Tag: LGBT social movements

https://www.youtube.com/watch?vPf0fG0R79sY Through an excellent (if slightly wrong article*) about the mostly unwritten history queerness of club culture in Resident Advisor I learnt about Terre Taemlitz aka DJ Sprinkles, who was part of the New York Deep House scene playing at transgender bars, and later making records. This lead me to Midtown 120 Blues, ironically on YouTube given the album is sold out, it's hard to hear it anywhere else since Terre doesn't trust the digital marketplaces - for good reasons - but also doesn't like social media posting of music for reasons I've heard before. The old 'I'm an artist and I want control' thing, a strange argument given what Terre has said about the context of music changing even if you say your music isn't political or has a message, it gets one. That context shift happens when something is released, or even is posted online, and no, you can't really control it when you release the work. Also by keeping things quiet or minimally release, people who are in your original context might not hear it, certainly I didn't as someone not only queer but also into gay history and deep house - such as geographically (not being in New York or Japan). Yes others may distort your work, that's inevitable and happened before mechanical reproduction, before records were sold, during feudalism and before. It's double dealing; the devil's bargain - a popular one in the art and music world of 'I want to get my message out, but not that widely because I'll be a sell out or have to deal with these people, but I need to pay my rent...'. You can't release work then say 'but don't treat it like that' - the idea of equating it with birth is a dodgy one in many ways, but the analogy that creative work is your child and then it goes and has a life of it's own is very true. And the period when such geographic and limited control was possible was a fluke in fact, and not the norm... Also the 'I prefer offline' tends to lead to a reverse economic apartheid of uber-rare releases, a bit like Jack White with his Third Man records releases which inevitably end up on eBay for 100s of pounds a few hours later - it just feeds the secondary market of which the artist gets nothing, and fans spend days or a lot of money trying to get a silly piece of plastic that belongs to the 1940s. It's an odd stance for someone who seems to come from a socialist or Marxist ideologue, since the modes of production are indeed fucked - but doing the art world 'small limited release model' and no digital release just feeds into that even more, it leads to 27 euro albums (plus postage, probably), for which the majority of people cannot afford. Sharing does not mean lack of control, it just means your work gains new unexpected contexts from the audience, and anyone trying to stop the re-contextualisation (ooh my art training is coming out) of their work will fail. In fact, unlike Tracey Emin grumping about her tent being in The Sun, I'd argue that being an artist is about those engagements, those unexpectedly random interactions - it's what you dream about as an art student. In other words if you want complete control, make very heavy sculptures that cannot be copied, and even then, you'll be at the vagaries of the gallery system, and also a lot of complete daddy's money bullshit...something I refused to do also. As an artist I come up against this thinking a lot - and when for instance I really want to own or share a Jeremy Deller video, or own a David Shrigley 7" the answer is either sold out, no, or pay this random person a lot of money, which the artist will never see. I don't see how that helps anyone, or creates an alternative system that counters the art world's capitalist bullshit. Anyway that apart, I love the interview here from Red Bull Music academy, many head nods and the 'that bitch Madonna' comment which along with the track on Midtown 120 Blues it sums up part of the LGBTQ's attitude to her. I found the deification of Madonna as the Patron Saint of Teh Gay at the Grammys really odd, as if by ripping off the Voguing scene and also cashing in on the pink pound she somehow became the byword of gay rights. I must have missed THAT meeting, because for many involved in the very scenes she parasitically latched onto, she's far from their idol. She's more a CEO who has kept her market sweet, but you know she really won't care about us if the money doesn't roll in. https://vimeo.com/28275713#at20 You can also find a few instances of Terre's music over at the website and also Public Record the work with Ultra-Red which is free to download. * Mostly the strange assertion from someone I suspect has never been to London, that the acid house and house scene was male and straight only...maybe an argument could be made for the later rave scene, but then again all these scenes were fairly fluid. I mean if you're off your head on E it's hard to be homophobic, and there was a lot of bleed between the two with Heaven and Fridge at the time. I think the truth is that history has not been written yet, and absence of evidence does not mean it did not happen, it just means few have paid it any attention. But all gay history in the UK falls foul because America seems to always call dibs on any gay rights history, at the expense of the rest of the world.

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Tag: LGBT social movements

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