‘In The Middle’ explores the long living relationship between the club world and queerness
Going out is like a social experiment – people put themselves on display, ruffle their feathers, strut their stuff and ogle at everyone and everything around them. Often the last addition and least concerning factor in the cocktail of clubbing is the music, so why should we notice if it is produced by a male, female, lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender?
Terre Thaemlitz, AKA DJ Sprinkles is a transgender club-land renegade, seeking to remove this passive listening and limb-shaking routine we all adopt in a club. The vapid, pounding drone of most of today’s so-called ‘deep house’, that has the genre’s forefathers turning in their graves, provides a suitable soundscape, but appreciation and intrigue is often lost as we bop to the beat. The roots of house and dance music have also been neglected: the style was primarily developed as a platform for social change; a means of escapism, but most importantly, expression for queers. (Being ‘queer’ is an umbrella term coined as a means to define individuals who don’t confine themselves to gender or sexual boundaries).
“There’s a historical connection between queerness and deep house” Terre Thaemlitz
It all started in 1970s Chicago, where pioneers of the genre toyed with tunes, giving rise to an experimental mishmash of dance and euro-pop music – house. ‘The Warehouse’ club – sounds familiar doesn’t it? – was opened by the Godfather of House himself, Frankie Knuckles, whose reinvention and reconstruction of songs into this bizarre ‘must-dance’ genre saw him as an artist, an architect and one of the leading DJs of the time. Larry Levan was a fellow forerunner, further developing the genre in New York, acting as inspiration for many younger DJs. More importantly, Knuckles was gay. He didn’t use the genre to display his sexuality, but merely produced the music to allow people to gather under a mirror ball ‘the one thing that keeps us sane… the one thing that calms people down’.
House music itself is a pick and mix bag of sweets: sometimes sexy, sometimes sentimental, erratically aggressive and often euphoric – the variety and blurred definition perhaps a representation of its curators’ sexuality. The uniqueness and ‘queerness’ of it, amalgamating English electro-pop, Italian disco and the US gay scene, meant that its popularity spread exponentially, in conjunction with the flourish of gay rights campaigns. However, as is often the way with these things, it began to turn ugly. Drug-infused bouts of violence and the onset of AIDS saw the scene cower under an androgynous, asexual umbrella, a more generic sound being heard across the globe as quickly as the 90s. 1997 brought the closure of Palladium, a New York mecca of gay nightlife. The same year The Prodigy released ‘Smack My Bitch Up’, and any inkling of dance music’s queer roots were all but erased: the style commodifying faster than you can say Hot Since 82. Arguably the asexual tone of the genre has done better at keeping it afloat than the gay community, the difference lying between culture conservation and radical creation.
Despite the loss of the fun, fear and fascination associated with house, the genre never died; something about the spangling titivation of timeless disco caught the attention of many. Nowadays, artists like Thaemlitz are fundamental in the reactivation of house music with meaning, incorporating lyrics addressing her own lack of sexual or gender association. Take the 2 Bears as well, a DJ duo consisting of two lumpy, straight cockneys, who rhythmically slur over techno twangs. A suitable recipe for a good groove, but combine their live shows with a troupe of scantily clad, glitter engulfed cross-dressers, and it becomes spellbinding. The 2 Bears can trade on this overt campness nowadays, but in the past it was all part of the package.
https://soundcloud.com/mis-shapes-hh/do-you-feel-the-same-feat-g
“As house turns into acid-house turns into techno and all of the sub genres, somehow queer folks slip out of the established narrative and disappear” Joshua Glazer
Other modern day pioneers like Beth Ditto, Laura Jane Grace and Lady Gaga are helping us revisit the adventurous queer beginnings, and remind us that not all of the curators are male. The world of the female DJ is very select, with only a few names of note. Throw in homosexuality and the pickings are slim. Paris is a forerunner for queer female DJs and Philadelphia is also recognized as a hotspot, but a unique style or revolution has not emerged as in the male gay scene. Similar to the demise of the male queer music scene, ‘Le Pulp’ – a Parisian club, fundamental in the lesbian DJ scene – was closed in 2007. However, rather than sheltering, the lesbian scene has only grown and strengthened, collectives forming to continue music production.
https://soundcloud.com/mich-le/antony-and-the-johnsons
Many of these DJs and musicians that identify as LGBTQ have had past struggles, be it personal or societal. The music acts as a voice for these issues, or merely as an expression of freedom, voice and ritual release, as Knuckles found it. Andy Butler of Hercules and Love Affair found childhood refuge in music – first tinkling on the ivories of a piano, and then stumbling across a Yazoo record, sparking a fascination with dance music, playing his first DJ set at 15. He is an openly gay man, and is also important in the revamp of queer roots, featuring vocals from transgender singer Antony Hegarty. A totally unique sound, perhaps this is the next stage of the morphing of house music?
Let 2015 instill wonderment and inspiration into the club world again.
[Flora Tiley]
Photo: dancityfestival.com