American Queer Life: How Culture Saved a Little Gay Boomer Boy: Music
For my series on how the arts affected a little gay boomer boy in rural Colorado, this time I would like to focus on music.
According to faded, 50s photos, I did a mean Elvis imitation, strumming my Mickey Mouse guitar, gyrating and singing “Hound Dog” in red suede shoes (not blue). This proves I possessed both the dancing and fashion genes.
I inherited my sister’s 45rpm collection. If I had known Dusty Springfield, Leslie Gore, and Tab Hunter were queer, how different life would have been. Regardless, a vinyl addict was born, and I lovingly added 60s hits to my aural treasure.
At her garage sale, my mom sold the stack of about 200 for five bucks. The history of rock ‘n’ roll for five bucks! That lucky bastard got “She Loves You” (1963), my first Beatles song. I heard the iconic Yeah-Yeahs on a scratchy, tinny transistor radio driving a tractor on my uncle’s farm. Paul McCartney’s sublime beauty made teen girls swoon and me lightheaded. I loved the music of Jackson Browne, Kenny Loggins, Davy Jones, Jim Morrison, but their beauty would, as Jim sang, “light my fire.”
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In junior high, I used to play my Aunt Rose’s electric organ, sort of a mini-Wurlitzer. Something about the vibrations of the low chords pleased me. I would discover sophisticated vibrations and heightened pleasure with Walter Carlos’ ground-breaking Switched-On Bach (1968), performed on the ingenious Moog synthesizer. She—in 1972, Walter became Wendy—introduced me to two lifelong musical joys: classical compositions and the synthesizer sound.
Transgenders were also the subjects of faves: “Lola” (1970) by The Kinks (which still confuses me) and “Walk on the Wild Side” by Lou Reed (1972). Their titillating tales tell of seedy locales, deviant denizens, and forbidden desire. Oh, how I longed to discover these kindred spirits.
In college, I learned to love Broadway musicals, Hollywood movie scores, jazz. I learned a lot at an off-campus site: the Apartment, Denver’s gay bar of the ’70s. Feeling strangled by the straight world, I could breathe deeply on its dinky dance floor. Providing terpsichorean delights were Marvin Gaye, Gloria Gaynor, Al Green, Eddie Kendricks, Gladys Knight, the Ohio Players, Otis Redding, Sly and The Family Stone, Three Degrees, Barry White. But a new world order was on the horizon. All that passionate soul music provided a natural segue to my tribe’s burgeoning genre: Disco.
Dance music and clubs revealed excitement and adventure. Eventually, that 10-year-old vinyl addict grew into a passionate club DJ with a vast collection of 12-inch singles and remix subscriptions like Disconet and Razormaid. I was in heaven, a lifesaving respite from the chaos of the early ’80s plague.
A number of bands had gay members: Culture Club, Bronski Beat, Soft Cell, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Dead or Alive, REM, Pet Shop Boys, Erasure. My heroes include:
Patrick Cowley: Composer, performer, producer, Cowley practically invented synth-pop. Every dance tune then and now includes bits of the innovative standard he created with “Menergy” and “Megatron Man” (both 1981).
Sylvester: Cowley’s cohort soared with hits like “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” (1976) and “Do You Wanna Funk” (1982). He made history challenging the gender game before it had a drop down list, and as a first tier artist with a major label, Warner Records. I inherited an autographed photo dedicated “To the players at the Ballpark, thanks for the space and all the love and support, Sylvester.”
Divine: Identifying as a gay man, he performed as an outrageous drag queen with fabulous style and versatility. Though he sang with a guttural, five-note range, his unapologetic “Native Love” (1982) was pure nasty, slutty, bitchy, butch hotness. I was working at the Fairmount Hotel in downtown Denver when Divine performed an AIDS charity event at Mammoth Gardens (now Fillmore Auditorium). I scored him a complimentary suite and had many raised eyebrows the next day at work.
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ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” (1976) morphed into the gay man’s de facto anthem, and the Village People into ironic ambassadors of good will, both a bit too gooey for me. I preferred the grittier, Grace Jones drag queen performing at The Anvil, an after hours dive on 14th Street in New York. The facsimile, lip-synched hot hits in bad makeup and tacky costumes, no less fun and serious than the original, but within a secretive and trashy, queer ambiance.
Hard to believe Devo, Blondie, and The B-52s were once considered revolutionary. I liked punk/new wave as retro alternatives to disco, eventually countering their wacky, saccharine aftertaste with the nihilism of Depeche Mode, whose “Shake the Disease” (1985) I adopted as my personal anthem. After all, it was the era of AIDS. Cowley, Sylvester, and Ricky Wilson of The B-52’s all succumbed to it.
The last vinyl 12” single I bought was Lost Vagueness by Utah Saints (2001), a fitting coda to my first purchase, Magnafique’s eponymous “Magnafique” (1979). Both pulsate with the deep, lush synth sound that resonated within me so long ago on Aunt Rose’s organ. Fifteen years later, I would sell my vinyl library of about 2,200 records (for more than five bucks).
I spray-painted my 40-year-old dancing shoes red, Stan Smiths so not suede. But, unlike that little boy who gyrated to Elvis alone, when I hear an old favorite like Donna Summer’s seminal “I Feel Love” (1977 ) through the glossy bliss of nostalgia, I am dancing at 5:oo a.m. surrounded by friends and sweaty men, the collective heartbeat of my tribe celebrating its joyful, holy rites.
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