Sometimes things end. That doesn’t mean they have to stop.
“There used to be this festival every year, but the guy who used to produce it left town,” says Brando Little, reducing the sturm and drang-filled last days of the Memphis Punk Rock Fest to a single, concise sentence. To fill this void of grit, glitter, and squalling guitars, Little, aka Harry Manhole, the singer and guitar player for Memphis’ punk band The Gloryholes, concocted a plan. “I thought I’d try to bring in a bunch of queer bands from out of town,” he says. And so, from the ashes of the Memphis Punk Rock Festival, Queerfest, two-days and 14-bands worth of LGBTQ-infused punk was born.
“There is a vibrant, underground queer punk-rock scene,” Little says, noting an irony in the home of Sun Studio. “Other than some of us on the fringes, Memphis’ gay community doesn’t have many aspects of rock-and-roll.
Power to the punks
“I wanted to bring that to Memphis,” Little says.
Local and out of town acts scheduled to play include Kansas City’s glam and metal-inspired Wick and the Tricks, Beg, Stay Fashionable, Wailing Banshees, Boyfriend, Tom Violence, Hormonal Imbalance, Sweaters Together, The Gloryholes, Spirit Cuntz, Exit Mouse, and Midtown Queer.
Loud guitars and snarling attitude won’t be the only thing on the menu. “We’ll also have comedy,” Little says.
Is Memphis Queerfest a one-off, or is it an annual event in the making? “I don’t know,” Little says. “I thought we’d bring in some bands, do this thing, and see how it goes.”
