Queer punk, queer pride at the 'Sco

Queer punk bands offer punk, with a twist

In support of Queer Pride week, three queer bands costing a dollar a piece played the 'Sco Saturday night. I have been to quite a few punk rock shows, but queer punk was a whole new thing for me.

The first band to play was Heterocide from Chicago.The flamboyant lead singer, Mark Freikas, was very refreshing - heck, I thought he was about to yell out, "You go girl!" in the middle of some of the songs. Mark Freikas, in addition to playing in Heterocide is also the head of a movement called Homo-core which organizes queer punk shows in Chicago. The drummer carried a purse, wore a bra, sported a Laverne and Shirley hairdo, wore more makeup than most Oberlin ladies, and he worked it. He would chew gum and blow big bubbles as he played.

Generally, it is pretty amusing to hear punk rock bands do covers of popular songs - like the Circle Jerks doing a cover of "Afternoon Delight," or Lagwagon doing a cover of "Brown Eyed Girl" or the Sea Monkeys doing "I Can See Clearly Now," well, Heterocide did a brilliant cover of the Cole Porter tune "My Heart Belongs to Daddy." Yes, of course a few lyrics were changed to suit their purposes. Other songs they performed (their own special creations) were "Suicidal Go-Go Bar" which was fast enough to make D.R.I. proud, "Queer Kamakazi," and a song about skyscrapers called "Phallic Symbol" sung by Karen, the only female in the band. At times they were musically all over the place, but it can be due to the fact that they are a fairly new band.

Miss May 66 was the second band. They have opened for many queer bands and the show's organizer sophomore Sarah Meckler knows them from Columbus. The band was fronted by a very Trash and Vaudeville woman in a pink mini skirt and white sparkle platform go-go boots, so she was not only aesthetically captivating but she also had a voice that was mesmerizing as it resembled Siouxsie Sioux's voice on early singles a bit. The band had a gothic style gone aggressive, yet people who like The Au Pairs or The Slits would also be down with them. They were punk but I heard a bit of New Wave undertone. The last song had a brilliant chorus made up of the grade school rhyme "Chinese/Japanese/ Dirty Knees/look at these." It brought me back to Mrs. Newman's first grade class when... but anyway, good band, good performance.

While I was sitting on the benches near the Rat before the show some guy who was not from Oberlin asked me if I was a big Sleater-Kinney fan. Sleater-Kinney was a band made up of three women from Portland playing bass, guitar and drums. I admitted to him that I had never heard them until a few days before. He gushed about them for a couple of sentences but then concluded with, "But you may not get all that much out of them because you won't be able to really hear the lyrics, which are a big part of the band, so it may just sound like a lot of noise to you." I found them likeable, but the music didn't strike me - it sort of washed over me, and a lot of the songs sounded the same to me. There was one song I liked a lot.

They were the headliners and they got the respect from the crowd that most headliners get - standing up near the stage, and I even saw zine kids snapping photographs like crazy. But as you say to a lover you are trying to let down gently, "It is not you that's the problem, it is me." I can tell that other people would like this band, but I was not all that moved or impressed.

This show was a proud support of Queer Pride Week, and it attracted a crowd from within and out of the Oberlin College community. A good punk show with an invigorating twist.