GAYLETTER

Formerly known as Basilica Music Fest, Basilica Sound Scape is a “carefully curated weekend program featuring a wide range of music, visual art and literature that aims for specific connections and overlaps instead of “festival”-style overload”.

Now that’s all well and good but my mind is wholly focused on the fact that Richard Hell will be doing a reading. Richard Hell, aka the pioneer of punk rock, the guy who invented the whole safety pin trend, the sexiest man in history, that rock ‘n’ roll genius. A few months after I moved to New York I was taking my laundry down to my local laundromat and who do I see right by my stoop? Mr. Hell himself — Richard hell has seen my dirty underwear, I am truly blessed and honored. I wanted to discuss my thoughts as to why his classic song Blank Generation is more relevant now than it was in 1977 but my body froze and my jaw was locked…next time.

Basilica Sound Scape 2013 will take place in Hudson Valley (up up state New York) on September 13^th – 15^th. This is will be a weekend of nature, art, good times and lasting memories, I’m sure of it.

Did I mention that legendary surrealist artist Matthew Barney will be there as a special guest performer?

$30-$60, 6:00PM, Meadowgreens Campgrounds, 110 S Front St. Hudson, NY. …

You may have heard of His Clancyness or Jonathan Clancy in 2009 when he started leaking a series of psychedelic pop songs recorded in his bedroom. With 3 albums already out, His Clancyness is set to release his fourth on October 8 through FatCat Records, this time it’s Vicious.

The track Zenith Diamond is available for a listen on SoundCloud now. After my first listen I felt the urge to redecorate my room entirely with sparkly silver. I suppose that could be interpreted a positive reaction to a song. Zenith Diamond is one of the indie pop tracks where you can easily imagine you and your friends having a day drinking session on a lovely summer afternoon in a private outdoor setting. The guitar riff in the first verse makes me want to wiggle my shoulders and spend some time in the sun — I resent the sun so this came as a big surprise to me.

Clancy cites “just about every psychedelic pop nugget ever produced” as is inspiration and influence but I hear a far more modern and far more mellow man behind the mic. Clancy also described his upcoming album as “a sassy, dreamy glam rock ’n’ roll album” — that sounds exciting, it predicts that this is going to be a super fun album that I’ll be more than happy to boogie to.

You can pre-order the album here.
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/102427066″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /] …

Last Cinco de Mayo we were hanging out at Gio Black Peter‘s place while they were filming his latest music video titled ‘Box.’  His apartment was full of spectators, alcohol, a camera crew and a group of painted naked bodies. We witnessed some real and explicit material while we were there, a girl fingering another girl, a boy receiving felatio, it was quite the spectacle, but clearly well worth it for the creation of this new video.

For Gio Black Peter’s new song he collaborated with artists: Justin Symbol (who created the music for the song after hearing Gio recite the song) and the rapper Drrty Pharms who can be seen in the video making out with Gio. We had the chance to ask Gio a couple questions about his latest creation to share with our readers…

Why Box? What was your inspiration? Word play. Think outside the box. Boxes have points. My box has no point — or at least that’s how I’ve felt at times. The song is about the frustration I’ve sometimes felt about being “Black Peter.” The video is the journey of breaking out of being a 2 dimensional character and becoming 3 dimensional person. It starts out with a guy crawling into a dog cage and ends with a guy freeing himself from being bound by ropes. The painted characters represent the rebelliousness it takes to bust through any confining situation.

We were at the filming of the video, who were that other film crew?  …

Garage Rock bands with Surf Rock influences are of extreme abundance these days within the indie music spectrum ­— so what makes Meat Market so special? Well they have multiple homosexual members, which is pretty special — right? This up and coming band from Oakland, California were recently featured on OutOfFocus TV’s web series American Music (Episode 5).

With only two releases out so far, (‘The Return of Prince Donathunn 7‘ is set to be released next month) Meat Market have toured with Fidlar and apparently played 30+ house parties in their college days where they were formed. We should jump on the bandwagon early so when they blow up, which I do believe they will, we can impress our friends with our superior knowledge of what’s happening in the world of music.

Their music is raw and unassuming — catchy and super fun! These guys sing about how they’re from California but they don’t surf. Their song New Zealand has an intensely piercing guitar riff that makes me smile while their song The Barn reminds me of my favorite Aussie bogan band — Drunk Mums, which is a great cure for my homesickness.

One of the members, Jeffrey Cheung, is also a very talented painter. His work can be seen here. His work is odd and  and full of ugly homo-erotica, which is wonderful… if you’re a Tom of Finland fanatic, do not click that link.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/18415655″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /] …

Yuzima is a rising talent whose raw industrial, oddly ambient, punk rock noises create an immensely compelling scene. When I first heard Yuzima’s newest track, ‘Anarchy‘, I was reminded of Rowland S. Howard, Ty Segall and even Jandek — this deserves an instant applause, I never believed that another being on this planet could posses anything close to a Jandek quality. “I just hear so much complaining; you say to yourself, we could be in paradise and the same folks would be complaining. Anarchy is about reality not just a show or being cool, It’s anti-poser… you want to see something happen — go out and change it”

Yuzima is a registered Occupy musician, which typically I would be skeptical of however this song, and other tracks by Yuzima, feel wholly authentic and in no way nihilistic. Noting Nirvana as an influence he is passionate about presenting hard rock to those of us who don’t belong in that niche category. I for one hope he achieves this, personally I feel this track (and hopefully the full length album) is fucking flawless and real. It’s also undeniably endearing and refreshing to hear a queer musician without a steady club beat saturated with sexual innuendoes.

Anarchy is the first release off the artists upcoming LP The Machine (scheduled to be released later in the year).

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/93292242″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

  …

Kristin and Dannielle from EveryoneIsGay.com (a website that offers advice to LGBTQ youth) passed on a mission to musicians Ian Axel and Chad Vaccarino. This mission was to write “the gayest song ever.” The result — super gay… as expected. This track is extremely preachy and overwhelmingly positive, which I suppose is highly appropriate as we are a minority saturated with rainbows. The video is also super gay.

Love hearts, kisses, colorful stars, cakes with candles and a bunch of pink people holding hands singing in harmony all star in this stop-motion music video by Rohitash Rao.

Songs that are driven by a moral message tend to be rather dry. It’s nice to see a track with enough camp and color to reach all the confused youth in this universe and the next.

“If you’re gay, then you’re gay. If you’re straight, well that’s great!”

Yay faggots!

 …

Kirin J Callinan — where should I begin? Writing up a short post about this fellow Australian, and one of the most compelling emerging artists of late, potentially the most compelling of all time (in my humble opinion) is a tough gig. I see sweat, raw animal masculinity, depravity, sex that transcends the word rough, nature, assaulting authenticity, man — but most importantly a degenerative beast with a lot on his mind. Someone please lock this man up with me.

Kirin J Callinan’s latest track Embracism is a song about “Two boys rolling around in the dust”, flexing, chasing the clock, measuring up against other men and embracing. Embracism is a twisted example of homoeroticism that we shouldn’t ignore but instead embrace.

Although I don’t believe this song is speaking exclusively to us queers there is a lot we can learn from it. I’ve always felt that gay men are the people who understand masculinity more than anyone. Especially considering we’ve all struggled with such definitions and been forced to reconsider what a man should value. Also we love men — therefore we know what men are. My idea of the word man has undergone drastic adjustments after hearing this song a few days ago.

Cara Stricker directed the music video for Embracism and I honestly consider this to be a work of sheer genius. I watched this video before being able to finish my morning coffee — I felt as if I had just been punched in the teeth and had walked over hot coals. …

The downtown ‘it’ boys, and skilled party crashers, John and Carlos, (together they are Jarlos) attended the Dragonette and Presets shows (plus later they crept into see Natalia Kills) for GAYLETTER.

One day Jarlos is gonna crash a party at the White House—trust, by the end of the night these two will be Pax-ing it up with Michelle and her hair stylist in the Lincoln Bedroom, cutting each others bangs and shit. For the first half of the night we hooked them up with tickets. Here’s what happened…

—–

It was like any other New York City Wednesday, when you wake up and attempt to catch up to all the missed tweets from the night before, until I saw that my friends at @GAYLETTER had posted about a Presets show that “everyone should definitely attend.” Being the brat that I am (and also a huge Presets fan) I tweeted them back requesting free tickets to the show, to my surprise, they said yes — but nothing is free.

So here is our diary of the Dragonette and Presets show, followed by a last minute Natalia Kills performance at The Box. You might have heard of her before, but she’s really coming for it now. She played a teaser of her new album and it slayed! What a night! Thank you GAYLETTER <3.

Some dude rocking a ‘Spring Breakers for Opening Ceremony’ tank top during the Dragonette performance. 

Grumpy sailor moon sweater girl, probably from Brooklyn. …

We’re experiencing painful anticipation awaiting the third release from gay punk rock outfit Hunx and his Punx. Indie music fans have embraced the enchantingly campy teenage rock ‘n’ roll band, so we felt a post deemed appropriate. Plus — being amply excited and staying silent is a recipe for disaster. The reason I’m so enraptured with Hunx and his Punx is due to the unique sense of nostalgia offered by the band. The idea of being a teenager in the USA through the 1950s is undeniably appealing, and thanks to Hunx and his Punx the nostalgic individual won’t have to sacrifice his gay standing.

Hunx (Seth Bogart) is a man made for center stage; his charm and uninhabited onstage antics makes for the perfect rock n roll star. Backed up by his band mates (Currently: Erin Emsile and Shannon Shaw of Shannon and the Clams), Hunx seems to be having genuine fun performing, which is sadly rare in the indie music world.

It’s true, there is a melancholy that runs through both Hunx and his Punx releases (Gay Singles and Too Young To Be In Love), but that’s what punk is all about — expressing yourself honestly while also having a fuck load of fun.

Hunx also released a solo album entitled Hairdresser Blues. We recommend you check them all out — Shannon and the Clams too. —THOMAS

Check out the video for Lovers Lane here.

  …