Why Music Matters

This site exists for a lot of reasons. Intelligent queer discourse. Event listings. Bar reviews. But you have probably noticed that one of TNG's main focuses is music. Music reviews, previews, and interviews make up a significant portion of our content. It may seem trivial (or worse, prescriptive) for us to devote so much space to tunes, but I assure you that our preoccupation with audio is a legitimate one.

Here's why:

Music is more than just something you sing along to on the way to work. For gay men, much of our traditional social interaction revolved around dance music. For women, folk or acoustic. It is assumed that we get down to these genres, and so our bars, parties and festivals are often organized around them. This is how artists like Junior Vasquez and Ani DiFranco became such prominent queer icons.

But what if that's not your bag? What if you enjoy Sharon Jones, or Fugazi, or Drive-By Truckers? In that case, you must either ignore your tastes to build a social network or sacrifice a connection to the queer community to follow your musical preferences. There should be another way.

Being gay, you are not born into your community the way you are as, say, a Jew. Instead of being circumcised at three days and Bar Mitzvahed at 13 and having all your Jewish relatives around you to show that you're one of many, you are born gay into a straight family and have to strike out into the world alone. So rather than being defined by churches, synagogues or geographic heritage, gay culture is defined by bars. Spend enough time in the bars, and your scene becomes your character.

And I don't have to tell you that music defines a scene. Just ask the metal heads. Or tell me if you'd find a hip-hop fan doing the Achy Breaky Heart at Remington's. If you're forced to spend time in a scene that doesn't suit you, you'll eventually find yourself with a new character to match it.

One of my primary motivations for starting this site was the number of homos I would see out at the 9:30 Club. I remember in particular last year's Architecture In Helsinki concert that happened the night of the Capital Pride Street Fair. I had spent 48 hours straight doing the typical gay stuff, but I saw hoardes of gay men and women at that show that I had never seen out on 17th Street. I wondered where these indie rock fags and dykes had come from, and how I could see more of them.

Or more recently, I got in a long argument with a guest at the TNG "Meet Someone New" party who did not understand how our events were different than a night out at JR's. I kept coming back to the music we play, which the contentious party goer did not accept as a legitimate argument. I recounted this to another attendee, who seemed inclined to agree with the JR's fan. But mid-sentence, New Pornographer's "The Laws Have Changed" came on. His eyes lit up, and he exclaimed "I'm going to their concert next Monday!" It's pretty safe to say he'd never heard that song at a gay bar before. I know I hadn't.

You shouldn't have to sacrifice who you are or what you like to enjoy rewarding social interaction with other homos. I'll say this over and over. I'll say this till I'm blue in the face.

(And we're always looking for music writers. If you don't see your tastes reflected on TNG, all you have to do is send us a post.)