Growing Up Gay to a Glam Rock Soundtrack - The New York Times
Jim Farber is a critic friend that I first met at the Ninth Circle. in the Village in the '70's. The bar on Waverly Place on the same street as my apartment started off as a late beatnik bar by Mickey Ruskin and Bobby Crevitt. It was originally called Le Du Margos (oh how ever the French spell it correction please?) it was like an outsider bar with a downstairs filled with poets, bikers, artists and rock'n'rollers etc hanging out inside and in the backyard garden. Black and white, gay and straight. When Mickey left to open Max's Kansas City the name changed to the Ninth Circle (A Dante reference) it became essentially a gay men's bar. While I know Jim tries to make it a harbor of non-political gay men more interested in black leather jackets, boys who were sometimes hustlers (aka sex workers ) but would give it away to someone they liked and the distinction of who hung out upstairs or downstairs where the pool table was,It was a gay creative culture hang Jim in this article names just a few of whom were regulars . The afternoon writers salon like the one that had been started at Julius in the '60 s one block down by Sandra Scoppettone was re-invented at the Ninth Circle by people like Frank O;Hara . While Jim was not attracted (profesional sucide?) to the emerging politics of single issue groups like the Gay Activist Alliance or the multi-issue Gay Alliance Front, I will tell you as someone who was both an artist and political, we did hang out there too..
When hetrosexual David Bowie put on a dress and some eye make up helped by his wife Angie the nules changed followed by an invasion of straight boys in androgynous drag, Some actually were gay but not to the pubic, Some after a couple of drinks and weed fell in bed without sexual orientation barriers imposed. (TBC) Glam with Bowie in the lead in London and the NY Dolls here in NY and people like Steven Tyler blurred or should I say bridged the gender expression rules .. and it was clear that not only girls love these gender bending rock'n'rollers, birthed in LSD and the hippie male androgyny movement with its allowance of men to be beautiful without a sexual orientation genuflection, but also gay boys did too .
Jim Farber coming from Rolling Stone has been the Daily News music critic for years , Recently his byline disappeared from the paper. Good news for those of us who know Jim Farber as one of the best rock critic to emerge in the golden days of rock journalism under the role modeling of the Dean of rock critics Bob Christgua based at the Village Voice, and the masthead list of contributors of the original Rolling Stone, Jim never apologized for liking both metal AND glam bands and some disco divas,
I am seeing Jim's byline popping up today free of editorial boundaries imposed by the News. I have always loved reading him and agreeing or disagreeing with him ,,, that is what a good critic does. ( you should have been a bird on the wall when Jim and David Fricke and I stood in the lobby of the IFC after the screening of the Bert Bearns documentary (excellent) and talked about everything music under the sun) Obviously this essay is very special to me .. I should also remind people that when you became too "gay " in public , most critics and gay taste makers leave the room and go metaphorically "downstairs" at the Ninth Circle to distance themselves from someone like a Jobriath. But not me.
I can hardly wait for the debate that should take place when Martin Ashton's just published in the London to rave reviews BREAKING DOWN THE WALLS OF HEARTACHE how music CAME OUT
is published here in the new year.. can;t wait to belly up to the bar and be a part of the critic dish with Jim Farber, Vince Aletti, Vickie Starr, Danny Fields , Howie Klein etc to vetted it. Thank you Jim Farber for letting your gay spirit out of the box and writing so brilliantly today
Jim Farber is a critic friend that I first met at the Ninth Circle. in the Village in the '70's. The bar on Waverly Place on the same street as my apartment started off as a late beatnik bar by Mickey Ruskin and Bobby Crevitt. It was originally called Le Du Margos (oh how ever the French spell it correction please?) it was like an outsider bar with a downstairs filled with poets, bikers, artists and rock'n'rollers etc hanging out inside and in the backyard garden. Black and white, gay and straight. When Mickey left to open Max's Kansas City the name changed to the Ninth Circle (A Dante reference) it became essentially a gay men's bar. While I know Jim tries to make it a harbor of non-political gay men more interested in black leather jackets, boys who were sometimes hustlers (aka sex workers ) but would give it away to someone they liked and the distinction of who hung out upstairs or downstairs where the pool table was,It was a gay creative culture hang Jim in this article names just a few of whom were regulars . The afternoon writers salon like the one that had been started at Julius in the '60 s one block down by Sandra Scoppettone was re-invented at the Ninth Circle by people like Frank O;Hara . While Jim was not attracted (profesional sucide?) to the emerging politics of single issue groups like the Gay Activist Alliance or the multi-issue Gay Alliance Front, I will tell you as someone who was both an artist and political, we did hang out there too..
When hetrosexual David Bowie put on a dress and some eye make up helped by his wife Angie the nules changed followed by an invasion of straight boys in androgynous drag, Some actually were gay but not to the pubic, Some after a couple of drinks and weed fell in bed without sexual orientation barriers imposed. (TBC) Glam with Bowie in the lead in London and the NY Dolls here in NY and people like Steven Tyler blurred or should I say bridged the gender expression rules .. and it was clear that not only girls love these gender bending rock'n'rollers, birthed in LSD and the hippie male androgyny movement with its allowance of men to be beautiful without a sexual orientation genuflection, but also gay boys did too .
Jim Farber coming from Rolling Stone has been the Daily News music critic for years , Recently his byline disappeared from the paper. Good news for those of us who know Jim Farber as one of the best rock critic to emerge in the golden days of rock journalism under the role modeling of the Dean of rock critics Bob Christgua based at the Village Voice, and the masthead list of contributors of the original Rolling Stone, Jim never apologized for liking both metal AND glam bands and some disco divas,
I am seeing Jim's byline popping up today free of editorial boundaries imposed by the News. I have always loved reading him and agreeing or disagreeing with him ,,, that is what a good critic does. ( you should have been a bird on the wall when Jim and David Fricke and I stood in the lobby of the IFC after the screening of the Bert Bearns documentary (excellent) and talked about everything music under the sun) Obviously this essay is very special to me .. I should also remind people that when you became too "gay " in public , most critics and gay taste makers leave the room and go metaphorically "downstairs" at the Ninth Circle to distance themselves from someone like a Jobriath. But not me.
I can hardly wait for the debate that should take place when Martin Ashton's just published in the London to rave reviews BREAKING DOWN THE WALLS OF HEARTACHE how music CAME OUT
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