Profile: Athens Boys Choir

Reasons to love Athens Boys Choir:

1. He's a hot, out transguy
2. He doesn't take himself so seriously that he can't write songs such as "EZ Heeb."
3. He toured with Ani Difranco
   
4. He's a southern boy.

While visiting some friends a couple weeks ago, I got the chance to listen to some more songs by Athens Boys Choir than "Fagette," which I first heard earlier this spring.

God help me, the man makes me like rap.
I don't have a lot to say on this subject because, frankly, I'm still getting familiar with this artist. Six months from now, I may hate him.

But right now, I kinda love him. He's an awesome, notable transguy who talks about being trans in his music. And he's not half as depressing as Lucas Silveira can be in his lyrics at times.

I mean, just look:
I rest my case.

Profile: Tegan and Sara

So lately my blog has been devoid of pictures- as well as profiles, as I'm trying to keep up with everything after the tire accident of doom.

Plus, I was having trouble picking a group/person to profile this week. And then I stumbled across this picture:And I squealed like a fan girl. The thing I like about Tegan and Sara is that they are big- an internationally known band that gets their music on TV and in the movies. A band that has sold out shows.

And they don't have their asses hanging out of miniskirts to do it. In fact, most of the time, they look a bit like androgynous indie boys. Which, you know, is kinda my ideal image.Plus, they've never made any exceptions for themselves in their music and have been open about their sexualities. They're lesbians, and they admit it without guilt. They have cds that you can buy even in little podunk towns like mine, and open the case to find pictures of women who are not femmed-up, eroticized superstars. Hello, role models.

I had a couple songs off the "So Jealous" album, but it wasn't until I read Tegan's introduction in Kate Bornstein's Hello, Cruel World that I began to take an interest. She discussed growing up feeling different, being bullied, rising above it.There's a reason for all the hype around these ladies. And, if nothing else, if you can't handle the PC idea of them being *gag* role models, remember: pretty twin lesbians singing pretty awesome music. Enough said.

And the Wind is Always Shifting

"Straight Edge" by Minor Threat

But I've got better things to do,
Than sit around and fuck my head,
Hang out with the living dead.
Snort white shit up my nose,
Pass out at the shows.
I don't even think about speed,
That's something I just don't need

I've got the straight edge

I'm a person just like you
But I've got better things to do
Than sit around and smoke dope
'Cause I know I can cope
Laugh at the thought of eating ludes
Laugh at the thought of sniffing glue
Always gonna keep in touch
Never want to use a crutch

I've got the straight edge."

I've said before that I was once one of those annoying "AFI is God!" kind of fan girls. (In my defense, they were tied with Ani Difranco).

However, I was also a Straight Edge kid then, and took it all very seriously. Just as I was destined to always wear only black, I was also destined never to drink, smoke/use drugs, or engage in casual sex.

Oops.

I tumbled off that pillar of morality slowly- then very, very fast. And I woke up about a week ago to realize how far I've gone.

Well, the good news is that I haven't smoked in about nine months, haven't drank in three, have never done drugs, and usually have no trouble avoiding the casual sex part.

For a split second, I considered "reclaiming" edge. Aaand then I read this post, and remembered why I was uneasy with being edge in the first place. Aside from the general bitchiness, it made me realize that I just don't belong in this scene anymore. Like when my best friend from high school and I decided to go to Warped Tour this summer. We checked the band list and realized we didn't know half the bands performing. We've been out of the loop.

We outgrew punk. Hell, I outgrew being a crazy little hippie. So I look at my opinions on gender and breaking down the gender dichotomy, and I wonder: Will I lose this belief too? Is this just another phase/scene?

I like to think it's not, because I've never felt more comfortable in my skin- though, after feeling so masculine for so long, I was freaked out when I woke up one day feeling girly. Part of me worried that, if I gave in to that effeminate longing for the day, I'd be breaking some promise to myself.

Well, fuck that. That's the old punk vs. poser mentality I adhered to in high school. How I feel that day is how I feel, and I don't care what other people think.

I should live my life less by trying to adhere to the same appearances and tastes all my life, and instead expect people to view me more like Ani Difranco in "The Million You Never Made:

"I am warning you I am weightless,
and the wind is always shifting,
so don't hang anything on me
if you ever want to see it again.
I am telling you I'm different than you
think I am."

Profile: Lucas Silveira of The Cliks

Lucas Silveira is probably the most well known FTM transgendered musician in rock music today.

Never heard of him? Exactly.He's not particularly well known in the music scene at large, and it sometimes feels like the media is using his transgender identity as a focal point rather than his music.

You know, kinda like I am. And I will get to the music. But first, I have to point out how open he is about being transgendered. In the about.com interview listed below, he says that he welcomes questions about his gender, but can only speak for himself. Very PC.

Plus he talks about his choice to not take testosterone. I have a friend who considers this a cop-out, but I disagree. I see it as being similar, on another level, to my longtime desire for a lip piercing. Yes, I want my lip pierced. But I'm also a music major who plays tuba, and I know that a lip piercing will seriously set back my playing to a point that I may not recover.
Of course, taking testosterone is more than something cosmetic like a piercing, but I still see his view. He loves music and is willing to deal without testosterone rather than risk that which he loves. Kinda romantic, actually.

His music? Not so much. Granted, I've only listened to Snakehouse in full, but I've heard a couple songs off Dirty King. Aside from the sweet acoustic track, "If Not for You" and the loyalty promised in "Whenever," most of Silveira's songs are darker and a little on the disillusioned side when it comes to love.

Which means he's now my idol. His voice does sound a little awkward at times, but I like the sound of it overall. And he wins points for comfortably singing higher than I can.

One thing that concerns me is that he runs through band lineups so quickly- I mean, every album has had a different backing band. He's admitted that he's a perfectionist, which I get, but I can't help but worry that, with a little fame, he could become a diva.

But then, maybe he just doesn't play well with others- I know how that goes.

Overall, I recommend his music for good pissy rock-out-in-your-bedroom-with-an-air-guitar evenings, and I recommend the man himself as a rolemodel for trans rock musicians.
About.com Interview
Another blog's interview
Spinner Interview
Dirty King Music Video

Profile: Davey Havok of AFI

I'd like to begin this with a warning. Remember around 2004? The hordes of girls obsessed with the band AFI, particularly their lead singer?

I, uh, I was in that horde. Still in that horde, actually. I even have the t-shirt for it. So bear with me. I'm talking about an idol here.

Davey Havok has been slowly cutting his hair shorter since 2003, which makes me terribly sad since, when I first fell in love, he looked more like this:The lead singer here was an idol for me in terms of playing with gender. Sure, lots of guys in the rock scene wore eyeliner, but few did it with the elegance and, well, feminine style that Davey Havok did.Not to mention the fact that the man used to walk around Warped Tour with a parasol, or that his hair, when it was long, looked utterly gorgeous.

But lately, Davey Havok has seemed to become more masculine, cutting his hair shorter, letting his eyebrows grow out- cutting down on the fabulous glittery eye shadow:And the masculinity doesn't end there. I purchased AFI's latest album ( Crash Love from September 2009) and, while I loved the music instrumentally and was pleased to hear Havok's voice improving a little since his surgery to remove vocal cord nodules in 2004, I was also disappointed in the lyrics.

Davey Havok has a reputation for writing vague lyrics rich with imagery. And Crash Love doesn't stack up to his previous works in terms of lyrics. His lyrics are more blunt and obvious, less interpretive and, well, pretty.

The little hipster kid inside me wants to say that Havok is trying to assimilate into mainstream culture and is dropping is genderqueer ways to gain popularity. But really, he reached the height of popularity when he was covered in glitter with waist length hair, so I think his change in fashion is just a progression of his own tastes. Besides, if you look at photos of Davey Havok going back, you realize he's the Madonna of his scene, reinventing his look every few years. I mean, the photos I used here are from the past six years alone, and AFI has been together off and on since about 1993. Who knows, maybe five or six years from now Davey Havok will return to his pretty boy ways.

Until then, I have to stay a faithful fan, particularly when he says things like

Q: Actually, a lot of your fans don't know what to make of your sexuality.

A: It is a huge topic. I've found that at times that question and the dubiousness that I seem to exude has given people something -- not simply gossip or whether God is going to smite them for liking our band, but actually they've found strength and become more comfortable with who they are as a person. It's pansexual, that sort of reach. It's a wonderful side effect of what we're doing, to give someone the strength to come out of the closet to their family, or simply present themselves aesthetically in a way they feel happy with, whether or not their friends are going to be allowed to like them anymore. So it's actually a really cool side effect to all the rumors.
-From an interview originally posted on Buzznet

Who Wants to Be the Lizard King?

My heroes have always been rock stars.

First I wanted to be Billy Ray Cyrus (hush). Not a rock star, per se, but still. Music star. Then I wanted to be a Hanson brother- then a Madden brother as part of Good Charlotte. I wanted to be like Davey Havok of AFI, then Robert Smith of The Cure, then Conor Oberst Bright Eyes.

Never really wanted to be Avril Lavigne- though, looking back, I had a huge crush on her. See, female rock musicians are always heavily sexualized in a way I don't like- God help me, but that quote from Elly Jackson posted yesterday holds a grain of truth, about women's sexuality being used to attract men/fans.

And then there's Patti Smith- probably one of the first women I wanted to emulate. But apparently that's understandable. In Simon Reynolds' book Sex revolts : Gender, Rebellion, and Rock'n'roll, he explains that musicians like Patti Smith actually emulated men, becoming the rock stars in the Mick Jagger sort of tradition.

And there is nothing wrong with that. Aside from occasional whimsies, I'm not a big fan of “women's music.” I don't want to dress like a female musician, and I don't want to be treated like one, because at the end of the day, I'm not entirely sure that I'm a woman.

I'm something completely different. For that matter, I have a low singing voice, so a lot of times I can't keep up with the notes sung by female musicians.

Tegan and Sara, I love you dearly, but those are vocals I can't always handle.

Besides, being a rock star is sort of the ultimate Peter Pan complex. Rock stars aren't men. They're boys. They're living out the “dream,” however dangerous and unsuccessful it may be. They're not having to grow up.

And growing up is really the root of the problem. I look at the options I have to become: Woman or Man. Neither is particularly appealing, and I'd like to draw a nice label outside of the two for me to belong in. Because both of them carry their own expectations and rules that prevent me from being experimental, from being free, and from being myself.

Plus, so often, female-bodied musicians out there claim that they dress in an androgynous way so that their fans focus on their music rather than their appearance. I don't mind the focus on appearance at all. I just want a few more people out in the world to admit that they find androgynous people sexy as hell.

Because we all know they are.

Profile: Elly Jackson of La Roux

I have mixed opinions about Elly Jackson. On the one hand, I like her group's music. I spent all day Sunday with “Bulletproof” stuck in my head. And she wins points for being cute.

Aaaand the positive stops right about there. Bless her heart, but Elly Jackson has a way of sticking her foot in her mouth in interviews. I don't hold it against her too much. I mean, we're around the same age, and God help me if half the things I've said were in print, without my chance to say “Oh shit! Don't say I said that!”

For the most part, it's her attacks on other musicians that irk me. She picks on members of Erasure for their taste in music and calls them, supposedly, “mutton dressed as lamb.” Of course, the singer, to whom this quote was attributed, brushes off the comment saying “it's probably the sort of thing I would have said when I was her age.”

Yes, that's all fine and good, but there comes a point when you can' t keep hiding behind your age as a defense for stupidity and rudeness. Maybe it's my Southern showing, but part of any business is maintaining connections with other popular people in your field, and Jackson keeps taking a machete to these connections. She may think she's being “honest” and establishing herself as not another blonde girly-girl who's all sugar and spice, but really she's coming off as a rude brat.

And all of this culiminates in her June 2009 interview with The Quietus, in which she says:

"[Using a sexuality designed to just appeal to men is] really patronising to women. I know that there's far more ways to be sexy than to dress in a miniskirt and a tank top. If you're a real woman you can turn someone on in a plastic bag just by looking at them. That's what a real woman is, when you've got the sex eyes. I think you attract a certain kind of man by dressing like that. Women wonder why they get beaten up, or having relationships with arsehole men. Because you attracted one, you twat. It's a funny culture, it's definitely a funny culture. Those women are just insecure, but they'll turn round to me and say 'you're just jealous 'cos you want a tan and you want big boobs, stupid boy-looking girl'. You can't win, they wouldn't believe me for a second."

She makes some lovely points in regards to how women can be sexy without being Eva Longoria. And then she makes that comment about attracting certain men by dressing a certain way. I'll admit, the clothes can send a signal, but women (or just people, for that matter) are never responsible for being beaten up because they are “dressing like that.” Fail, Elly Jackson, fail.

Having said that, I will admit that she wins back a few points with her statement in Starpulse:

"I don't have a sexuality. I don't feel like I'm female or male. I don't belong to the gay or straight society, if there is such a thing. I feel like I'm capable of falling in love with other people. I'm not saying I'm bisexual, I'm just sexual!”

Amen! It's very pomosexual of her, and while the whole “I'm not gay, not straight” thing is being picked up by various female singers these days, her statement that she feels in between genders makes me feel a little better. Now, if she can just keep her foot out of her mouth more often, I'd consider her to be an excellent rolemodel, in addition to an interesting musician.

Bulletproof Music Video

Sources:

The Erasure Jibe

The Quietus

Starpulse