Sta-Prest
Vespa Sex (1995)

A1. Rilly Bad Scene
A2. Vespa Sex
A3. Elbo Grease
B1. Double Your Chance for a Date
B2. Powter Choice

Another rip from a fantastic collection of 7″s that Abe Miner donated a few months back to help round out the Soul Ponies archive. Quality is not so great, but what can you do? When I get the ripping situation figured out (I think I’m going to have to break down and buy some more expensive gadgetry), I will repost. I promise!

[Download]
[Myspace]
[Wikipedia]

UPDATE: Abe Miner writes in with a great review of this record:

“I have to admit that I’m biased about this band, since they are one of my favorites to come out of the queercore movement of the nineties. Sadly underappreciated in their time (I feel), they are planning on releasing a cd of all their material soon, (tho I admit the release has been TBA for like three years, but hopefully it will come out before too long) Sta Prest, pronounced stay pressed, mixed sounds somewhere between 60’s garage rock and early seventies new wave like the Mekons and Television Personalities, They also weren’t afraid of making noise either, as can be seen by some of the more experimental tracks on this single. They formed a quirky original sound, definitely guided by their proficient used of the organ, which differentiated them from other bands of the movement. This is probably their most lo-fi record, and later releases would show them polishing up their sound a little bit, but i think this stands out as a great burst of originality that the queercore movement was all about. They were also one of the most vocal out and proud bisexual bands (besides God Is My Co-Pilot) to talk about their isolation even within the queer community, (check out ‘Double Your Chance for a Date’ for further proof.) Also one of the best parts of this band was their elaborate manifestos and artwork that accompanied their records, (which hopefully will be included on the discography). What can I say? Just a great fucking band that never really gets enough cred. Check them out!”

Limp Wrist
What’s Up With the Kids? (200?)

01 What’s Up with the Kids
02 Stabbed in the Back
03 Punk Ass Queers
04 Rainbows
05 Recruiting Time
06 Define

Hat tip, Punkabilly!

[Download]
[Myspace]

Cypher in the Snow
Blow Away the Glitter Diamonds From the Crown (1997)

Militia
Cigarette Picnic
Rent-A-Gash
Psycho March
Pirate Song
Femme-Kata
Tristen’s Revenge
Fake Flowers
Saccharine
Rock Opera
Circus Amongus

Hat tip to my soul ponies over at YoungCreature.net!

Abe Miner writes in to say: “This band has a great resume, former members of Blatz and future members of Harum Scarum. On the cover there’s a pic of the band on a pirate ship, which pretty much explains the music inside, ranging from old time sea shanty melodies to crustcore, and the roots of Harum Scarum are definitely planted here. Anna Springer of Blatz fame can actually SING, soul style, a good baritone that works well with the bands music. There’s a little bit of the Pogue’s influence, but instead of being Irish they’re crazy SF lesbians who play horns and banjos. Really original stuff, seems like great music to listen to while reading Kathy Acker. Standout tracks are ‘Militia’ and ‘Tristen’s Revenge’, but the whole thing stands up pretty well as a album. Like all queercore bands it seems, they were a tragically short lived band that thankfully left us some recorded documents of great music, a couple of singles and this full length are the only records they released. Good stuff!”

[Download from Smartyboots.net]
[Wikipedia]

Limp Wrist
Want Us Dead EP (2006)

1) Just Like You
2) What’s Gone Wrong?
3) Fake Fags
4) Want Us Dead

Hat tip, descargando rabia!

Probably my favorite Limp Wrist recording, short though it is. Some days I read too much of the AfterEllen blogs and I wanna get the lyrics to “Just like you” tattooed on my friggin’ forehead.

Speaking of lyrics, check them out here.

[Download]
[Myspace]

Photo by larrybobsf

I stopped by Goteblud zine shop on Saturday to check out the new Popstitutes show that was opening later that evening. Matt Wobensmith, the shop’s proprietor and former Outpunk zinester, was busy stapling and collating and putting a lot of love into thick stacks of paper that were being folded into one-off zines about the Popstitutes, a group of “three no-account gay barflies [who] decided to fight back against the rising tide of Reagan-era conformity, complacency, and consumerism by forming an agit-prop band.” Matt described his later teen years, spent hanging around the Popstitutes’ post-modern debacle/danceparty that was Klubstitute: “They let me in underage–I was 19–and showed me an alternative side to queer culture that I couldn’t have experienced anywhere else. Everyone performed there: Pansy Division, Tribe 8, all those random SF queercore bands that were just starting out at the time. The Popstitutes were ridiculous and participatory (they pulled people out of the audience and onto the stage to perform, sometimes it was awful and sometimes it was brilliant) and they were ALWAYS a great time. San Francisco hasn’t seem anything like it since and that’s a damn shame.”

Matt went on to talk about the influence that the Popstitutes have had on queer culture in San Francisco and nationwide. Their parties were home base for some of the most influential people in the queercore movement of the early ’90′s and dozens have (unsuccessfully) tried to recreate the chemistry of Klubstitute in San Fran and internationally. The Popstitutes also played with a ridiculously wide breadth of “straight” bands including MDC, Operation Ivy, and Gwar (!!!).

It was also clear from Matt’s descriptions of the time that countless queer musicians since then have (knowingly or not) attempted to pay homage to (or blatantly rip-off) Diet, the driving force behind the Popstitutes and so-called “task-master” whose attention to detail and innovation appear both in the beautifully recreated flyers that decorate the walls of Goteblud and in the crazy stories people relate about his performances.

Apparently, the Popstitutes have managed to stay a San Francisco secret due to their lack of recordings and the fact that few were writing them or Klubstitute up in the zines of the time. Matt’s show hopes to change that.

If you’re going to be in San Francisco on any weekend from now until May 29, 2010, you should stop by Goteblud and check out this essential piece of queer punk history.

[Goteblud]
[San Francisco Bay Guardian writeup of the show]

Knifed/Limp Wrist
Split 7″ (2003)

01 Limp Wrist – Message To The President
02 Limp Wrist – The Doe
03 Limp Wrist – Complex
04 Limp Wrist – Angry Queen
05 Limp Wrist – Does Your Daddy Know
06 Knifed – Fuck Dublin
07 Knifed – Burn Gravy
08 Knifed – My Cock Your Arse
09 Knifed – Wash Your Cock

Hat tip, Noise Not Music!

[Download]
[Limp Wrist Myspace]
[Interview with Mero from Knifed]

HOMOCORE was one of the first queercore zines, started a few short years after JDs began publishing. It was created by Tom Jennings and Deke Nihilson, both of San Francisco, who were influential in catalyzing the American West Coast queercore scene of the early 1990s. Notable characteristics of the zine were its inclusion of nearly all “letters to the editor” received by Jennings and Nihilson, as well as its anarcho-hardcore punk leanings, which often were more punk than lgbt-oriented. (See the 1,000+ references of Fugazi and MDC for some examples.)

Almost the entire zine and its history is available online for you to read/download/share at Jennings’ website. You should really head over there and check it out–in a few minutes.

In the meantime, I’d like to call your attention to two gems, specifically:

1. This photo of an anarcho-queercore “float” at Pride ’89 (HOMOCORE #5):

Copyright Daniel Nicolleta, 1989

Let’s look at a detail:

Is that GB Jones in her shitkickers, lookin’ all “I licked yer girlfriend’s cunt and I’ll kick yer ass if you so much as even breathe on me” while she flicks her cig in your eye? And those two dudes making out on the hood of this car–I sure hope that they’re into being poly, because I might just die if they don’t marry me.

I was obviously born ten years too late. THESE are my people; I was meant to be hanging out with them/off of that float. JEEZUS, LIFE IS SO UNFAIR!

2. Speaking of GB, she and kindred spirit Bruce LaBruce penned an epic article called “Don’t Be Gay, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Fuck Punk Up the Ass” for Maximumrocknroll, which HOMOCORE reprinted in all its glory in Issue #7. It’s basically a queercore manifesto that quite rightly calls punk rock out for its homophobia and sexism. You should read the first page here, and then head on over to Jennings’ website to read the rest:

[Read the rest here]

Did you see what they did there? How they placed punk in its place, historically speaking? (Some might say that they punked punk.) If you’ve ever gotten shit for being gay in the punk scene, this is required reading. Really.

HOMOCORE contains heaps more subversive, hilarious, and–mostly importantly–still relevant articles and artwork. You should check it out today and, if you’re in SF, grab a copy of your very own at Goteblüd–if you can.

Brilliant Colors
Highly Evolved 7″ (2009)

A. Highly Evolved
B. Takes So Little

Hat tip I Could Die Tomorrow

[Download]

The Quails
We Are The Quails (2001)

Yeah
No. 1
Come Around
Don’t Do That
Brighter
Taken
New Wave
Dream of the Quails
Watch Out Now
Waiting
Leave It Alone
Desperate Times
Words Can’t Go
Gut Feeling
Song for Kazue
Quail Season

[Download]

Bonus!

The Quails live in Houston, 2003:

Hunxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and the Punkettes

Went to see Hunx and The Punkettes, Brilliant Colors, and Gun Outfit last night at the Hemlock in San Fran. I usually hate going to see shows by myself, but the bands’ tight (or otherwise inspired) performances and a totally gay, wickedly rowdy crowd made for a really good time.

Olympia, WA’s Gun Outfit started out the night with some grungy mood-pop tunes. They totally owned their mid-90′s vibe and I was grooving on it, even if the crowd was still pretty dead at this point. (They were the opening act, after all.) Though they come across as quiet and shy (and maybe a little boring) when addressing the audience between songs, Gun Outfit was rude and powerful when their instruments were speaking for them. I’d recommend checking them out next time they’re touring near you.

Gun Outfit has put out some rekkids recently on PPM (home to other lo-fi dudes Mika Miko and Wavves). You can check out their empeethrees on HypeMachine, too, if you want.

Brilliant Colors played next and it was, well, brilliant. Of all the hyped up, all-girl garage groups that have been getting lots of digital ink lately, SF’s Brilliant Colors is among the best.  BC produces records that, in their purest moments, remind me of the joy of riding my bike through Bloomington, Indiana in early spring. (Young love! Bicycle grease! Warm air! Beers! 3 day weekends!) Their performance last night contained that same joie de vivre, and for approximately 30 minutes, I was in a summer fling quadrangle with the Brilliant lezzies, whether they knew it or not.

Of course, it is entirely possible that I am projecting my feelings for the crowd at the Hemlock onto Brilliant Colors’ performance. Because, while BC totally killed it, I doubt I would have felt the same way about their set had Brontez and his newfound homies not been cutting a rug at the front of the stage, inspiring all but the biggest asshole scenesters to dance in their pants.

Imagine!!!!! A rock show where people actually DANCE!! San Francisco, I find a new reason to love you every day.

Everyone was so amped on Brilliant Colors that we called for an encore. (And how!) How often do you see THAT with opening bands?

If you want to check out their sound or buy their records, I would encourage you to do so NOW before they break Top 40 and start getting so overplayed that you hate them without even knowing them. Because that’s the logical next step for BC. They rule.

Sissy bubble-gum punkers Hunx and The Punkettes took the stage next (and last). I had serious doubts that anyone could follow Brilliant Colors’ set, but I knew in my heart that if anyone could bring it home, it was Hunx.

Now, it’s no secret that Hunx is infatuated in a major with the girl group sound, so it’s only natural that he should eventually lead his own girl group, The Punkettes. Hunx and The Punkettes made their debut, having “barely practiced enough” by Hunx’s own admission. All the same, everyone went NUTS over the whole thing, right from the start.

They opened strong with Cruising and, for a band that wasn’t practiced, sounded really good. Hunx’s chemistry with his backing ladies was evident, and the whole band’s “fuck it, let’s party!” attitude was contagious. They got the entire crowd dancing right away, which (d)evolved into crowd surfing and a mosh pit towards the latter half of the show. Hunx, fueled by the trashy femininity behind him, camped it up, sashaying across the stage and sometimes forward into the crowd, whining and humping the stage a la “Like a Virgin” era Madge, and flirting shamelessly with hipster-hesher dudes in the audience. (When I say that The Punkettes were trashy, I do mean literally “trashy.” They all wore matching black, 30-gallon garbage bags, tailored to suit their styles. And it looked AWESOME.) All that style and sass while shaking a couple of light-up toy tambourines; Hunx was a sight to behold, like a John Waters short come to life.

There were some technical and personnel issues here and there–the smoke machine (at least, I hope it was a smoke machine) choked the tiny back room of the Hemlock to the point where I started to get a bit freaked out; Hunx vocals were too far down in the mix to really be heard for the first few songs; and towards the end of the show, the drummer got worked up and almost walked off stage, she was so overheated and thirsty. If there weren’t fuck-ups, though, it wouldn’t be punk, and lord knows that H&TP killed it in every other way possible.

Anyway, the band called it a night rather early. “Thanks for coming out you guys, but that’s it,” Hunx said as they band started to leave the stage. “We don’t have any other songs. Literally. Like, those are all the songs we know. So, thanks! Goodnight!” A cute but abrupt end to a sick night.

Hunx has approximately 38 sold out 7″ singles (or something like that), which have been collected into the Gay Singles LP, available through Matador. You can listen to his singles on your typeybox through HypeMachine. You may or may not being able to find a totally illegal version of Gay Singles on your typeybox, as well; normally, I wouldn’t point you to do so, but the LP isn’t available digitally anywhere else.

In the future, I’ll party with any of these dudes on a school night, for reals. Happy 2010 to ME.

Shitty photos to follow.

(Have more/better photos from last night’s show? Post in the comments! Relevant self-promotion encouraged!)