The Sound of Subterranean Scuzz-Holes: New York Queer Punk in the 1970s

2018/07/10 by Jarek Paul Ervin · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #American Political and Social Dynamics #Asian Culture and Media Studies #Music History and Culture

paper · doi:10.1080/03007766.2018.1483117

openalex publication_date 2018/07/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06

Abstract

This article provides a historical and theoretical account of a tradition of LGBTQ-oriented punk music in New York City during the 1970s. Queer punk – a scene comprised of LGBTQ people and shaped by discourse around gender and sexuality – was central to U.S. punk’s most infamous moment in a way that has largely been ignored. In order to make sense of why, I draw on period criticism and historical research into the LGBTQ community in New York, suggesting that New York punk participated in a new moment of queer cultural representation that Rosemary Hennessy terms “queer visibility.” I further theorize this by recourse to the claim by Tavia Nyong’o that punk exists in a “frozen dialectic” with queerness. Ultimately, early punk’s ferment and ferocity stem from its doubled identification with and renunciation of queer culture.

Citations

• Do You Want Queer Theory (or Do You Want the Truth)? Intersections of Punk and Queer in the 1970s

Cited by

• Ruby and the Rednecks [wikipedia]

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