The party millennium Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras 2000gether
Luke Leal and Sveta Gilerman
Mardi Gras Music
Gay in the Life: adventures in queer underground
Various artists
Odd Man Out Records through Festival
Review by Mark Abberton
Mardi Gras in Sydney brings a vast array of performance, art, cinema, satire and music which celebrates the lives of gays and lesbians. Mardi Gras Music's sixth CD, and a compilation touted as an "alternative", have been released in time for the parade and the parties which follow.
The party millennium: Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras 2000gether is the official Mardi Gras dance CD. It prides itself as proving that gay culture is innovative and cutting edge, leading the mainstream. The first CD is a "blend of vocal house, disco beats, uplifting trance and hard house", says DJ Luke Leal, and the second, by Sveta Gilerman, is mainly hard house and tribal mixes.
Both will definitely keep you dancing well into the night after the parade is over. Two songs which caught my ear were "Touched by God" by Katcha (Katcha's 4am with Pecker Mix), an ambient disco mix which has you bopping along to the chant "we are together", and "Mardi Gras" by Goldust (Alan X and Luke Hope), a funky disco celebration of going to Mardi Gras.
Forcing the mainstream to pay attention to gay and lesbian culture has been an important part of the fight against discrimination. But listening to this CD you can't help but wonder about the limitations of competing with the mainstream commercially, when basic rights of gays and lesbians in the political and social spheres are still to be met.
The party millennium doesn't provide the new generation of Mardi Gras participants with an understanding of the militant past of the gay and lesbian movement.
The dance music itself is a positive celebration of gay and lesbian rights won previously. But without an explanation (inside the cover, maybe) of the history of Mardi Gras, the 1978 protest and march — which called for an end to the discrimination against homosexuals in employment and housing, an end to police harassment and the repeal of all anti-homosexual laws — which sparked the Mardi Gras tradition might be forgotten.
Gay in the Life: adventures in queer underground, compiled by Seymour Butz and Nick Wales, is a "snapshot of the diversity and eclectic talent that exists", a compilation to "foster, encourage and nurture creative energy within our gay, lesbian, bi, queer and whatever community".
The CD definitely succeeds in this respect, with variety in musical style and loads of character. Included are electronic tracks, like "Leather Lover" by General Electric and Andy Rantzen, and "Lycra Or Not" by Pokeaman, softer vocal tracks like "Despair" by bluehouse and "What Are These Kisses?" by DC3 and a glam rock track, "Gay Sex Guru".
Gay in the Life is a brilliant CD, which dispels the myths and stereotypes the mainstream media bombards us about the lives of gays and lesbians. It combines a cheeky element of sexual innuendo with a diverse personality between songs, a diversity which is overlooked by mainstream interpretations of what it means to be gay or lesbian.
But notably absent from both The party millennium and Gay in the Life are tracks commenting on the struggle gays and lesbians face in our society, on discrimination and social alienation, or on the need to combat these prejudices.