The Vinyl Closet Sings Pink, Black & Blues

I love the genesis of this project, and the resulting CD....and I'm pleased that one of the folks involved, Brett Lock, shared it with me....he wrote me:

I'd like to tell you about an album by 'The Vinyl Closet' which is a re-recording in a modern style of blues songs with LGBT themes.

A brief background of how we came to record this: My musical partner, Ted Brown, and I started off being invited to do a talk for the Gay & Lesbian Humanist Association in the UK on the subject of LGBT representation in early popular music. We played some recording of Bessie Smith and Kokomo Arnold and others, and - to make the talk more lively, since I play guitar and Ted sings - we decided to perform a few of the songs as a novelty. What we found was that people remarked that the old recordings were a little hard to follow because they were so crackly and predated hi-fi recording. The audience preferred it when we performed the songs, so we found ourselves adding more songs to our repertoire and phasing out the playing of the recordings.

The talk soon metamorphosed into a show which we were invited to do around London. It was a natural step from that to record our modern versions with the help of a few other musicians we knew.

The result is here: "Pink, Black & Blues"

Now, as a music historian this is Right down my street, as I've featured many of these songs on a show I did in October 2007, called "Queer Blues." I got a kick out of hearing what they did with so many old blues songs that I admire so much, like Bessie Jackson's "BD Women." (I have to chime in that in the image below I'm fairly sure that's Ethel Waters, and not the song's originator, Bessie Jackson)

But I can do better than just letting you hear one song....if you go to their site

http://www.vinylcloset.org

You can not only sample all the songs on the album, but hear a podcast where they present the music, much like the evening events that spawned the album.

And you can buy downloads at their Bandcamp site:
http://thevinylcloset.bandcamp.com/album/pink-black-blues#

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Okay, I'm taking a side trip on this post, but it IS related. Brett Lock also shared with me that he was in a South African band in the late 1990's called One Large Banana, and their 1997 EP included a song he wrote for his then-boyfriend, now-husband, a song called "Cry." Brett says the straight lead singer had no problem with singing the same-sex lyrics of the song.

Florenze Tempest - Male Impersonator

A drag king of 1912, sort of.

In the early decades of the last century, when people had pianos in their parlors, sheet music was one of the ways music was brought home, and regarding sales, nothing much has changed...performers were used to sell the goods. So their images often appeared on the sheet music covers to attract attention. One of the specialty areas of my collection is sheet music featuring female and male impersonators, and I have just about an equal number of both displayed on my site.

This week I got a new piece of sheet music by a male impersonator, so I want to share it, and it's by one of the most well-known, Florenze Tempest. She and her sister started out on the stage quite young, as a duo, Tempest & Sunshine, with Tempest always playing the boy roles. Under the stage name Florenze Tempest she flourished from around 1910 through the end of that decade, performing in musicals with the appropriate sheet music being sold. I am sharing the five different pieces I own. In the one above, my new acquisition, "I Want a Boy to Love Me" (1912), this plea is done in male clothing. And below "I Love the Ladies" was done just the same, though I think the audience was in on the joke.

 

Nathan Leigh Jones is "Crying Out For Love"

Okay, not sure how I missed the premier of the video "Crying Out For Love" by Aussie singer Nathan Leigh Jones last July, but I want to make amends. The song is from his 2011 CD "Sooner or Later" and they did that song's video in a big way, at a marriage equality rally in Sydney. The lyrics get to the point...and, here's the video.

“Every man and every woman
Black or white or any shade between
Straight or gay, it doesn’t matter
Any faith we do or don’t believe
The one thing that we can’t deny is
Everybody’s crying out for love…”

The entire album is pop heaven, and you can also find plenty of live videos on Youtube to amuse you, and here are some other links...

NLJ Website                  Article on the Video

Levi Kreis Releases LGBT Charity EP

My current OutRadio show for September features a special hour-long interview with Levi Kreis, and his interviews are always a delight, this is our fifth one. And I've just done a blog post plugging the show five days ago....But got some very cool news about a special release. And I don't usually just grab from a press release, but it covers it so well:

So, you can get this very cool song X8, at the Bandcamp page, and I love that site as it allows you to contribute more than the asking price, a nice thing for people to do, for this charity. The song features UK rapper QBoy, and this is a great combo.

Love Revolution on Bandcamp

And, yeah, I'm not above using sexy photos of our guys to keep your attention just a bit longer. If sex sells, this is a good time...:)

Scott Free: "Happy Pride Day Moscow"

I've known Scott Free since 1999 when we met at the long-departed GLAMA Awards, in New York City. And I immediately took to his music. Here's a photo I took at that event with, left to right, Micah Barnes, Scott Free and the late Dean Johnson.

So, I've been playing his music on my shows for years, and did a comprehensive interview with him on my October 2008 Show, right after he released what I consider his masterpiece, "The Pink Album." (Translation: This is an essential queer CD, you should own a copy, ...er, in my humble opinion)

I've always loved how political his lyrics are, and that he covers areas of our culture that others do not, and brings up much needed points and perspectives. So I was very pleased when he wrote me this week that he's recorded a brand new song, which Has Got to be the first one about the Russian anti-gay actions. And, he's done a quickie slide show video of it.

Check Out These Free Links

Scott Free Website

Find This Song on Bandcamp

Other Scott Free Releases

Levi Kreis Talks About His New CD

Levi Kreis is one of my favorite interview guests. Over the years we've talked several times and it's always a delight. He is just so natural and even when I tease him he takes it in stride. For the interview on his new CD it was no different. I love to ask about the back stories for particular songs, and you can see from the album cover, well, he's probably not all that shy. His inspiration this time goes back to the music he loved in the 1970's and 1980's. And I could sure hear those influences when listening. I gave him a whole hour this time so I hope you check it out, here.

OutRadio for September

And, visit his website

www.LeviKreis.com

Against Me! New EP "True Trans"

The Florida punk rock band Against Me! was formed in 1997 by lead singer and guitarist Tom Gable, and their albums have become more successful with each release over the years. A year ago they made news not often heard in that music genre, Gable was transitioning to be a woman, and taking the name Laura Jane Grace. And he and the band are on a very public track, working on their sixth release. It's called "Transgender Dysphoria Blues," and I can't wait to hear the whole album. 

As part of the promotion in July they released an EP with two tracks likely from the new CD. These were offered as free downloads from their site for a few weeks, but that time has passed. But you can still buy the vinyl 7" record, which I did. As they were offering the songs free, I will let you hear them below.

Fuck My Life 666

True Trans Soul Rebel

Of course I prefer the second one, as it is Very lyrically trans.

You can get a taste of the title track from "Transgender Dysphoria Blues" in this live video.

Visit their Website