Friday, June 24, 2011
MaddowBlog featuring the Marriage Equality Vote in NY
Watch it now at http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/
Monday, June 20, 2011
20th Anniversary Year for Boys' Entrance
It was 20 years ago that I first traveled to San Francisco and visited my friend Jon Ginoli. Jon had just returned from our old stomping grounds, Champaign/Urbana, Il. where he had just recorded the first Pansy Division demos. Jon first knew me as the boyfriend of one of his fellow DJs at WPGU radio- the campus radio station at the U of I. I had demos for my band, Talltrees in rotation at the station. I believe I was the first queer musician Jon ever knew. We both worked together at Discount Records and I think at Record Service too. We also worked together at The Bar, where I worked the coat check, and he spun records. And yes, Jon and I briefly "dated". Improbably, that started after a few cocktails and seeing Ultravox at Mabels Nightclub.
I sat on Jon's bed and he played me the demos- and I just laughed and laughed. We both did. The songs were so funny, and baldly in-your-face. It was the shock of the NEW! Even though I had never been in a closet as a musician, it was Jon who showed me a different way of writing. He really tore away the ambiguous pronouns and cloaked meanings. He put it out there. He wrote about "The Cocksucker Club". I actually contributed a small lyrical change to that song. He wrote about doing it in "your parent's King-sized bed". I said, "No, that should be changed to "Queen-sized bed". We laughed some more and he agreed. Later he re-recorded the lyric with my change.
As soon as I got back to Chicago, I was driving West on Belmont Ave. and I drove past a school with these words carved in stone above the door, "Boys Entrance". I thought to myself, "that sounds like a band I should be in." Soon thereafter, I found a keyboard that could record sequences. It enabled me to layer parts together in pre-production for the first Boys' Entrance album, "Exit or Entrance". I recorded it and released it in 1991.
The first album has never been released as a cd, and I am very excited to announce that I am re-releasing it as a 20th Anniversary edition later this year. It feels like a fitting bookend and commemoration of Boys' Entrance.
I will also be recording new material with Mike Ferro and M@ Ramage for release as a single or as part of a compilation album. So watch and start spreading the word. It is the 20th Anniversary of Boys' Entrance!
I sat on Jon's bed and he played me the demos- and I just laughed and laughed. We both did. The songs were so funny, and baldly in-your-face. It was the shock of the NEW! Even though I had never been in a closet as a musician, it was Jon who showed me a different way of writing. He really tore away the ambiguous pronouns and cloaked meanings. He put it out there. He wrote about "The Cocksucker Club". I actually contributed a small lyrical change to that song. He wrote about doing it in "your parent's King-sized bed". I said, "No, that should be changed to "Queen-sized bed". We laughed some more and he agreed. Later he re-recorded the lyric with my change.
As soon as I got back to Chicago, I was driving West on Belmont Ave. and I drove past a school with these words carved in stone above the door, "Boys Entrance". I thought to myself, "that sounds like a band I should be in." Soon thereafter, I found a keyboard that could record sequences. It enabled me to layer parts together in pre-production for the first Boys' Entrance album, "Exit or Entrance". I recorded it and released it in 1991.
The first album has never been released as a cd, and I am very excited to announce that I am re-releasing it as a 20th Anniversary edition later this year. It feels like a fitting bookend and commemoration of Boys' Entrance.
I will also be recording new material with Mike Ferro and M@ Ramage for release as a single or as part of a compilation album. So watch and start spreading the word. It is the 20th Anniversary of Boys' Entrance!
Sunday, May 29, 2011
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
The stories we tell ourselves are the myths we come to believe about ourselves and the world around us (Is the actually a World around us?).
When I was a boy and was forced to go to Boy Scout camp, where there was a myth about the Polliwog Man. I was terrified. I was especially terrified because one day I was walking along a path, and the plants beside the path rustled. I crouched down, and reached out. I parted the plants to see what was doing the rustling, and there he was, looking much like the Creature From The Black Lagoon- THE Polliwog Man! I screamed and ran. Camp from then on, was a place of panic and fear, and separateness.
My imagination was that powerful. The myth, conjured for me was that potent. The reality was palpable. For me, the Polliwog Man existed, and I told my troupe leader so. I am sure he thought I was too far gone to be helped. I was likely a burden to him. I am certain he wanted me gone as much as I wanted to be gone. Sometimes, the irrational beliefs of the visionary/touched/not-right make others wary, cautious, or just plain annoyed.
Now at the age of 54, I am writing about this for the first time. I can do so because I am fairly certain the Polliwog Man does not exist, and because I think there is something real in this story which speaks to the role of fantasy, delusion, myth, and magic in our lives. It is a tangled ball of string to me, my life, my perceptions- the real, the un-real. I have attempted not to judge it- allow myself to be "special", to entertain magic in my life. But internalizing it for 42 years has complicated the magic. It darkened. The memories are mired in thought and interpretation. I still see his face in the brush, clearly; but there are 42 years of strata piled on top of the image. Beneath it all are feelings of wonder and terror.
When I was a boy and was forced to go to Boy Scout camp, where there was a myth about the Polliwog Man. I was terrified. I was especially terrified because one day I was walking along a path, and the plants beside the path rustled. I crouched down, and reached out. I parted the plants to see what was doing the rustling, and there he was, looking much like the Creature From The Black Lagoon- THE Polliwog Man! I screamed and ran. Camp from then on, was a place of panic and fear, and separateness.
My imagination was that powerful. The myth, conjured for me was that potent. The reality was palpable. For me, the Polliwog Man existed, and I told my troupe leader so. I am sure he thought I was too far gone to be helped. I was likely a burden to him. I am certain he wanted me gone as much as I wanted to be gone. Sometimes, the irrational beliefs of the visionary/touched/not-right make others wary, cautious, or just plain annoyed.
Now at the age of 54, I am writing about this for the first time. I can do so because I am fairly certain the Polliwog Man does not exist, and because I think there is something real in this story which speaks to the role of fantasy, delusion, myth, and magic in our lives. It is a tangled ball of string to me, my life, my perceptions- the real, the un-real. I have attempted not to judge it- allow myself to be "special", to entertain magic in my life. But internalizing it for 42 years has complicated the magic. It darkened. The memories are mired in thought and interpretation. I still see his face in the brush, clearly; but there are 42 years of strata piled on top of the image. Beneath it all are feelings of wonder and terror.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
GAY ROCK star vs. gay ROCK STAR?
The shows that I did with Boys' Entrance in 2010 and so far in 2011 have gotten me to start thinking and reassessing. This is the twentieth year of Boys' Entrance, a period where I single-mindedly pursued rock music for gay people. I wanted to provide music and lyrics that spoke to our unique perspectives, needs, and experiences. But I have been feeling increasingly bridled.
In college, I took a creative writing class (got an A+!). The course taught me, "Write What You Know". That dictum has been my guiding light throughout my musical career. The course taught me that even in the intensely personal is a universal message, and that is the lesson I have clung to even as I spilled my guts on the most personal details of my life.
That was made easier by the thought that I was speaking to people like me first and foremost. The straights were incidental. But I did find that my music did cross over occasionally and some straights did pick up on it. I was blessed to work with straight friends who helped me produce the music I heard in my head. I am so grateful to those straight-but-not-narrow allies: Tom, Greg, Glass, Jeff, Vojo, Kurt, and Larry.
Here's the thing. I am feeling that what I want now is to be thought of as a gay ROCK STAR, more than a GAY ROCK star. The sound Mike Ferro and I are producing is ROCK. Yes, it is steeped in androgyny- like any good GLAM band is. But it ROCKS. Frankly, mos gays are not into it. They are made to believe they should be into dance and pop- or maybe that is what they actually like?
It has always been so. Broadway queens, Disco bunnies, House honeys, Techno twinks. It has always been so. There too have always been queens who rocked: Little Richard, Freddie Mercury, Elton John, Rob Halford (and countless closet cases and near-Missies).
I will not change my pronouns. I will not change my content to fit it. I am only changing my self-definition from GAY ROCK star to gay ROCK STAR.
In college, I took a creative writing class (got an A+!). The course taught me, "Write What You Know". That dictum has been my guiding light throughout my musical career. The course taught me that even in the intensely personal is a universal message, and that is the lesson I have clung to even as I spilled my guts on the most personal details of my life.
That was made easier by the thought that I was speaking to people like me first and foremost. The straights were incidental. But I did find that my music did cross over occasionally and some straights did pick up on it. I was blessed to work with straight friends who helped me produce the music I heard in my head. I am so grateful to those straight-but-not-narrow allies: Tom, Greg, Glass, Jeff, Vojo, Kurt, and Larry.
Here's the thing. I am feeling that what I want now is to be thought of as a gay ROCK STAR, more than a GAY ROCK star. The sound Mike Ferro and I are producing is ROCK. Yes, it is steeped in androgyny- like any good GLAM band is. But it ROCKS. Frankly, mos gays are not into it. They are made to believe they should be into dance and pop- or maybe that is what they actually like?
It has always been so. Broadway queens, Disco bunnies, House honeys, Techno twinks. It has always been so. There too have always been queens who rocked: Little Richard, Freddie Mercury, Elton John, Rob Halford (and countless closet cases and near-Missies).
I will not change my pronouns. I will not change my content to fit it. I am only changing my self-definition from GAY ROCK star to gay ROCK STAR.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
"David Bowie Is Dead"
David Bowie is Dead c 2010 Tim Cain
David Jones lies in repose
On his chaise in his New York flat
A neural-jack clipped to his brain
The first such permanent connection
Of a comatose rock star and the Internet
On Bowienet again today
No Re’pondez, s’il vous plait
There’s nothing more to say, but
David Bowie is dead
His holographic self accompanies his wife
Down carpets red, and flashing lights
Collect his image pale and white
The transmissions are exhausting
So he requires a lot of rest
On Bowienet again today
No Re’pondez, s’il vous plait
There’s nothing more to say, but
David Bowie is dead
There’s been a lot of buzz
That the Spiders might regroup
If the programming is successful
Dave and Ronno’s holograms
Backed by Trevor, Woody and Mike
On Bowienet I read today
“Virtual Reality Tour” has been announced
The tour need never end, though
David Bowie is dead
Need I paint a vulgar picture?
One compilation disc too many
“An extra track and a tacky badge”
Though a tour seems a bit far fetched
Stranger things have happened
On Bowienet again today
The announcement finally made
“The Spiders Rise Again” though
David Bowie is Dead
David Jones lies in repose
On his chaise in his New York flat
A neural-jack clipped to his brain
The first such permanent connection
Of a comatose rock star and the Internet
On Bowienet again today
No Re’pondez, s’il vous plait
There’s nothing more to say, but
David Bowie is dead
His holographic self accompanies his wife
Down carpets red, and flashing lights
Collect his image pale and white
The transmissions are exhausting
So he requires a lot of rest
On Bowienet again today
No Re’pondez, s’il vous plait
There’s nothing more to say, but
David Bowie is dead
There’s been a lot of buzz
That the Spiders might regroup
If the programming is successful
Dave and Ronno’s holograms
Backed by Trevor, Woody and Mike
On Bowienet I read today
“Virtual Reality Tour” has been announced
The tour need never end, though
David Bowie is dead
Need I paint a vulgar picture?
One compilation disc too many
“An extra track and a tacky badge”
Though a tour seems a bit far fetched
Stranger things have happened
On Bowienet again today
The announcement finally made
“The Spiders Rise Again” though
David Bowie is Dead
"David Bowie Is Dead"
Dear Readers,
This is not actually the case, but virtually the case, that David Bowie is dead. It is how I feel. His absence is palpable, more than at any time in his career- that is life. It feels like David Bowie is dead to me. I am experiencing a similar kind of grief- believing that there may never be another transmission from his mind.
This is the genesis for my song, "David Bowie is Dead". The song is a sci-fi homage to La Bowie. It explores the possibility that he is on the verge of breaking through a new artistic barrier (just as he was one of the first recording artists on CD). This time, he is imagined "on a chaise in his New York flat, a neural jack clipped to his brain, the first such permanent connection of a comatose rock star and the Internet".
Where as his last tour was called the Reality Tour, he is now being prepared to go on the Virtual Reality Tour- with Ronno. Has the technology progressed enough to keep the dying alive, and bring the dead back to life? In my song, it has.
I hope you enjoy it. http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_8157018
This is not actually the case, but virtually the case, that David Bowie is dead. It is how I feel. His absence is palpable, more than at any time in his career- that is life. It feels like David Bowie is dead to me. I am experiencing a similar kind of grief- believing that there may never be another transmission from his mind.
This is the genesis for my song, "David Bowie is Dead". The song is a sci-fi homage to La Bowie. It explores the possibility that he is on the verge of breaking through a new artistic barrier (just as he was one of the first recording artists on CD). This time, he is imagined "on a chaise in his New York flat, a neural jack clipped to his brain, the first such permanent connection of a comatose rock star and the Internet".
Where as his last tour was called the Reality Tour, he is now being prepared to go on the Virtual Reality Tour- with Ronno. Has the technology progressed enough to keep the dying alive, and bring the dead back to life? In my song, it has.
I hope you enjoy it. http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_8157018
Monday, April 4, 2011
Dorothy' Last Fling-Boys' Entrance{cover of chainsaw kitten's}
This is the first song we did at ABSOLUTE Fringe on Jan. 30th. The video was shot by my husband, Santos, but the microphone on the camera phone was overwhelmed by the sound. So there was a video shot of the second show on Mar. 27th, and Brett Basil took the audio and fused it to the video. Now we have a really cool video of this cover of one of my favorite Chainsaw Kittens songs, "Dorothy's Last Fling". I hope you like it.
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