(NOTE: I'll be taking a break from the fedi for several months after this, just want to leave you all with some great music in the meantime)
Artist: Farewell Utopia (Nikita, she/they)
Why? Because her music hits a lot of diverse synth vibes - chill synth, 80s horror synth, experimental noise - and is an amazing listen! Also...I may be dating her and she is brilliant and beautiful and creative, and go give her a listen already!
My favorite album of hers is "Indecision" (https://farewellutopia.bandcamp.com/album/indecision). It is heavily inspired by 70s and 80s horror soundtracks, reminding of the Goblins and other synthesizer heavy horror musical artists.
Also...yes, this is blatant trans lesbian nepotism. Pretty girls that kiss me get featured on trans music monday. Especially when I am very gay for her.
And yes, I am stoking another discourse - it's time we all talked about ethics in trans music hashtags and the blatant nepotism of one of the people that unpredictably shares trans music on the fedi. I expect you all to start a crowdfunding website tomorrow to create a documentary that proves that I am an evil, schemer coming for the straight boys music to trans it up....because that would be fucking metal as hell 😈🤘
Been a hot second thanks to a month of starting two different jobs and personal ups and downs.
Kicking this one off with a folk punk playlist inspired by preparing for my teaching about what the prison-industrial complex does to LGBTQIA+ folks.
Artist: Left at London
Song: Do You See Us?
Why? This line lives rent-free in my head, "Fuck you and the slavers that you work for! This songs for the people you killed!"
Artist: Ezra Furman
Song: Point Me Towards the Real
Why? The song is about someone being released from detention at a psychiatric hospital and what it means to reenter the world afterwards when you've been left behind by the world and have to start over.
Artist: G.L.O.S.S a.k.a. Girls Living Outside Society’s Shit
(Corey, Sadie Switchblade, Jake, Tannrr, Julaya)
[NOTE: Does anybody know pronouns for all members of the band?]
Why? Legends of hardcore punk, G.L.O.S.S. showed up on the scene when so much of the US alt/punk scene had become dominated by manchildren singing about beer, cars, and the girls they mistreat. While they were only around for a few years, they flipped the table over, challenged sexism and transmisogyny, and helped foster “safe and tough” queer punk spaces. Their sound is all over many of my favorite trans fem bands today, speaking to how they changed the scene.
Where to start?
“Trans Day of Revenge” feels like one of those old DIY hardcore riot grrrl cassettes you happen upon in a record shop. It charges headlong into confrontation with fucked up world, short but with unrelenting energy that doesn’t stop to take a breath.
Also, a little note for my #TransMusicMonday followers, I'm going to be reboosting and sharing my trans music posts from the entire year for #TransAwarenessWeek! So keep an eye out in your feeds throughout the week for more great #Trans and gender diverse artists!
As with any hardcore band, I think you will always see them at their best live. The set below came after they were thrown into a shitstorm by transmisogynist jerks in a different band, and it captures perfectly the moment.
Much like Bikini Kill, they lead into their set by declaring a transfemininst manifesto that slaps:
“They told us we were girls
How we talk, dress, look, and cry
They told us we were girls
So we claimed our female lives
Now they tell us we aren’t girls
Our femininity doesn’t fit
We’re fucking FUTURE GIRLS, Living Outside Society’s Shit!”
Why? Today is something a bit different: an anthology cover album for trans rights! The indie label FADER has brought together a bunch of artists, including trans and queer artists I've shared here before, to raise money for the Transgender Law Center, Mermaids UK, and Rainbow Railroad. Buy it on bandcamp to support these organizations!
Where to start?
I mean, if Ezra Furman is doing something, I’m probably going to talk about it. This is probably one of her folksiest tunes, a cover of “12,000 Lines” by Big Thief.
Listening to this all day and probably going to be highlighting some of my favorite tracks for #TransMusicMonday
Because I am a sucker for synthesizers, I am probably listening to blackwinterwells' cover of "Honest Mistake" on repeat for a while....holy cow, she makes this her own and I think it might be the only valid version of this song for now on 🤩
Okay, now that I stopped listening to that on repeat, continuing my listening of the FADER and Friends trans rights anthology fundraiser, and so many of these are amazing.
And Free Range blue me away with this cover of "Waterloo Sunset" by the Kinks. It was always a song I thought was just alright, but the flourish of their vocals just really brought the feels of this song alive.
Importantly, this anthology album is a limited time fundraiser to support trans rights. So give it a listen today, and pick it up before it disappears!
I think Hedra Rowan just broke my heart with her cover of "You Don't Love Me When I Cry" by Laura Nyro. She really shows off the startling and powerful range that trans voices are capable of. If you need a moment to sit with your feels, give this a listen today:
Artist: The Cramps (Lux Interior, he/him; Poison Ivy, she/her)
Why?
For Halloween, I decided to do something a bit different. The artists today never identified as trans as far as I know, but were so campy in queering gender and aggressively gender non-conforming that they embody the wider meaning of transgressing the gender binary.
Today, I am going to give you a crash course in THE CRAMPS!
The lead singer, Lux Interior (he/him), and lead guitar, Poison Ivy (she/her), fell in love over their shared passion as record collectors of classic blues and rock-n-roll, as well as a love for B-movie horror films. This led them to get married and form a band that basically created the genre of "psychobilly," also cementing other subgenres like "punkabilly." I think it's also fair to credit them with inspiring the aesthetics of later goth and emo scenes, as well.
Lastly, I also want to suggest people check out a video essay about the Cramps by A Grrrl's Two Sound Cents. It really highlights what was amazing about this band, how absolutely brilliant and hypnotizing Poison Ivy's guitar virtuosity is, and the abosolute unrestrained play of Lux Interior on stage.
I think it's interesting the way their journey maps onto so many queer people's stories. Lux was from Ohio but escaped to California for college where he met his brilliant and beautiful wife and bandmate, Ivy. They brought their musical circus to New York in the late 70s and were a core part of the emerging punk scene, blowing open the possibilities of what punk could be. They later settled in West Hollywood, where Lux started wearing heels and breaking gender.
The Cramps infamously also decided to build on Johnny Cash's recording of performances at prisons by playing the Napa Valley Mental Hospital in 1978. Mental Hospitals were still pretty rough back then, but this is clearly a welcome bit of fun and liveliness for the patients, as they dance and even join onstage, and Lux and Ivy seem to be having a blast with them all. I think things like this endeared them to outsiders, weirdos, and folks living with mental illnesses like myself.
My first encounter with the Cramps was the music video for "Garbageman." While this is a cover, it was an invitation into music that coins the idea of "punkabilly" and if Lux's extreme vocals and Ivy's groundbreaking guitar don't put a spell on you, I don't know what will.
"Ultratwist" will give you a taste of how they developed their style and sound with one of their later ablums. It also features all the wonderful campy horror vibes in the music video that define their aesthetic.
Thing is, Lux and Ivy were brilliant and unapologetically transgressive, while also deeply loving art. One of my favorite examples of this is one of the only songs I know about a Dada/Cubist painting. "Naked Girl Falling Down the Stairs" is about encountering Marcel Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nude_Descending_a_Staircase,_No._2) in a museum. The music video also highlights once more Lux's amazing ability to perform in stiletto heels and a latex jumpsuit:
To truly understand the magic that these two brought into the world, you gotta watch them live. Have you ever wondered what the acoustics of a man singing while fellating a microphone sound like? Well, you will find out as Lux gyrates and lurches in uncanny and animalistic fashion across the stage with leather pants so low you can see his pubic hair while performing "I Was a Teenage Werewolf"
You can also get a taste for their kinky queerness in "Creature from the Black Leather Lagoon," as Lux performs in leather thong and high heels. CW: music video starts with a scene depicting a bloody demonic birth of a grown man
Why? A pioneer that shaped the sound of R&B in the 1960s (esp. the Toronto Sound), helped cultivate Toronto’s early queer community, and influenced glam rock and funk.
Where to start?
“Sticks and Stones” probably sums up her ethos best, as a trans woman who lovingly presented her queerness on stage. https://youtu.be/u00HYZXxxOA
Remember the transcestors during #TransAwarenessWeek! Boosting Jackie Shane, a pioneer that broke ground on the R&B sound that would inform so much of modern music. She was an out and proud trans woman at a time when it was illegal to be us. Go through this #TransMusicMonday thread and listen to her amazing voice. Connect with the legacy of creativity our trans elders have gifted us. 💖
Why? Mykki might be described as hip hop with riot grrrl edge and queer joyous exuberance. Her lines and sampling remind me of the best of 90s hip hop, while pushing past genre into something wonderfully fresh.
Where to start?
The GucciGig video highlights how fluidly they move between brilliant rap and into melodic ballad and hip-hop, with rapturous artistry abounding. https://youtu.be/TXqSIs-i_h8
Welcome to the first Trans Music Monday! Need something fun or cathartic to ride into the weekend? Don't have enough trans genius in your playlists? I got you!
Artist: Dorian Electra (Genderfluid, they/them)
Why? You need to have your brain exploded by multimedia genius. Burning edge of hyperpop and playing with genre. Can invert your presumptions on gender and sexuality on a whim.
Where to start?
I suggest their song, "Career Boy"
Did you know my first ever #TransMusicMonday was actually on a Friday? In case you weren't following me then, go check out the reigning monarch of hyperpop: Dorian Electra. Especially because they released a new album last month, "Fanfare," and it is soaked in sodomy, sex, and satirical critiques of rainbow capitalism and the music industry. Definitely worth your time to give it a try:
For #TransMusicMonday I present the album you all have heard about by now, made recently available on BandCamp as not to punish listeners that use that platform.
Our #metal masterpiece born of trauma, despair, hope, and wonder, this is Salvation.
It’s a gory look into a life lived in the fringe, torn apart by the evil in this world. But it also serves as a statement of a soul that refuses to die.