Queercore

How to Punk a Revolution: An Oral History

Liam Warfield, Walter Crasshole, Yony Leyser, Liam Warfield, Walter Crasshole, Yony Leyser

• Publisher: PM Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781629637969
• eBook ISBN: 9781629638201
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Punk Music

Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution: An Oral History is the very first comprehensive overview of the movement that defied both the music underground and the LGBT mainstream community—queercore.

Through exclusive interviews with protagonists like Bruce LaBruce, G.B. Jones, Jayne County, Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, film director and author John Waters, Lynn Breedlove of Tribe 8, Jon Ginoli of Pansy Division, and many more, alongside a treasure trove of never-before-seen photographs and reprinted zines from the time, Queercore traces the history of a scene originally "fabricated" in the bedrooms and coffee shops of Toronto and San Francisco by a few young, queer punks to its emergence as a relevant and real revolution. Queercore gets a down-to-details firsthand account of the movement explored through the people that lived it—from punk's early queer elements, to the moments Toronto kids decided they needed to create a scene that didn't exist, to the infiltration of the mainstream by Pansy Division, and the emergence of riot grrrl as a sister movement—as well as the clothes, zines, art, film, and music that made this movement an exciting in-your-face middle finger to complacent gay and straight society. Queercore will stand as both a testament to radically gay politics and culture and an important reference for those who wish to better understand this explosive movement.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Extremely Forward Introduction by Lynn Breedlove and Anna Joy Springer
• Introduction by Liam Warfield
• 1 Wrecking Nerves Stonewall to CBGB (1969–1976)
• 2 Gloriously Wrong The LA Scene (early ’80s)
• 3 Nothing Was Sacred Vaginal Davis in LA
• 4 Faction Toronto’s “Fabricated” Scene (mid-1980s– early 1990s)
• 5 Caught in the Cracks Between Gay and Punk
• 6 Let’s Get Back to Gay Liberation AIDS Activism and Beyond
• 7 Freaks on the Edges The West Coast Scene (late 1980s– mid 1990s)
• 8 Bodies Colliding Machismo (and Machisma) in the Punk Scene
• 9 Groovy Underwear Pansy Division Flirts with the Mainstream (1994)
• 10 The Name Game Homocore vs. Queercore
• 11 We Had Our Photocopiers The Queer Zine Explosion
• 12 Why Don’t You Just Get Together? The SPEW Convention and Homocore Chicago (1992–2001)
• 13 Baseball Bats and High-Heel Shoes Punks on Parade (San Francisco 1989/Chicago 1993)
• 14 We Were So Ready Riot Grrrl Emerges (early 1990s)
• 15 Tempers Flare Tensions in Toronto (late 1980s)
• 16 Contagious Euphoria Queercore on Screen
• 17 Smoke Signals Theater and Performance
• 18 Manufacturing Gay Assimilation and Its Discontents
• 19 A Herd of Cats The Queercore “Agenda”
• 20 All the Labels Navigating Gender
• 21 I Don’t Want What You Want Thoughts on Style
• 22 “Where Are They Now?”/Where Are We Now?
• Afterword Smashing Orthodoxies by Walter Crasshole
• Glossary of Protagonists
• A Queercore and Queercore-Influential Filmography
• Selected Zines
• Queercore Essential Records (chronologically)
• About the Editors