Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/04/04/the-forgotten-trans-history-of-the-first-beastie-boys-record.html
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Wasn’t Agnostic Front the same band known so much for gay bashing that one of the gay magazines put them on the cover, warning queer new yorkers about them? Seems like Miret might be doing a bit of revisionist history in his memoir, there…
In general, the NYC HC scene famously had a violence problem. It was a huge point of discussion. There was an essay by Jack Rabid about it in MRR at least once. There was a short history of the scene that came out not too long ago, but I’m blanking on the name of it right now… but I’m fairly certain one of the key points was some of the problematic violence from some of the bands.
But this is excellent! Thanks!
Also, I think it’s been a while since we’ve seen @thomdunn?
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Indeed! I’ve been busy on another project. (Will post about that soon)
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Oh! Looking forward to hearing about it! Glad to see you again!
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And more on the HC scene in NYC with some cool pics…
And a history of a HC record shop in the East village…
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This is actually something I really enjoy about Bannon’s writing overall. He’s really good at articulating a lot of the complications/hypocrisies of the punk/hardcore scene. He was drawn to it as someone who felt like an outsider, and while he never felt discriminated against as a queer Latino, he also witnessed a lot of homophobia and racism. But even though he wasn’t a target himself and largely felt a sense of belonging, he never really felt truly seen, either. Like he was accepted despite his identity, not because of it.
It’s a complex line that he writes about with really astute deftness.
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I’m glad someone is looking at the queer connections in not just the first wave scenes (which has gotten more acknowledgement of late), but in HC, too. These scenes were so much more diverse than most people realize. It seems to me that a lot of the violence issues many punk scenes had in the 80s were driven by that unacknowledged diversity.
That’s always difficult. Far too many people want to write punk history as either a heroic narrative that centers white, straight men only (see, for example, this book) or as just bad news (the old punk panic tropes)… It’s been nice lately to see more complex narratives coming out about people who were part of punk scenes, but often felt somewhat marginalized for one reason for another (such as this graphic novel).
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So what if [s]he liked to wear silky panties and a bra? To each his own.
I’m glad they felt that way, but also more than a little sad that I know this isn’t common thinking. I really don’t understand why people get so wound up with what adults do with each other in the bedroom, what parts are in their pants, or how they dress.
On a related note, I was recently at a school concert for my granddaughter. Looking around, I really enjoyed seeing so many colors of hair, many of them on “old people”, like me. I mentioned to my kids later that back when I was younger, it would only be a very small strata with any color hair and they were looked at as odd, except for the classic Grandma Blue of course.
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Sort of reminds me of this recent Pitchfork article on the “Secret Gay History of Indie Rock.” It’s a broadly good idea — yes, please do let’s highlight the sexual and gender diversity in rock & roll! That’s a great instinct we should absolutely follow!
…But you can do it without the brazen erasure of all of the queer people who’ve always been there, and who maybe weren’t as open about celebrating their identity because of society, rather than their own cowardice. The Pitchfork piece basically says that there were no queer people in indie/alternative music until the 90s except for Morrissey and Peter Shelley. Which like…c’mon.
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Dead naming is not a good look, new comrade.
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That’s laughable wrong! Jesus…
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I’m sure it was well intentioned, but sheesh this initial paragraph…
Historically, indie rock has been the province of white, heterosexual males—a comparatively conservative genre that has kept many of its main players closeted; allusive and elusive, as Stipe once was. In its most puritan form, indie rock was a genre that took care to conceal its musical lineage, obscuring its Black, queer blues and rock’n’roll antecedents with an aesthetic of neutral authenticity. Its political disengagement has often expressed itself through a pose of disregard and emotional inertia; a self-conscious awkwardness, a restricted sexuality, a ceremonious stiffness. In other words: a heterosexual sensibility.
As someone who played in (local) “indie rock” bands in the late 80’s and early 90’s, just about none of this rings true. I’m not even sure what the weird dig at “heterosexual sensibility” is even supposed to mean.
(Though, I guess, to be fair, I am a white, heterosexual, suburban male. So… 
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simply trying to ensure that the totality of Donna’s achievements during their time on earth is kept together because I am grateful for them. If this appears somehow hostile to Donna’s memory I apologize to all who are offended.
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Your celebration of Donna’s work isn’t the problem of course, the deadnaming is. I get that not everyone understands that it’s not cool, so it’s fine, but know you now for going forward. 
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I’m gonna sound like such a grump for saying this, but that paragraph really just sounds like someone who absorbed and regurgitated the most basic ideas of social media progressivism and decided to use that as their profound thesis. It’s one of those things that makes me understand the use of “virtue signalling” as a pejorative.
Again — the writer absolutely have the right idea! Yes, rock music has its roots in Black America, and the “godmother of rock & roll” herself was a queer Black women. And yes, straight white dudes have indeed dominated the mainstream imagery of popular rock musicians (and everything else) for a long time. But by the logic of that paragraph, pretty much everything in the US/UK except for maybe hip-hop has by extension been the “province of white, heterosexual males.” And all that statement really does is continue to erase the people who’ve already been largely erased and ignored from mass media histories.
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