Loud and Queer

Tom Goss, a handsome, gay singer-songwriter who is always in heavy rotation on my iPod.

Having basically raised myself, I respect a good-looking self-made man. Goss is a self-promoted and self-distributed artist, who’s first album, “Naked Without,” was music to my ears.  Plus, it came with a provocative but tasteful image of him in the nude!  Talk about knowing your market!

Goss will blow you away with songs like  “Lover” (the video features a wounded gay soldier dying in combat while his male life partner waits for his back home) and “Turn It Around” one of the tracks on his third full-length album where he sings about Mike, his husband in real life.

Goss, “the accidental activist,” a current resident of Washington, D. C., whose outspokenness on deeply important themes is “almost entirely due to circumstances rather than design.”

He explains: “I’ve always been interested in social justice. I was training to become a priest, and I wanted to do a lot of social justice work and reconciliation stuff. But since I’ve been doing music and in the midst of the LGBT community in that regard. I’ve done a couple of different projects.”

Most his songs reflect his own place in time and space, like “Til the End.”  Released in 2009 on his “Back to Love” album,  which many of his fans felt was a highly charged and socially conscious album – even political.

“Honestly . . . it wasn’t political . . . More than anything, I started writing about love. I married my husband . . . and it’s been amazing, healing, empowering, strengthening, and everything you want it to be.”

Other popular songs like “Who We Are” and “The Politics of Love,” but he primarily wails about love. “I mean, when you think about love, do you think about a male physique? No, you think about beauty. You think about tenderness, you think about compassionate-you think about warmth.“

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Ahhhhh, lazy Sunday.

After a long Friday (sometimes, starting on Thursday) and Saturday of partying, dancing, necking, and general glamorous gay happenings…On Sunday, I tend to cuddle up on the coach with take-out and my iPad.  Depending how long (wink-wink) the weekend has been, I might go to brunch.  But always, ALWAYS, I use the day to catch-up with celebrity gossip, news, and political updates. (I love the McLaughlin Group)

So to help all of you have a super Lazy Sunday, I’ve culled the best internet sites in the world for the most important GAY news!

Unless you were live under a ROCK, then you’ve heard about the terrible fire on Fire Island. Here is some of New York’s biggest homosexuals remembering all their drug-induced fun…

Lady Gaga is getting another word from the gays. Ho-hum…

Shane Stevens: He’s gay! He’s a country & western singer! He’s got a reality show! Who’s watching?

A bill that will give gay federal workers full benefits has been reintroduced! Hooray!

Yvonne “Miss Dixie” Fasnacht, the quirky owner of two infamous New Orleans gay bars died last Sunday at 101.

So there you go my little gay darlings!  Some juicy, informative, and need-to-know news for you this lovely Sunday!  Now if that is also not enough to keep you stimulated, hop onto your phone and cruise Gay Live Network!  Interact with people! Find a boy to snuggle with tonight!

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21st century diva, Lady Gaga,  has added a performance clip of “Yoü and I”, from the concert film “Lady Gaga Presents The Monster Ball Tour
at Madison Square Garden”, to her YouTube channel.

Gaga will release a Blu-Ray & DVD copy of the critically acclaimed, Emmy Award winning HBO special:  “Lady Gaga Presents The Monster Ball Tour at Madison Square Garden” that includes exclusive, never before seen footage. Also being released is the album Born This Way The Remix – a 14 track collection of remixes by some of today’s most prominent artists, DJs and producers, including Foster the People, Michael Woods and The Weeknd. The new products are also available in a special package called Born This Way, The Collection, that will include the multi-platinum 17-track record Born This Way, the brand new Born This Way The Remix album and the Monster Ball Tour DVD.

Born This Way, broke the iTunes record for the fastest rise to the # 1 on release day.

The singles from the album, including “Born This Way,” “Judas,” “The Edge of Glory” and “Yoü and I” have sold a combined total of more than 7 million copies in the US alone. The first single from the album, “Born This Way,” set a music industry record by becoming the fastest single in history to reach sales of 1,000,000 copies (five days after its February 11th release). But you all knew that iddin’t you? Cause you all bought 11 copies of it. So did I. I did not steal it from Limewire or Frostwire.  No sir.

Only the 19th single to ever debut at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (issue date February 26, 2011), the recording was Lady Gaga’s third #1 on the chart. On iTunes, the song debuted at the top spot in 14 countries, including the U.S., and hit #1 in all 23 iTunes stores worldwide its first week out. The singles from the album, including “Born This Way”, “Judas”, “The Edge of Glory” & “Yoü & I” have sold a combined total of more than 6 million copies in the US alone.

In less than three years, Lady Gaga has become a GODDESS! She’s worshiped by millions, adored, fights the fight for gay rights, and has also  earned numerous achievements including five Grammy Awards, two Guinness World Records and the estimated sale of 23 million albums and 64 million singles worldwide. I remember the first time I saw her at an underwear party in Fire Island!  She was playing the Groove.  Can you believe that?

Billboard named her FANTABULOUS both the “2010 Artist of the Year” and the top selling artist of 2010 ranking her as the 73rd Artist of the 2000’s decade. Gaga has been included in Time’s annual “The 2010 Time 100” list of the most influential people in the world as well as Forbes’ list of the “The World’s Most Powerful Celebrities” in the world. Forbes also placed her at number seven on their annual list of the world’s “100 Most Powerful Women.” With over 1.9 billion combined views of all her videos online, Lady Gaga is one of the biggest living people on Facebook with over 44 million ‘likes’ and is #1 on Twitter with over 14 million followers. Lady Gaga is the only artist in the digital era to top the 5 million sales mark with her first two hits.

Also, If you are bonkers for Gaga -  check out this brand new remix of “Bloody Mary” from UK rockers The Horrors, the track appears on Born This Way The Remix.

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Boy, do I feel bad for Justin Bieber’s PR team. Their pussies must be sore from all the media-whoring the kid is going through right now. Honestly, every day Bieb’s is in the news.

First he’s accused of fathering a child. (Did his testicles even drop yet?)

Then dyke country-singer K.D. Lang says he looks like a lesbian and dubs him “hot as shit.”  (Let that one sink in for a few minutes….Disturbing, right?)

Now, The Sun, Britian’s premier tabloid, is reporting that Biebs was partying it up with the gays!.

The UK rag claims after winning two awards at the MTV EMAs on Sunday night, Bieber partied at Kremlin, “Europe’s Hottest Gay Venue,”, in Belfast, Northern Ireland.  DUM-DUM-DUM!  Here is what an inside source whispered:

“Justin managed to shake off the thousands of fans who were following him around the city… He went to the official MTV party at the Europa hotel with his girlfriend Selena Gomez before being smuggled out in secret… The Beliebers were left waiting outside the front of the hotel hoping for a glimpse but he slipped through a side entrance used for kitchen deliveries and later left the same way.”

Honestly, this is great. I love love love love when straighties roam into gay bars. Sure, it makes me a little anxious and jealous – but it is great to see that gay acceptance has grown so much that celebs can shake off the shackles and get down with the homos.  Biebs certainly wouldn’t be the first straight male celeb to have a little fun at a gay bar. My two biggest celeb crushes, Zac Efron and Prince Harry, have also partied in gay joints.  Bring on the straights!  Hope they get a little curious!

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Who doesn’t truly adore “Dean of Drag” RuPaul?

He has been a model, actor, singer,  television show host (his first show on the Oxygen Network was really excellent and entertaining, but somehow never got any ratings), author ( “Lettin’ It All Hang Out” and “Workin’ It! RuPaul’s Guide to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Style“).

His most recent successes is the double whammy of popular reality TV shows, “RuPaul’s Drag Race” & “RuPaul’s Drag U,” both on the super-gay Logo Cable Network.

Now, did you know that RuPaul was the product of a traditional summer camp some 40 years ago (the drag diva is now 50)?  Seems it was at camp that the future SUPERSTAR learned all the basics of performance!  RuPaul shared a conversation about summer camps with singer/songwriter Lisa Loeb of “Stay (I Missed You)” fame.

“It was a time where I got to do everything that was fun. You know, I got to play guitar; I learned to finger pick. We got to make up skits and perform them live in front of people. I think that it was one of the first places I performed as an individual, instead of always as part of a group . . . what really, really emerged was a certain sense of independence, of being away from the parents and having an identity outside of the family . . . I’m just remembering that that sense of magic I had at camp. Of understanding that you can create magic wherever you go, just even based on how you look at something or what you call something or singing songs or just creating a different world.“

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The Queen of Latin Pop, Gloria Estefan is back with her 26th album, Miss Little Havana, the international star’s first English language release since 2003’s Unwrapped, and her debut for Universal Music Group,  available at iTunes . The Cuban-born, Miami-raised performer has sold a remarkable 90+ million albums worldwide and earned seven Grammy awards since debuting as the front woman for what would become the Miami Sound Machine.

With her collaborator and producer Pharrell Williams, Estefan’s Miss Little Havana represents a musical and conceptual return to her Latin dance-floor roots on smashes like “Conga”. The first single, “WEPA,” which loosely translates into a “Wow” moment, is a propulsive combination of the classic Miami beat updated for modern times, what Estefan calls “a straight-up Dominican meringue groove over a cool urban Pharrell sound, buttressed by honking trombones straight from a Little Havana street party.”

“It’s a celebration of dance,” says Estefan, and, by extension, Miss Little Havana, which takes its theme from the first nine songs she worked on with Pharrell, telling the story of a 17-year-old girl who comes to the big city looking for freedom and romance, only to find heartache and betrayal. “Dancing is one of the things that unite us, regardless of age, background or social standing. You can have just as much fun on the dance floor as any millionaire.”

Gloria Estefan’s accomplishments transcend the music and entertainment business. She’s a humanitarian—her Gloria Estefan Foundation promotes good health, education and cultural and she’s helped raise more than $40 million with Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, creating the world’s largest and most comprehensive spinal cord injury research facility in the Lois Pope LIFE Center—and a best-selling children’s author, with two books based on the life and adventures of Noelle, inspired by and named after her real-life beloved English bulldog. She’s also the first Cuban-American to become a minority share-holder in an NFL franchise, with a stake in her hometown Miami Dolphins. Earlier this year, Estefan received Billboard’s Spirit of Hope Award for philanthropic work with her Foundation.

Miss Little Havana herself has grown up to become an international Latin music icon, and her latest album shows she’s still growing, a tribute to those “who work all day, then dance all night” to this soundtrack of a lifetime.

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“Let’s play something that really cooks!”

If you don’t remember that Back to the Future reference, it doesn’t matter… because these guys are The Really Cooks!

Who are  The Really Cooks? Okay, hold on for this one…They are a half-human, half-cartoon (CRAZY! Right?)  band that creates an alternate world filled with kings, chefs, and lemons that regale you with story and song!  Like Barney, but for adults.  Their music combines harmonic elements that resemble Queen and The Beach Boys, but they still manage to keep an original psychedelic sensibility.

The Really Cooks is comprised of Josh Band (keyboard/vocals), Pete Band (guitar/vocals), King Alon (bass/vocals) and Dr. Lemonade (drums). Their debut album Dr. Lemonade Stand is a enchanting blend of outrageous stories and psychedelic throwback rock, recounting tales of evil villains, beautiful insects, and oceanic adventures. It’s like if H.R. Pufnstuf was even MORE trippy and weird. Dr. Lemonade Stand was record at Milkboy Studios and will be released in November 2011.They are releasing two songs to the public on Thursday, September 15 (Mr. Badman / Mr. Carlisle). Have you checked them out yet? Why not, slag?

Hurry up and get to it! Welcome to the whimsical world of The Really Cooks!

Visit their website here, and hear their music here!

WTF: What The Fuck

Occasionally, I stumble upon a delicious bit of internet love that is so juicy, so fierce, so amazing – that words can simply just not describe it. Sometimes, their can be no words….Their can only be actions.

So, here without any further ado, is Matt Zarley’s new video. What can we say about this hot tranny mess? Words escape me.

Imagine a gay Rebecca Black.  Its nuts….So please – follow the below link:

CLICK HERE IF THE VIDEO PLAYER ABOVE DOES NOT WORK.

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Reggae was once associated with politically conscious lyrics, Rastafarians and wacked-out super-stoned white middle class kids. Right?  I mean, I always get a craving for a big doobie when I hear Bob Marley.  (I crave a big water bong when I hear Ziggy Marley.) Sadly, those sweet songs from the islands are NOT always about peace, love and the pipe. some of reggae’s biggest acts are just as likely to be advocating the killing of homosexuals in their music.

All this hate has advocates like Britain’s leading gay rights activist Peter Tatchell ready to make a ch-ch-ch-change…  Along with Jamaican groups, Tatchell launched the Stop Murder Music campaign, aimed at bringing hate tunes to an end. Since 2004, Tatchell has protested against eight reggae singers who have put out songs encouraging and glorifying the murder of LGBTQ people.  Tatchell has recently succeeded in convincing some of the most notoriously homophobic figures in  music to stop singing violently anti-gay lyrics .

Buju Banton — whose smash hit from the 1990s “Boom Bye Bye” also advocates the shooting and burning of gay men — last week signed the “reggae compassionate act” after a three-year campaign by Stop Murder Music. Banton, a Grammy-nominated artist who broke Bob Marley’s record of most number one singles in a year on the Jamaican charts, pledged to “respect” the rights of gays to live without fear of violence.

The culmination of all this love and equality has hit a Jamaican reggae singer Mista Majah P has released the world’s first pro-gay reggae album. Called Tolerance and featuring rainbow stripes on the cover, the album includes 11 songs, variously in support of same-sex marriage and adoption by gay couples, as well as attacks on homophobic bullying and the US military policy, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. The tracks also feature swipes at the anti-gay prejudices of ‘murder music’ reggae singer Beenie Man and of the Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding.

Although Mista Majah P is not gay, he supports the LGBT communities and gay equality. Explaining why he created the album, Mista Majah P said:

“I want to counter the myths that all Jamaicans are homophobic and that all reggae music is violent and anti-gay. I’m seeking to challenge ignorance and reach out to gay people.  My hope is that this cd will break down the homophobic stance that certain reggae artists  have taken towards the LGBTQ community. Because of the hateful songs that some performers have been singing, gay people have been threatened and harmed.My music is about tolerance. It shows that reggae music can respect gay and lesbian people. Reggae music used to be about love, peace and unity. Now it is too often about bigotry and violence. I want to bring the music back to its progressive roots.”

This hasn’t been a fun and glam publicity stunt either!  Mista Majah P isn’t just doing this to cash into the lucrative gay dollar!

“Since releasing the album, Mista Majah P has received numerous death threats and has been warned to not return to Jamaica. He’s undeterred and defiant, stating that ‘murder music’ has given reggae a negative image, which is bad for the music industry and for all reggae artists,” noted Mr Tatchell.

Listen to samples of all 11 tracks on the Tolerance album HERE !

Read more HERE!