American homocore band Limp Wrist accents the “hard” in hardcore
by JOHNSON CUMMINS
Taken from the Montreal Mirror

One of the granddaddies of hardcore punk rock, the late Darby Crash of L.A.’s the Germs, was forced to hide the fact he was gay from the homophobic and brutally violent Huntington Beach crowd. Things were even worse for the queer punk in the macho, street-thug New York crowd or the jock-oriented straight-edge scene in Boston.

Perhaps the rampant homophobia was a product of utter denial— consider hardcore’s almost entirely male audience of shirtless, sweaty skinheads all pig-piling on top of each other or moshing arm and arm, which of course looked gayer then Rip Taylor holding a leather picnic basket.

Martin S., the singer of homocore band Limp Wrist, which draws its lineup from New York, Oregon and of course San Francisco, knows all about the homophobia of the salad days of hardcore, having been introduced to it in Chicago in ’82. “That was a really scary and wild scene back then. If I were to know that I was gay at the time, there was no way I would want to come out in that scene. It just wouldn’t be accepted. Things have really changed now, but it’s funny that some punks are still completely unaware about the history and roots of hardcore, and the role queers had in it.”

Gay or straight, sexuality never really seemed to poke through the wall of aggression, frustration and anger associated with hardcore. Limp Wrist may lay down a searing thrash sound that has everything to do with early-’80s hardcore, but instead of screaming about Reaganomics and recession, they are finally putting a little bump into the grind with queer pride blasters like “Punk Ass Queers,” “Man to Man,” “Cruisin’ at the Show” and their 90-second-long anthem, “I Love Hardcore Boys.”

By wearing their sexuality on their sleeves in the shadow of anti-gay Christian hardcore and hate-core, it’s a wonder Limp Wrist have escaped the smack of homophobia that still permeates much of the hardcore scene, particularly its mainstream wing.

“Christianity and punk rock is just such an oxymoron to me, and metalcore is just not my scene, so I don’t really go see those shows or even know that much about it. We don’t really get a lot of homophobic incidents, but we do get a lot of letters from kids that say the band has helped them come out. As an artist, that’s the biggest compliment you can get, that you have actually helped somebody.”

Limp Wrist are arguably the biggest ambassadors for queercore, but the main demographic they play for remains straight hardcore fans, and they adhere as much to hardcore’s ethic of questioning authority as much as they do queer pride.

“Some of us in the band were punk before we even knew we were gay. Some bands that associate with queercore come from an angle that they’re gay and they choose to play punk rock, but we come from an angle that we’re punk and just happen to be gay.

“I think the problem with mainstream gay culture is that they just want to be accepted so bad by straight society, and as a punk rocker I obviously have a problem with that. Queer representation on television is almost always rich, upper-class white people, and not a lot of gay people can identify with that. How do they expect queer people of colour, butch dykes and trannies to identify with television shows like The L Word?”

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