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

Vegas In Space

Ah, how do I tell you about "Vegas in Space"? Well, it's CAMP with all capitol letters, and so bad it's fascinating. Yes, it's intentionally bad, but they sort of make it work...let's call it a sub-cult classic. It's a 1991 release co-written and starring Doris Fish, one of the most popular drag queens in San Francisco in the late 1970's through the end of the 1980's. It was directed by Philip R. Ford, and this is science-fiction with no emphasis on science. The plot? Okay, here goes.  Three male space travelers from Earth are sent to the Planet Clitoris to save that world from destruction. Per the "Articles of the Venus Convention," only women are allowed on the planet, so Captain Dan Tracy (Doris Fish) and his two lieutenants must become women, by taking sex reversal pills. So, why couldn't they just send women on the mission? What, and give up the chance to do all that terrible drag?!

Their mission is under cover, so they pose as showgirls who perform a mid-20th century lounge act for the Empress while investigating the theft of Girlinium, the rare gem that keeps the planet stable. Still with me? Okay, now that they are showgirls it gives the excuse to make this a musical. The soundtrack I believe was only privately released, and only on cassette tape. I'm fortunate the tape's producer (Bob Davis) sent me my copy, many years ago. As for the songs, many are quite short but three you may want to check out are listed below, click to hear them.

Love Theme from Vegas in Space

Space Surfin'

Hey, Hey, Walk This Way

Entire Soundtrack

Drag personality Connie Champagne guests on that last track, and she's the only one with any claim of being able to sing. The film is out on DVD now, with lots of bonus material, including a campy Director's Commentary, and interviews. As they had no budget, the film took ten years to complete and they scraped it into existence with the crudest of props and special effects. Doris Fish died of AIDS in 1991.

What? You want more? Here's a page of my site with the film's poster and a review.

QMH Vegas in Space Page

And here's an interesting site about "The Making of Vegas in Space"

"The Gay World of Kenneth Marlow"...Gay Cartoons, 1966 Style

 

Kenneth Marlowe was one of the gayest and most openly homosexual of personalities of the 1960's. He went from a 1940's/1950's drag performer, to being a madam, to being the author of several books, to becoming a transsexual. In 1964 he published his famous autobiography 

"Mr. Madam: Confessions of a Male Madam," to much attention and several printings. Here is the original book cover, and a later edition.

I have quite a bit of information on Marlowe on a page of my website, here:
http://www.queermusicheritage.com/f-marlowe-kenneth.html

But this blog entry is focused on two cartoon books he published, "The Gay World" and "The Delicate World...of Kenneth Marlowe," both in 1966. The must have been privately printed, as they do not contain any Library of Congress number of information. Here's the cover of the second volume.

This is a rare opportunity to see what passed as "gay humor" as the time. None of this these days would get an LOL, but it's still a sign of those times. Also of note is the never shy Marlowe used himself as a character in quite of few of his own cartoons. A few examples:

 

And, if that's not enough for you, I've scanned every cartoon in both books:

The Gay World of Kenneth Marlowe         The Delicate World of Kenneth Marlowe

Here's some more delicious trivia. 

In July 2010 a thread on Facebook touched on Kenneth Marlowe, and Armistead Maupin added this fascinating comment:"I met Kenneth Marlow in 1972 when he was in the process of becoming Kate Marlowe. He threw a fundraising Big Band dance at which Sally Rand (then 70) performed her famous Fan Dance under a VERY DIM blue bulb. He called the evening "The Ball to End All Balls." When I interviewed her later (Kate) she told me she'd grown up in a whorehouse in Winnemucca, Nevada. I'm not at all sure if that was true but it was a fascinating detail, so I appropriated it for Anna Madrigal in "Tales of the City"