The drum still figures
large in culture and performance (where would Olympic opening ceremonies be
without drums!). There are many musicians who have built a career on being a
drummer and here are some from the lgbt community.
In the USA there are
several lgbt drum troops. The most well-known is probably DC’s Different
Drummers. Although primarily founded for the lgbt community this troop has
always welcomed straight members. No doubt most cities around the world have at
least one local drum troop in their annual Pride marches. Then there are marching
bands, and orchestras. There are many of these specifically made up largely of
lgbt musicians.
But I suppose the first
image to enter the mind when the word drummer is spoken is of a pop group. Two
famous, and very different, groups of the 1980s who had lgbt drummers were
Culture Club and the Beastie Boys.
It’s a very significant
time for Culture Club. Only last month the band announced their reunion and a
new tour, and tomorrow night they’ll be performing at a special concert in
Edinburgh Castle to celebrate the imminent start of the Commonwealth Games on
Wednesday. The new slim-line Boy George, emerging like a confident butterfly
after many years as an overweight drug-filled caterpillar, will perform the old
familiar songs with the original band line-up, and perform new songs and
produce a new album.
When Culture Club first
became famous Boy George was secretly dating the drummer Jon Moss. It was a
tempestuous relationship which helped to fuel creative song-writing. At times
the two came to blows and they tried to kill each other. It wasn’t a very good
situation for the other band members to be caught in and they all split up in
1986 – both the band and the George/Jon relationship.
John and Boy George have
now reached the part in their lives when they can work together again with the
other Culture Club members, Mikey Craig and Roy Hay. Many bands have reunited
over the years. Some have been successful and achieved the fame they originally
had. I’m sure Culture Club will as well.
The Beastie Boys rose to
fame at the same time as Culture Club but their drummer was something rarely
seen at the time – a female drummer, Kate Schellenbach. She, too, has produced
a new album, not with the Beastie Boys but her later band Luscious Jackson. In
parallel with Culture Club Luscious Jackson split up (in 2000) and reformed in
2011. In the years in between Kate worked in the tv industry, including working
as a producer on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” for a while.
Kate may never have
become a drummer had she not gone to a New York club as a teenager to see a
band called Student Teachers who had a female drummer. Kate knew that she
wanted to be a drummer as well. Several years later she was asked to join a
band called The Young Aborigines. At the end of one rehearsal session the band
let their hair down and played their songs as punk rock. They enjoyed it so
much that they chose to play all their gigs like that. And that’s how the
Beastie Boys was born.
Female drummers are
still relatively rare but they are not unknown in the past (Karen Carpenter
started out as a drummer). All-female bands (jazz bands, big bands, etc.) have
been around for decades. Before World War II there was an American band called
the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, and one of their drummers was called
Ruby Lucas. She later became an icon in Chicago’s lgbt community, and I’ll tell
more of her story in October.
Back to the present, and
one of the most famous drummers in popular music is Phil Collins of Genesis.
His son Simon is also a drummer and singer with his own band called Sound of
Contact. To some extent he is still labelled as “the son of Phil Collins”
rather than a performer in his own right. From his emergence as a performer in
2005 Simon has been quite open about his bisexuality and admits, like other
lgbt songwriters, his sexuality has influenced some of his work.
Away from popular music
drummers are more often referred to as percussionists. There are even fewer
openly lgbt percussionists than there are female drummers. One percussionist
with a particularly unique take on drumming is the New Zealander Gareth Farr.
Primarily a composer of
strong percussion-based music, writing for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra,
the Royal New Zealand Ballet and the Sydney 2000 Olympic Organising Committee,
among others, Gareth studied percussion performance at Auckland University. In
2006 he became one of the very few percussionists honoured by the Queen, who
made him an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to music
and entertainment.
I said that Gareth had a
particularly unique take on drumming. In fact, in some classical circles in New
Zealand it has led to him being regarded as an enfant terrible. Why? Because in
1994 he created Lilith Lacroix, a drag percussionist. From her first appearance
at the Club Marcella in Rochester, New York, Lilith has wowed audiences with
her percussive skills, not to mention her outfits. In 1997 Gareth created a
special show for Lilith based specifically around percussion called “Drumdrag”.
And I can think of no
better way to finish than to show you part of Lilith’s 2007 “Drumdrag” show in
Toronto.
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