#Juniah to #Junior

dj Juniah’s D.A.N.C.E. Pride 2008 was a freedown -as you might guess it’s a dj mix set of dance music, as such I can’t name a track he uses though I did recognize a few of them. Dance music! Yes I do like me some high-energy dance music. Great for writing too & also for making out. Not all music has to be emotionally demanding, politically forthright or sonically challenging.

 

 

It is part of an mp3 collection that includes Gino Soccio: Greatest hits. Soccio success was in late 70’s early 80’s disco. I enjoyed the easy danceability of his studio work & have more of his work tucked divot other mp3 collections. Here too is the Afro Celt Sound System’s Capture (1995-2010) – compilation from various lps. I heard a track on So You Think You Can Dance? & loved it. As the band name suggests they mash up African & Celtic rhythms in a way that actually works. Also here is Stereo MC’s Double Bubble. I found their song ‘Connected’ irresistible (& have as a stand alone that cd) Bubble is more of the same & has a similar sound to AfroCelt – danceable world music & fun with a bit of a socio-political edge.

 

 

 

On the shelf next to Juniah is Junior Senior – a Danish pop duo. I have as stand-alones their ‘d-d-don’t stop the beat’ & ‘Hey Hey My My Yo Yo’. This is super fun summer music. Sweet, gay subtext, a bit of rap, a touch of hip-hop & all infused with crisp energy & lots of hand-clap propulsion. I love these guys. All the above are worth hunting down if you need, as I do, some fresh, fun, funky music.

Daily Special

the cafe wasn’t too crowded – there was a table with two seats – maybe should take that – leave the larger tables for people with friends – don’t want to waste valuable space on myself after all – besides someone might want to sit with me – strangers – or be afraid to sit with me because they thought I was expecting friends – once that happened – longing looks but afraid to sit with me even though the cafe was full – I felt so responsible – so afraid that people wouldn’t sit in those empty chairs – was it something about me that pushed them away – I wouldn’t have minded but wasn’t able to invite them – to say join me – I could tell they wouldn’t have anyway – I wasn’t the type they wanted someone else to think was their friend or even an acquaintance – so since then I’ve taken a small table – let people take the extra chair if they wanted it – easier to sit on my own than worry about – well what ever it is one worries about when a stranger sits at a table with you – I see that happen a lot though – but never to me – do I frighten people – am I so uninviting that they’d rather not sit with me – not that I blame them – I am drab – better not to draw too much attention to myself – never liked those show-off people with their flashy comic book character t-shirts – with too much jewellery, piercings, tattoos all those things that said hey look at me look at me – who do they think they are anyway – too many of those noise makers around making it  hard for ordinary guys like me to get noticed at all – better to be sort of nondescript than be one of those self consumed assholes with loads of similar people to laugh out loud with when they sit at their tables with each other, pulling spare chairs from tables like mine, not even bothering to say why don’t you join us, after all I’ve been here before, many times some even nod to me, the waitress knows my name, I think, – but those crafted husks haven’t got the time for the likes of me – not that I blame them – better not to have to perform all the time the way they do with those hey I’m so cool poses as they drape their arms around each other at their table, as they block the view of the stage, as they get up and their friends hoot and cheer to whatever drivel they spew, you won’t catch me up there –

https://wp.me/P1RtxU-2f6

every Tuesday 2019

September

17 – Shaw Festival – Sex (Mae West)

22 – Stratford Festival – Little Shop Of Horrors

Tuesday 24 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Buddies and Bad Times Theatre

https://www.facebook.com/events/504067323723768/

October

15 – Stratford Festival – The Crucible

November

7 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Buddies and Bad Times Theatre

December

The Secret Handshake Gallery – feature – date TBA

January

23 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Buddies and Bad Times Theatre

March

March 5 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Buddies and Bad Times Theatre

April

April 3 – Hot Damn! It’s Queer Slam – Season 6 finales Buddies andBbad Times Theatre

June  – Capturing Fire 2020 – Washington D.C.  capfireslam.org 

Hey! Or you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee in Washington at 2020’s capfireslam.org – sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet

Pet Shop Boys

I have work by the Pet Shop Boys: Please, Further Listening, Disco tucked into a couple of mp3 collections. One mainly of  The Boys & the other of 80’s dance music that includes Gino Soccio: Outline; Patrick Cowley: Mind Warp; The Style Council: Our Favorite Shop; Rick Astely: Whenever You Need Somebody; Human League: Dare & a few tracks by The Trampps: Disco Inferno/Body Contact; Village People: Macho Man/I Am What I Am.

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As much as I was thrilled by the Village People & their play on imagery their music only held me on the dance floor & even then I was so quickly bored by YMCA I don’t care if I ever hear it again. I had the lps for a while but the only cuts that speak to me are the ones I kept. The Trampps – a fine set of singers in tight, red velvet pant suits on their lp cover – lots of well set off packages to enjoy & Disco Inferno was sensational for dancing to (plus inspired Boogie Inferno: my tribute to disco).

A friend of mine had that first Pet Shop Boys lp & I made a cassette tape copy that I eventually replaced with mp3 & added a couple of eps of remixes. It was always great to hear them on the dance floor knowing they were open about being queer. They had some political thread in their lyrics but weren’t out to preach but to teach you to dance.

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Gino Soccio: Outline; Patrick Cowley: Mind Warp. Both of these are studio bound works by gay men felled by HIV far too early in their careers. Longish but driven dance music that I loved. Outline is almost hypnotic – very much like Richie Hawten. Cowley is synthesizer driven. His gay porn soundtracks were recently found & released. School Dazed. Great stuff. Whenever I have Patrick on my iPod I feel like I walking down the street in some porn movie where I get accidentally squirted by a shirtless guy watering his lawn & have to dry my stuff in his house.

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Human League – just a waitress – a fine fine story telling dance single – even if they weren’t queer the sensibility certainly was; I was crazy for Rock Astley first few singles – that voice, that production. His hit ‘Whenever You Need Someone’ was the soundtrack for a crush I had at the time & everything I hear it I remember that sweet man, not Rick, but my crush who was murdered by HIV.

Style Council is the odd man out here – not dance music, not even queer but certainly of the period & this is a great lp. smart lyrics, fun & sort up-dated Kinks.

sample

a sample from a novel still simmering:

List

“So how was the trip?”

Mike didn’t know where to begin. Meggan had looked after his house and garden while he was out of town.

“Lots happened.”

“I know. I read in the paper about that explosion. Imagine a bomb at the film festival. People sure take their movies seriously, don’t they? Anyway everything is fine here. Your mail is there in the living-room.”

Mike hadn’t been in the door five minutes before Meggan had called on him. She must have been watching from her living-room window for him to arrive. He hadn’t even had a chance to take off his jacket.

“And I got the stuff on your shopping list. Milk. Bread. The garden is looking good. The nasturtiums really took off this year didn’t they. Well, I guess you were right in over-planting them. I should get out of here, let you get settled back in. I’ll drop by later.”

“Thanks.”

“I love it. You know that. Gives me a chance to get out of my own little house.”

Meggan lived two houses down from him. Mike sometimes felt he should swap with her as his house was bigger, much bigger, too big for one man, alone. More room for her, her son, daughter and uncountable cats, sometimes a dog or two.

She was gone.

He took his coat off. Went to to the kitchen and filled the kettle, put it on the stove. He hadn’t had a nice cup of tea for weeks, for an eternity it seemed.

Patrick. Robert. Sam. Faces, touches. The blur of leaving without knowing, without being able to do anything but leave. Even if he’d had the financial resources he didn’t have the information, the know what to do-ed-ness, to find out what had become of Robert.

That the police somehow thought he was the target for the bombing was stupid. No one knew him. He was just some gay shlub from the east coast. A nobody. A nothing in that city. He didn’t even know why the police thought he might have been the target. What piece of information did they have that would have lead them to think that? What? They wouldn’t tell him anything.

He had to be back in Halifax for the start of the school term. Back to the grind but until he knew knew just what the fuck was going on he knew he wouldn’t be of much use in the grind.

He looked through the pile of mail.

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Last year’s queer music blogs:

June 2 Billy Strayhorn http://wp.me/p1RtxU-L0

June 9 ‘Hangin’ On The Telephone’ http://wp.me/p1RtxU-Ll

June 16 Tea Room Tramps http://wp.me/p1RtxU-Mg

June 23 Ned Rorem http://wp.me/p1RtxU-Mx

 

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