In the current issue of the SF Bay Times, queer rock columnist Don Baird penned a eulogy of Adam Block. Block was a rock journalist who for many years had a column in the gay news magazine The Advocate called Block on Rock. Despite the stereotype of gays being only into dance music, he was writing for a gay audience about rock music, as the title of the column forthrightly stated.I started reading his column in the mid-1980s when I was a student in Northfield, Minnesota. The library at Carleton College had a subscription. I was a student at the Lutheran college St. Olaf (no Golden Girls jokes, please) and I would cross town to go to the gay support group at the more liberal Carleton (and met my first two boyfriends, both “Carls.”)I kept reading the magazine after graduation at Quatrefoil Library in St. Paul, a gay non-profit lending library,  and sometime in 1988 in Adam’s column, he wrote about early gay zines (the word queer hadn’t come into vogue yet) including G.B. Jones and Bruce LaBruce’s J.D.s, which I sent off for and received in the mail. I also wrote off for copies of Homocore and Boysville U.S.A. Eventually I started my own zine, Holy Titclamps, and in 1990, as I noted in the editorial introduction to issue #4, Adam wrote up my zine in his column in The Advocate. Through his writing and sharing information, Adam did a lot to spread the word and had a major impact on development of the queercore scene.  A lot of his old columns can be found on microfilm of back issues of The Advocate in libraries. I would suggest seeking them out.I wish I’d taken an opportunity to tell Adam about the impact he had on me while he was still around. 

Bookmark to: