PETER RAUHOFER's FINAL TDB INTERVIEW, ON DIVAS, DRUGS AND GAY LIFE

Peter Rauhofer in 1994 (Photo via Peter Rauhofer's official Facebook page)

Pioneering DJ, producer and remixer Peter Rauhofer died on May 7 after a long battle with brain cancer. The iconic blond was arguably best known for his very gay Star 69 record label, and his remix work for Depeche Mode, Eurythmics, Madonna, Mariah  Carey, Whitney Houston, Pet Shop Boys and even Yoko Ono. He also won (under the name Club 69) the Grammy Award for Remixer of the Year in 2000 for his reworking of Cher's Believe.

"It makes me sad, not only that I have lost a friend, but that the world has lost an amazing talent and that future generations will never get to understand the magic that Peter created night after night all over the world," Rauhofer's friend and manager Angelo Russo posted on Rauhofer's Facebook page. He added, "I ask that his true fans keep his legacy alive by sharing his music with anyone who may not have had the opportunity to experience it for themselves."

I interviewed Rauhofer just once, when he headlined Divers/Cité’s official closing party in Montreal back in 2005. He was pretty frank and honest, and told me that - unlike many other cities - he still loved spinning in Montreal.

EDMUND WHITE ON BAREBACKING, GAY MARRIAGE AND GORE VIDAL

"There is this dumbing down of gay culture, and nobody reads or cares," says Edmund White.

Bugs' interview with Edmund White originally ran in Xtra

 

Literary lion Edmund White is well known to gay readers as a novelist, biographer, memoirist and charter member of the Violet Quill, the legendary New York City writers group whose members – White, Felice Picano, Andrew Holleran, Robert Ferro, Michael Grumley, Christopher Cox and George Whitmore – are widely considered to be the trailblazing gay-male literary nucleus of post-Stonewall 20th-century America.
 

But on the eve of his much-anticipated arrival at the 2013 edition of Montreal’s Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival, White told me, “You can make too much of the Violet Quill. I mean, we only met seven or eight times. But I do think it was very useful at the time, in the late '70s and early '80s, because without even discussing it, we figured out who would have which turf. For instance, Andrew [Holleran] would write about Fire Island, I would write about childhood, and Felice [Picano] would often write about the dark side of things.”

 

White — who suffered a stroke last summer (he has fully recovered) — turned 73 in January. In the interview below he speaks about the evolution of gay life, literature, barebacking and equal marriage. 

WHY QUEER AUDIENCES LOVE BILLY BRAGG, IN HIS OWN WORDS

Brit punk alt-rock legend Billy Bragg is still fighting establishment “Tooth & Nail”

(Photo by Andy Whale, courtesy Rubin Fogel Productions)

Bugs' current interview with Billy Bragg originally ran in Xtra and Curtains Up 

British alt-rock musician and left-wing activist Billy Bragg formed the punk rock band Riff Raff in 1977 and was touring London’s pubs and clubs when one day, in the spring of 1978,  he joined 100,000 people in the first-ever Rock Against Racism march from Trafalgar Square to East London to see an outdoor concert at Victoria Park, organized to counteract rising racist attacks across Britain. 

Headliners that day included The Clash, Buzzcocks, Steel Pulse, Generation X and the Tom Robinson Band, who recorded the landmark song Glad to Be Gay. 

“Today Glad to Be Gay sounds like a like lovely little song, but back then you could get your fuckin’ head kicked in for being gay,” says Bragg. “So Tom Robinson sang this song, and then all the guys that were standing around me and my mates, all these guys started kissing each other on the lips, and we turned around and saw we were standing under a banner that said ‘Gays Against the Nazis.’ They’d been marching behind us in the parade and we hadn’t realized it, and then I realized this wasn’t just about racism, it was about prejudice, bigotry – and that also means equal rights for gay, lesbian and trans people.”

LES McKEOWN OF BAY CITY ROLLERS ONE IN LONG LINE OF QUEER BOY-BAND SINGERS

Les McKeown’s Legendary Bay City Rollers headline new 12-concert cross-Canada tour

I remember I was chatting with 1980s pop star Samantha Fox the day after Les McKeown, frontman for 1970s heartthrobs the Bay City Rollers, admitted on the British TV show Rehab in February 2009 that he is bisexual.

"I’ve been a bit of a George Michael, meeting people, often strangers, for sex," McKeown said. "Not in public toilets – I’m not big on the unhygienic side of things. These days you’d meet online and figure out a place where to meet – your place or mine." 

Ironically, a week earlier, New Kids On The Block heartthrob Jonathan Knight was outed in America. In other words, the song remains the same.

But Fox – whose fabulous lesbian partner of 14 years, Myra Stratton, is also her manager – was as stunned about McKeown as I was. 

"Les and I had become great friends on [an Australian] tour," Samantha explained. "When I was 10 in 1977 the BCR were huge and I used to wear white trousers and tartan bottoms! My friends and I had our own BCR song" – here Samantha sings it to me – "and I sang it to Les at the airport! I could see on that tour that he was a broken man. Now I understand [why]. I wish he had spoken to me because I could have helped him. Because it was [also] very difficult for me [coming out]. I could never live that lie that long because it destroys you. And people know. That’s what happened to me. Even when I went out with guys, like Paul Stanley of Kiss, I knew." 

MONTREAL PHOTOGRAPHER JJ LEVINE's CRITICALLY-HAILED "QUEER PORTRAITS"

Internationally-acclaimed, Montreal-based Canadian transgender country and indie singer-songwriter and author Rae Spoon (above) is one of the subjects in photographer JJ Levine's Queer Portraits exhibit (All photos by JJ Levine, courtesy JJ Levine)

 

 

I first came across the photographs of Montreal photographer JJ Levine in the pages of Maisonneuve’s Summer 2012 issue, where Levine parodied prom-style portraits, and then again just days later in the 10×10 Photography Project: 100 Portraits Celebrating LGBT People in the Arts, during Gay Pride at Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel last summer.

Montreal photographer JJ Levine

That exhibit featured 10 photographers, but it was Levine’s portraits that caught my eye – and many of those are also featured in Levine’s new solo show Queer Portraits at display at Toronto's Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography from May 3 to June 16.More images from JJ Levine's series Queer Portraits will be on display at Gladstone Hotel's Art Bar from May 1 - 31.

The Queer Portraits press release states, “Each portrait is taken in a different domestic setting, characterized by saturated colours and often discursive backgrounds. Using professional lighting and a medium format film camera, Levine creates a studio within each home environment, and intentionally places every piece of furniture and object that appears within the frame. These settings are intended to raise questions regarding private queer space as a realm for the development of community and the expression of genders and sexualities that are often marginalized within the public sphere.”

“I’ve been taking these [portraits] since 2006 and I’ve probably taken over 100 [portraits]  in this series by this point,” Levine says. “I photograph my friends and people around me, so there really is no decision-making process [about who to photograph]. It just comes to me when I’m interacting [with others] in my daily life.” 

Queer Portraits runs at Toronto's Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography from May 3 to June 16. More images from Queer Portraits will be on display at Gladstone Hotel's Art Bar from May 1 - 31. Click here for more info.

Click here for JJ Levine’s official website.

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NBA PLAYER JASON COLLINS COMES OUT ON THE COVER OF SPORTS ILLUSTRATED

NBA center Jason Collins has come out on the cover of the  May 6, 2013, issue of Sports Illustrated.

"I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay."

Those are the very first words by 12-year NBA veteran Jason Collins from his essay in the May 6 issue of Sports Illustrated, making him the first openly-gay male athlete playing in a major-league sport in North America.

"I didn't set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport," Collins continues. "But since I am, I'm happy to start the conversation. I wish I wasn't the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, "I'm different." If I had my way, someone else would have already done this. Nobody has, which is why I'm raising my hand."

And after writing, hoping and wishing for this very moment for many years, all I can say is "Wow!"

And congratulations to Jason Collins who has now become one of my all-time favourite athletes.

"I realized I needed to go public when Joe Kennedy, my old roommate at Stanford and now a Massachusetts congressman, told me he had just marched in Boston's 2012 Gay Pride Parade," Collins writes. "I'm seldom jealous of others, but hearing what Joe had done filled me with envy. I was proud of him for participating but angry that as a closeted gay man I couldn't even cheer my straight friend on as a spectator. If I'd been questioned, I would have concocted half truths. What a shame to have to lie at a celebration of pride. I want to do the right thing and not hide anymore. I want to march for tolerance, acceptance and understanding. I want to take a stand and say, 'Me, too.'"

HOW 1970S DISCO QUEEN FRANCE JOLI BECAME FIRE ISLAND GAY ICON

Montreal singer France Joli became an “overnight success” at the age of 16 back in 1979 when she replaced Donna Summer at a legendary beach concert performance for 5,000 gay men on Fire Island now famously known as Beach ’79 (Photo by David A Lee / All photos courtesy France Joli)

 
This interview originally ran in The Montreal Gazette

Montreal singer France Joli became an “overnight success” at the age of 16 back on July 7, 1979, when she headlined a legendary beach concert performance for 5,000 gay men now famously known as Beach ’79.

Donna Summer had cancelled at the last minute, so Joli stepped in as a replacement and sang her song Come to Me, which would chart at #15 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart  – then at #1 on the disco chart – and to this day the song is widely-known as “the definitive Fire Island dance classic.”

“I was blown away, I was a kid and had never seen gay life like that before, it was beautiful to see two men embracing – and it was 1979!” France Joli says today. “I loved that freedom and the happiness that disco reflected. It’s impossible not to be happy and dance to disco. The lyrics could be dark, but the music always lifted you up.”

Joli will headline Disco Montréal’s 2^nd annual Disco Party benefiting West Island Community Shares, which funds various local charities. The April 20 benefit will be held at the Pointe Claire Holiday Inn, whose main ballroom will be transformed into a 1970s disco. Legendary DJ Robert Ouimet –  known worldwide as The Godfather of Montreal Disco – will spin, and Joli will perform Come to Me and Gonna Get Over You, as well as her latest hit Hallelujah (a dance version of Leonard Cohen’s signature song).

“I always wanted to be a singer,” Joli says. “I even cried on key when I was born!”