Homo superior

This month’s reanimated exhumation from rock’s unpitying tar pit, vanguard gay punk rock (via glam).

In 1975, artists who revealed their homosexuality were exceptions to the rule of the closet. Besides a thriving lesbian folk scene, the gay-male equivalent of singer-songwriter confessionals, such as Michael Cohen and Steven Grossman, were passed over in favour of disco and ‘bisexual chic’, namely David Bowie and Lou Reed’s flirtatious role-playing (both were married to women). Glam rockers Starbuck’s single Do You Like Boys was only ever released in Holland. In its December 1975 edition, UK culture monthly Street Life wrote about “Britain’s first ever gay concert”, staged by Tom Robinson, one third of folk-rockers Café Society, who were signed to Ray Davies’s Konk label. In an interview, Robinson enthused about a band called Handbag: “They’ve been banned everywhere,” he claimed. “People can’t see them.” Handbag’s lead singer, songwriter and bassist Paul Southwell – or Paul South as he called himself – and fellow gay bandmates Dave Jenkins (guitar) and Allan Jordan (drums) were almost called Whore’s Handbag before deciding it was a bit much. But Southwell wouldn’t compromise on the lyrics. From Lancashire, he’d moved to London in his early twenties and had swiftly come out. “I had to be true to myself,” he says, calling in from his current home in Cairns, northern Australia. “Gay Lib had started so I joined in with a vengeance.” Initially, Handbag covered Bowie and Reed but Southwell wrote about his newly liberated life in the pubs and clubs, and the Gay Lib movement, from Leather Boys to Will The World Ever Change For The Better, all driven by febrile, swaggering glam rock. The trio had seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show stage production in its first week, and ramped up the theatre: “We’d dress outrageously, wear make-up and mess about, like we’d kiss each other and bite on blood capsules or simulate buggery, whatever a song warranted.” An album was recorded for Jet Records, home of ELO. A&R man David Arden, son of the label’s infamous boss Don, told Beat International: “I’m sure gay rock will be the next big thing. Now that gay is open, they need their own music and their bands to follow, just like everyone else. And why not?” Glam rock snapper Mick Rock was commissioned for the press shots, and all was well until Jet stopped returning Southwell’s calls. “I never found out why. I couldn’t get my songs back either.” By 1977, the likes of Jayne (then Wayne) County, and punk in general, had legitimised outrage, but Handbag had moved on. “One label said, ‘Change your gimmick and get another.’ It wasn’t a gimmick, but I thought, Maybe I do need to change.” Retaining the zest and panache of their melodic blueprint, while streamlining it for the new wave era, the stage make-up and blatant content was toned down. So it wasn’t obvious that the dreamy You Are My Destiny addressed a fling with the (married) future frontman of a globally successful metal band. Otherwise, Southwell was “raging about being ripped off”. Another reoccurring theme was the character Dino, “who was me, really. I found revealing intimate details a bit disturbing so it was easier in the third person. Dino was street, ‘the laundrette kid’ as I called him, a bit of a punk.” Dino starred in Superstar Car Crash (inspired by Marc Bolan’s recent death) and

“WE’D KISS EACH OTHER AND BITE ON BLOOD CAPSULES.” How does that grab you: Handbag (from left) Paul Southwell, Allan Jordan and Dave Jenkins; (below) in their glam phase. Just Raped, which fed off punk rock (“Baby in the dole queue, sucking off the state”). In the nick of time, Handbag found a new ally, Reg McLean, a former manager of The Stranglers, who ran a small reggae label, Circle International, and funded new Handbag demos. Another ally was Kevin St John, new manager of punk HQ the Roxy, who launched a Gay Night with Handbag as the house band. But after two months the Roxy lost its licence. Then worse: Reg “threw an album at me, and said. ‘This has come out.’” McLean had sold their demos to an Italian label, Punk Rock, which had packaged them as an album, titled Snatchin’. To add insult to injury, it opened with two quasi-ballads, titles were mixed up and one was misspelt. When punk blew up internationally, the Italians repackaged Snatchin’ with a new title, The Aggressive Style Punk Rock, and put a Kings Road punk with a Union Jack on his jacket on the cover. Despairing, the trio changed their name to Dino Daz & The Machine, but only lasted months. “It felt like bashing your head against a brick wall,” Southwell sighs. “The music business was run by sharks. It was too painful.” Handbag had not a single write-up in the music press over five years, or one record released in their homeland. After releasing his solo 7-inch The Anthem in 1980, Southwell turned to academia. In2005, a Dutch indie, Low Down Kids, independently pressed up 25 one-sided copies of Superstar Car Crash. Southwell doesn’t know why, but was flattered by this anomalous intervention. “When I first saw Snatchin’, Reg and me had a huge argument,” Southwell says. “But people are still talking about it now, so maybe it was good that he did do it!” Martin Aston