#patriarchy is truly fucking wild and ever-present

[blackwoolncrown]

This article was going around a while ago but idk I felt like it had probably gathered some homophobic undesirables on the rounds and I didn’t feel like carrying them along with a reblog.

But this article really really spoke to me because among the various reasons why I find the LGBT scene no more or less uncomfortable than straight spaces is the fact that from an early age I observed and was directly victim to this habit gay men have of thinking that misogyny is like...a personality trait.

Wild that it took Azealia Banks of all people (!!) to give this man a wake up call but she is absolutely right at least twice a day.

“Women, straight or not, have played such a vital role in the lives of gay men both personally and politically. Yet this camaraderie is all too often taken advantage of by gay men, who take this kindness, but offer nothing in return.

Evidently, there’s an issue within the gay community — perpetuated by a dangerous myth that continues to harm women everywhere.

Because in the gay community there’s a unique sort of misogyny, and it’s one that’s rarely discussed. Guised under the dangerous idea that “gay men can’t be sexist.”

I’ve never once been able to reconcile with or understand how such terminology and language gets to be part and parcel to gay lexicon or why it seems like there’s no way to criticize that without being made to seem ~homophobic~. It just feels like women and anyone with a vagina are supposed to sit back and grin as gay dudes say all sorts of exceptionally rude and demeaning stuff about our bodies, and if we don’t like it, then boo-hoo, that’s the ~culture~ and we just have to leave if it’s not our scene.

But like...we don’t have a choice, we all live in this world.

“Coming out at such a young age, I was exposed to so much through media and people around me as to what being gay is supposed to mean, and how I’m supposed to carry myself. During such a formative time for my brain I can confidently say: this fucked me up quite a bit.

I saw the way gay men on TV would speak, especially the way they spoke to women. “Oh my god, bitch!” “You’re such a little slut!” “You fucking, whore I can see your fish!” were some of the things I heard.

Characters like the fun hairdresser or the perky assistant would gleefully say say these things toward women. As if their higher pitched tone made it ok.”

I was 14 when my mother’s gay friend was all too keen to join in on her constant critiquing of my presentation, as an ‘alternative’ (read: abused, struggling, LGBT,) teen who wouldn’t perform ‘girlhood’ the way she wanted. Incidentally, it was he she would send me to when she was tired of me not caring enough about maintaining a cute, curly ‘girl’ hair do, and once when he was finished with me, he turned me around in his chair and said ‘Now, don’t we look human?’ Hello? Is anybody listening? Did this grown man think twice about the message he was sending to a child?

Does anyone care how we feel?

Does anyone think twice about a culture of sassy-woman-dragging and how much misogyny and patriarchy is woven into that specific form of gay performance as well as drag? Is it really liberating if you have to shit on everyone else to get it? Why should gay freedom of expression come at cost to women’s self image? Is it really ‘gay culture’? Or is it the fact that it’s still a bunch of people- men at that- living in a sexist society and parroting its insults ~but for ironic funsies~? The reach this has not just through media, but through the community- including the DL and not-out members? Because that gay form of misogyny was some of my father’s favorite; he was a man with his own full closet and a long side-relationship with the community through theatre. What does it say that it’s santized and accepted under ‘self expression for the gays’ and it’s on TV (where everyone’s voice does belong, yes) and women’s bodies are being laughed at in homes around the globe? Is it okay? Does the ~sass~ take the sting away?

The whole article is a good read because honestly it weighs a little less heavy on my soul to see more gay men going “....wait, wtf? Why is this okay? What have we done? Why are we saying these things?”

Because for the record? I actually have been disabused of the notion that women and gay men have a ‘comraderie’ (as the writer puts it) long ago. Whether a man is gay or not really doesn’t factor in my  mind regarding whether or not I’d expect him to be sexist. A lot of gay men just like straight men give off palpable woman-negative vibes. 

“The root of his argument was that he, nor any other gay man, could ever disrespect women, due to the fact that they were not sexually desirable to him. Therefore there was no other way to possibly disrespect them if not by sexualizing them.“

The fact that there are gay men who still think their attraction to women matters one way or the other in this regard is...typical, actually. Men are men.

Let’s do better, shall we?

[rainydawgradioblog]

RDR Essentials - Hard Rock (2/26)

RDR Essentials is a weekly newsletter of alternating genres that outlines key releases of the past month, upcoming events around Seattle and happenings in the specified music genre.

Made in collaboration between Rainy Dawg DJs and the Music Director.

Releases:

I Don’t Know How to Be Happy - Deli Girls

https://sweatequitynyc.bandcamp.com/album/i-dont-know-how-to-be-happy

Deli Girls crawled out of the grimy New York underground hardcore scene thanks to the group’s wild performances and fiercely gay noise, which was channeled into their first album Evidence. In a similar vein, their newest album I Don’t Know How to Be Happy pushes their trademark sound even further. The album starts off to “Officer”’s serrated beat, which hisses beneath an automated phone message regarding a court date, functioning as a brief adjustment period before exploding into passionate screaming, rapping, yelping, and laughing of lead vocalist Danny Orlowski. Orlowski continues this manic verbal assault through the rest of this album, which pounds along with a righteous and dark violence against the patriarchy. “Peg” stands out especially, pushed along because of Tommi Kelly’s fresh layer of poppy synth arpeggios. “Here We Go Again” follows, one of the more eerie cuts on the album. “You will never win because you will never be as angry as the rest of us / Another day I didn’t end my miserable fucking life” screams Orlowski, with interludes of laughter on the brink of breakdown. Get ready to run head first through whatever glass ceilings or brick walls you might experience in 2019 with this incredible album.

- Max Bryla

Vain Attempt  - SLANT

https://ironlungpv.bandcamp.com/track/the-trap

There’s really not a whole lot out there about SLANT, a newer classic punk band that hails from Seoul, South Korea. Their recent EP, Vain Attempt 7” is just 4 tracks with the longest clocking in at 2:02, and is issued by Seattle punk label IRON LUNG Records, available on Bandcamp. Labelmates like Diät and Iron Lung have had some more mainstream success, but SLANT is much newer to the scene. They have pulled members from other bands like SCUMRAID and BLOODKROW BUTCHER, another Seoul and Boston punk band, respectively. Vain Attempt 7” definitely has a higher production value than those counterparts however, and it benefits because of it. Tracks like “Dry Heave” get right to the point, and don’t stick around too long. Terrific, fast paced drumming combine with some great vocal heft to make a really solid punk album, and this is a band that has a solid future with them, and hopefully some US tour dates.

- Max Bryla

Protogoni Mavri Magiki Dynasteia - Mystifier

https://mystifier.bandcamp.com/

Brazilian blackened death metal band Mystifier have announced their first album in 18 years with the pre release of their track Weighing Heart Ceremony. This track plays similar to their older material with its guttural vocals, creepy and eclectic atmosphere, and overall eeriness. Their 1993 album Goetia is regarded as a landmark in South American extreme metal, showing clear distinctions from European and American artists of the same time. This new track still has the same occultish aura of the band’s earlier material, but also features a much more blackened tonality, meaning more melody and less dissonance. Rather than sounding like the soundtrack to an occult ceremony (basically the narrative of Goetia), this track is a lot more brooding and pensive. If you are into slightly untraditional black/death metal, you should check out this album when it drops on March 8.

- Zac Weiner

Forgotten Paths - Saor

https://saor.bandcamp.com/

Saor is a scottish based atmospheric black metal band that has been pushing black metal to its most serene and experimental boundaries. Forgotten Paths sums up exactly what atmoblack is all about: beautiful tremolo picked melodies, the occasional folk instrument interlude, and a placid nature shot on the cover. This project is the perfect soundtrack for a solo walk through the woods. While some of the interludes can be a little dramatic for an experienced listener, the album makes up for it with bone chilling screams which sound even more emotional over the Gaelic sounding guitar melodies. This album is very digestible and could serve as an excellent introduction to black metal: the production is clean, the riffs sound like they were written by the bard at the Renaissance fair, and every blast beat is met with an equally long folk interlude.

- Zac Weiner

Xiu Xiu - Girl With a Basket of Fruit

https://xiuxiu.bandcamp.com/album/girl-with-basket-of-fruit

Xiu Xiu is an noise pop / experimental rock outfit fronted by multi-instrumentalist Jamie Stewart which can never quite settle on a single sound. They’ve been consistently churning out full-length albums every year or two, varying from anti-folk to electronic indie rock to harsh noise and everywhere in between. Doing away with the cleaner indie rock sound they explored on their previous album Forget, their newest release, Girl With a Basket of Fruit, is a return to the noisier and more experimental tendencies of their early output. Produced by Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier and featuring vocal contributions from Oxbow’s Eugene S. Robinson, the album repeatedly shifts from frantic tribal rhythms (Scisssssssors, Pumpkin Attack on Mommy and Daddy) to abstract heavy electronics (title track, Ice Cream Truck) to droning ambient passages (The Wrong Thing, Amargi ve Moo) and back again, tied together by the harsh synth sounds and uncomfortable samples Xiu Xiu fans are so familiar with and Jamie Stewart’s characteristically unsettling vocals, which are pushed farther than ever on this release, whimpering one minute and screaming the next. After over half an hour of head-spinning erratic noise, the album leaves the listener on a softer note with Normal Love, a slow, stripped-back and sweet (for Xiu Xiu standards) piano pop song. RIYL - Suicide, Coil, Oxbow

- Elliot Hansen

Angel Bat Dawid - The Oracle

https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/the-oracle

The Oracle is spiritual jazz clarinetist Angel Bat Dawid’s very first release. She recorded and mixed the album entirely by herself and performed every instrument except the drums on one of the eight tracks. The recording process, done entirely on a cell phone, was split between London, England, Cape Town, South Africa, and Dawid’s hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Though the album features not much more than clarinet, drums, Angel’s vocals, and the occasional electric piano or miscellaneous wind instrument, the numerous overdubs and effects used turn these elements into cosmic, psychedelic soundscapes, greater than the sum of their parts. Dawid’s lyrics, when present, largely reflect on African American identity and experience, as evidenced by the third track, a re-interpretation of Margaret Burrough’s poem “What Shall I Tell My Children Who Are Black?” Reverberating, overlapping vocal harmonies ebb and flow and give way repeatedly to much more abstract melodies and stranger sounds, ranging from squealing horns to wide, cosmic phaser textures and long-winded erratic improvisations. RIYL - Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman

- Elliot Hansen

Upcoming shows around Seattle:

02/26/19 - Cannibal Corpse / Morbid Angel / Necrot / Blood Incarnation @ Showbox

Openers include Necrot and Blood Incantation, bands that represent the death metal renaissance occurring in recent years and provide some of some of the freshest and heaviest sounds of the 2010s. Morbid Angel (of the cult favorite Altars of Madness) follows as the midbill. Headlining the night is Cannibal Corpse, a group that’s  infamous for their graphic album covers and truly grotesque lyrics. 8PM / $29 / AA

02/27/19 - The Big Band at the End of the World @ Vermillion Art Gallery

18 piece improvisational ensemble featuring strings, horns, electric guitar, harmonium, 3 drummers, and live visuals led by local avant-garde/free jazz saxophonist Gregg Miller. 8PM / $5-10 / AA

03/02/19 - Sandy Ewen / AF Jones / Greg Kelley / Ambrosia Bardos @ Vermillion Art Gallery

Ewen, a touring experimental guitarist, Jones, a local avant-garde composer, and Kelley, a free-jazz/noise trumpet player will perform as a trio. Ambrosia Bardos, a local noise artist who also performs under the name Morher, will perform a solo set. 4PM / $5-10 / AA

More to look out for:

FILM: Lords of Chaos / @ Grand Cinema March 16th

Depicts the sensationalized history of black metal, is now out in theaters. This film has been met with mixed reviews for its lack of honesty in portraying the events (and some really terrible cinematography) but still has merit as an introduction to the genre.

Upcoming Releases and Tours:

3/8 The Coathangers - The Devil You Know via Suicide Squeeze

3/15 The Minneapolis Uranium Club - The Cosmo Cleaners via Fashionable Idiots/Static Shock

4/2  Empath - Active Listening: Night On Earth via Get Better (”Soft Shape” video out NOW)

6/5 - Royal Trux @ Neumos (rescheduled)