Gay Glam Com To HBO : The Rerd : NPR

Contents:

• OVERLOOKED NO MORE: JOBRIATH, OPENLY GAY GLAM ROCKER THE ’70S
• GAY GLAM COM TO HBO
• ZAKK WYLDE: 'BLACK LABEL SOCIETY PUTS GAY INTO GAYNS'
• INSI THE FASCATG HISTORY OF GLTER AND GAY CULTURE

OVERLOOKED NO MORE: JOBRIATH, OPENLY GAY GLAM ROCKER THE ’70S

In the 1920s and early ’30s, Prohibn’s end gave way to the “Pansy Craze”: baret drag performanc that brought gay nightlife to the mass and rried their athetics to mastream mil theater.

GAY GLAM COM TO HBO

In the mid-’30s, at the edge of the Great Deprsn, moral backlash—sometim disguised as enomic nservatism but ually explic s bigotry—shut down many of the clubs and formally crimalized gay sex at a sle that had never before been seen. Jazz n’t be imaged whout the ntributns of giants like Billy Strayhorn (of De Ellgton’s band), who was openly gay, and, later, Cecil Taylor, who found that three-letter word was too limg. The ’70s brought glam and dis, genr play, and explicly queer nightlife back to the mastream; we n’t fet that ’s great gay pop in, Elton John, and s great bisexual on, David Bowie and Freddie Mercury.

Lang, the Indigo Girls), all the way to today, a moment that young pop star Hayley Kiyoko teasgly refers to as “#20gayteen. Their first gay kiss was junr high, wh someone wearg a matchg flannel, while listeng to Peter Murphy's "Deep" on shared Sport Walkman headphon.

ZAKK WYLDE: 'BLACK LABEL SOCIETY PUTS GAY INTO GAYNS'

”Such was the plited existence of Jobriath, who is generally regard as the first openly gay rock star. The productn st was timated at an exorbant $200, ad mpaign is one reason Jobriath is nsired to this day to have been among the mic dtry’s most overhyped the gay liberatn movement growg the early 1970s, Brandt assumed that Jobriath would be readily embraced. ”Jobriath put out a send album, “Creatur of the Street, ” 1974 and embarked on a natnal tour, only to enunter homophobic slurs durg a performance at Nass Colism on Long Island.

At least he'll be the slightly-off Vyl versn of that great, lost boundary-smashg hope of 1970s rock, who for a shg moment 1974 beme the most visible gay man popular mic. " Brandt and Jobriath uld sell openly gay sex, or at least partially unclothed gay eroticism, bee of the distctively experimental mood of Ameri 1973.

INSI THE FASCATG HISTORY OF GLTER AND GAY CULTURE

Mark's Baths (gay) and Plato's Retreat (nomally straight).

And the show hasn't yet ventured to the moment's other huge shift, toward gay liberatn, that led to a wave of Pri paras, Central park dance-s, and artistic ventur like San Francis's Cockett troupe, which clud a young Sylvter. Many gay mic lovers were already turng their ears toward dis, embracg funky tracks like Barrabas's "Wild Safari, " heard a (seemgly totally straight) Bronx club this Vyl episo's fal scene.

Punive ntracts kept his reer unr wraps; he beme ill wh a disease affectg gay men the cy, newly known as AIDS, and died of 1983. GLAM is part of the natnwi MPowerment Project, which is a mol HIV preventn program that has been specifilly signed to addrs the needs of gay, bi, trans, queer + male intified dividuals (18-35).