GrooveOut Queer to the Core Prick up your ears, all the pissed-off punks aren’t straight. Welcome to the artistic and political battlefield of Queercore by Chris Sill

It was 1994, and indie-rock band Green Day took a little known all-gay band Pansy Division on tour with them. The raucous indie crowds were used to lyrics that were as sexually abrasive as they were politically defiant. But although these punk-inspired bands were on the edge, it had always been a straight edge. Now Pansy Division was out and screaming, "I looked into his eyes, and let him sodomize me with his dick of death."

Welcome Queercore.

Once called "homocore," Queercore is an outgrowth of punk and such anti-mainstream bands of the late ’70s and early ’80s as the Ramones and the Sex Pistols with their anarchistic charge against commercialism. After Pansy Division's appearance on the national scene, the Queercore movement gained legions of fans both gay and straight. For gay listeners, it’s a call to arms against the stereotypical gay mainstream lifestyle. Not all lesbians like folk music and not all gay men like dance music and show tunes. Younger gays and lesbians find that Queercore embraces their anger toward adopting the gay culture that surrounds them and against growing up in the era of AIDS.

As with the punk rock movement, Queercore is anti anything conventional. Does the male world predominate in conventional gay culture? In Queercore, the women lead the way, with mostly all-girl bands creating these soundtracks of angst.

United in their goal of sending out blatantly queer messages, the bands differ when it comes to their style of uproarious music. For instance, Tribe 8, an all-girl band from California, plays it fast and angry, its songs loud and speedy. From Germany, Low End Models mix metal, techno, hardcore, and punk. The all-male Pansy Division is no more, but the men are represented by such Queercore bands as the tragically hip Limpwrist and the Nebraska-raised duo of Fagatron.

As for the capital of Queercore, one would think of the obvious, San Francisco or New York. Wrong, too conventional. Try the Pacific Northwest area of Portland and Seattle. Even more surprising is the fact that Durham, North Carolina, is home to Queercore’s strongest record label, Mr. Lady Records and Video. Headed by Kaia Wilson and Tammy Rae Carland, Mr. Lady represents two of the biggest bands in Queercore today, the Butchies and LeTigre. With big, thick guitars and pounding drums, the Butchies capture the current sound of punk rock, while LeTigre creates a sonic dance soundscape with modern-day electronics.

Queercore’s strength lies in its bands’ unwavering willingness to put their sexuality first in their music. Instead of not making an issue out of their sexual preference, it becomes the issue. If straight-edge punk bands can sing explicitly about sex and their angst at being spoonfed a commercial lifestyle, then so can queer-punk bands … they just have to sing a little louder. So prick up your ears, Queercore is the sound of the new gay subculture.