zedek and the rootsy Michelle Malone.
Heck, the conference's keynote speaker was Little Richard.
And one of the three hot featured interviews at SXSW was with Ani DiFranco, who calls herself bisexual. As does Michelle Shocked, who also performed.
Joan Jett doesn't identify herself as a lesbian, but she performs frequently at benefit concerts for gay and lesbian causes and she did pose in the New York Times with a "Dykes Rule" sticker on her guitar. (Jett's guitar also had a sticker on it of Tinky Winky, the purple Teletubby that set off Jerry Falwell's gaydar.)
Don't get me started about queer folks' contribution to pop music, because I don't even have the room to mention Cole Porter, Elton John, Michael Stipe of R.E.M., K.D. Lang, bisexual David Bowie, Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys, Melissa Ethridge, Rufus Wainwright, songwriter to the stars and former 4 Non Blondes frontwoman Linda Perry, Janis Ian, the late, great and bisexual Dusty Springfield, Luscious Jackson drummer Kate Schellenbach, bassist Josephone Wiggs of The Breeders, folk singer Joan Armatrading, Beth Ditto of blues punks The Gossip, both Indigo Girls, bisexual Jill Sobule, Bob Mould and Grant Hart of the punk band Husker Du.
Let's not forget Boy George, Rob Halford of the heavy metal band Judas Priest, Liberace, Johnny Mathis, Freddy Mercury of Queen, George Michael, Morrissey, bisexual Me'Shell N'Degeocello, blues singers Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey (who had tempestuous relationships with men and women and sang about them), Jimmy Sommerville of Bronski Beat and the Communards, jazz composer Billy Strayhorn and Pete Townshend of the Who (who has said he is bisexual).
Those band names in the SXSW roster got me thinking about the word queer and the hip-hop world's reclamation of the "n-word." I used to not understand that.
But maybe reclaiming an ugly word - say, a nasty word used on the playground to hurt you - can be empowering.
For gay people, taking "queer," "fag," "dyke" and making the words your own can be a lot of fun. That has been our little secret until it got on TV. Some of us call each other those names daily.
Just like some black folks tease one another and use off-color names.
With our increasing visibility in pop culture - with television shows such as Will & Grace, Queer as Folk, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and now Showtime's The L Word, and with thousands flocking to get married in San Francisco - those epithets don't pack much sting anymore.
How much impact will the playground insult "You are so gay!" have in five years?
Growing up, I heard kids saying that all the time, as if it were a horrible thing.
Heck, in five years, that may be a compliment. It may mean, "Wow, Jose, you can really put a pair of khakis and Keds together!" Or, "Tina, your play area looks fabulous!"
When I was in grade school, calling another kid a queer was supposed to hurt, like calling someone the n-word. Comments like that came from kids who heard mean talk from the adults in their homes. Believe me, it made it hard for those of us who really were queer to love ourselves.
Years later, it feels pretty good to see a bunch of queers on TV and on the rock 'n' roll stage.
I like seeing Little Richard with the pompadour and the lipstick, now 68, getting his props at SXSW.
I like reading bold Carrie Brownstein, in a national publication, saying she thinks all marriage is a sham, but if gays and lesbians want to give it a shot, go for it.
The "q-word" stings less in this enlightened age. Think about that the next time you hear some idiot trying to use it in a nasty way. Or, heaven help you, before you might use the word negatively yourself.
Thank goodness, my two heterosexual parents, married until the day my mom died, had the right idea: Celebrate everyone for who they are. Honor everyone's fabulousness whether that person is a rock star or your next-door neighbor.
A Chinese proverb:
Tension is being who you think you should be.
Relaxation is being who you are.
Or as Little Richard once said:
A wop-bop-a-loo-bop, a-lop-bam-boom.
-- Gina Vivinetto can be reached at 727 893-8565 or gina@sptimes.com
