RIP Loleatta Holloway

Yesterday, my favourite singer, Loleatta Holloway passed over. Many know her as the sampled voice on that Black Box ditty but to me she was the ultimate disco diva and a massive inspiration.

Belting it out on stormers like Love Sensation, Runaway, I May Not Be There When You Want Me and Hit& Run, spitting out dontmesswithmyman warnings in Dreamin' or dripping with emotion on ballads like Two Become A Crown, her voice was real, and full of pure soul. A lot of the over processed pop tartlets of today would do well to listen and learn.

Ride on Time aside, I first discovered her in 1994, giving it attitude on The Queens Anthem. I then did my homework and fell in love.

Possibly the most sampled voice in dance music after James Brown, I now cringe when yet another house track samples her amazing vocals as very little can compare to the original arrangements and lush sounds of her Salsoul Records days.

Rest in peace you wonderful woman. You inspired me to be a belter and proud to be a fierce woman.

x

Respect...Colin Rothbart

I first met Colin when I lived in Vienna. He was directing the BBC's Holiday show (RIP), we were introduced just as I was about to return to the UK and exchanged contact details. You frequently meet people along the way in this business we call show and never expect to hear from them again but just as I'd moved to London, he emailed me, we ended up on a long, lost London weekend and a friendship was formed.

He has an amazing ability to bring together a varied bunch of party people and I've performed or DJed for all of Colin's birthday parties since I moved to London, all being truly memorable in terms of dressing up, bad taste and pure hedonism. Colin owns private party venue 'The Shed' where East End creatives, posers and freaks mix and mingle, celebrity DJs pop up unannounced and an off duty performer might do a number. In the future, The Shed will be one of those places people will boast about going to like The Blitz, Taboo, Kinky Gerlinky and Kashpoint.

Colin is a true British eccentric. He doesn't appear extraordinary in an obvious attention seeking way, it's to know him to understand his unclassifiable quirks and that he is a legend in his own lunch time. He's been known to wear some truly criminal outfits in his bid to drag up for a party and his adventures in modern cosmetics is quite something, botched botox and his recent mullet weave being the most memorable.

During a trip to India in 2009, I asked Colin if he would be up for directing my film about the East End alternative scene (more info on www.hot-laser.com), of which he agreed. Nothing quite like a business meeting while floating in the Arabian Sea. We've been filming since Glastonbury 2009 and continue doing so, following fabulous queer freaks from the scene.

Besides being a reputable TV director, Colin has a past in front of the camera and was in one of the UK's first reality shows 'The Living Soap' and presented mid 90s club show 'Trainspotters'.

Colin presenting Trainspotters with Chrissy Darling and Twiggy

The Living Soap. You'd better werrrrk (and drink)

Thank you Colin. Your generosity astounds me as does your diet. Your antics make me smile and I promise to get some funding sorted for the film...eventually.

www.rothbart.co.uk

Why I set up Hot Laser (Queer Arts Community)

Every year for the past four, there has been a tranny exodus to the Glastonbury Festival where we've gone and run amok in the NYC Downlow. After laughing my ass off the first year in 2007 (which continually pissed it down but has been one of my favourite lost weekends) I thought to myself, why is nobody documenting this?

The queer American scene has prolific films such as Paris is Burning, Wigstock, The Cockettes, Trannyshack, The Queen, and SqueezeBox! so I decided it was time to document the alternative drag scene that has recently emerged and thrived from east London.

While bobbing around in the Arabian Sea, I asked my friend Colin Rothbart if he'd be interested in making a film about the British queer scene and we started filming at the Downlow in June 2009. Realising we needed to do this properly, we set about becoming a Community Interest Company and received official status this summer.

During this process, my own focus shifted. I wanted to do something that incorporated more than the family of trannies and freaks that the film was documenting and extend it to queer creatives around the UK. For me, queer and gay have become so distant from each other that they're hardly related. Gay has become a commodity, queer is where the others, radicals and creatives live.

Queer is empowering. It's less to do with sexuality or gender, more about being different, other. Queer incorporates gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered, intersex, transvestite, whatever....its less about what you do with your genitals, more about your outlook.

So what are we doing? We're making an amazing documentary about a bunch of queers and misfits, the lives behind the masks and to show mainstream culture being queer isn't confined to the safe asexual, inoffensive and bland generic vision what the BBC or the media perceive it to be.

We aim to link British based queer creatives together. Those working in art, music, writing, dance, design, fashion, anything creative. Britain is full of queer creatives, the aim is to bring everyone together, create links, encourage productivity and help isolated queers through the arts. This will eventually be done in the form of a website (exhibition, events, tour, book, album.. possibilities are endless) but for now we're doing it through fund-raising events where London's finest queers give their time for free to raise money for the group. (Next one Saturday 27^th November at Vogue Fabrics).

Of course all this will take time and money. I have the passion and ideas but I'm a creative honey and need help with the official side of things. Fund-raising, legal, financial...all the important stuff that needs to be done so the fabulous stuff can blossom.

We need fund-raisers who know how to access people who'd like to invest in this amazing project. Professionals who can give us advice and help. Interns to help get this project off the ground and out there.

I'd like to see things being pushed forward and the extended family come together. People collaborating instead of protecting their own little scraps of land, hooking up with other groups and projects, taking it internationally, having fun and being amazing through the arts in all its glorious forms.

x

More info at www.hot-laser.com
If are interested in helping, please email me at holestar@gmail.com

Being a Female DJ

Article originally written for Bad Feminist
http://badfeministuk.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/being-a-female-dj-by-holestar/

Here is the trailer for a film that makes The Human Centipede look like Citizen Kane, ‘DJ Girl’.

From what I gather, the synopsis is thus; party girl fancies hot DJ, he’s not interested. To get his attention she decides to become a DJ because to be one ‘is like so hot right now’. He becomes her Mr Miyagi and teaches her the ways of the discotheque jockey. She blags a gig, rocks the house, hot DJ snogs her, wins the DMC World DJ Championships by swishing her hair on the vinyl and flipping it onto the deck before stunning the crowd by scratching with her nipples. The last part may not be true.

If only being a DJ, particularly a female one was so easy.

Being a lady DJ can be a double edged blade. You may get a booking because of your gender, a female name stands out on a line-up and it’s unusual. But on the flip side, you can be ignored and looked over because many presume girls don’t know anything about music. In a male
dominated industry, female DJs are still very much a novelty especially when you look at the largely Russian phenomenon of topless DJs. A sexist yet genius concept where for one fee, you get hot tits dancing to a pre mix CD, pretending to fiddle with the cross fader.

After you’ve hustled and start getting gigs, you get patronising nerds who stand, arms folded analysing and sneering, waiting for you to make a bum mix. Then there are the old school vinyl die hards who would prefer if women would stay well away from the decks (I once had a man
shout at me for not using vinyl. It is a superior format but its heavy, expensive and easily damaged so I only savour a few classics) and on the odd occasion, you might have hassle getting into your own gig or onto the decks from misogynist bouncers who think you’re on the
blag.

People can be rude and demand you play that song again / Lady Gaga /Bavarian baseline. I wonder how these people would react if a stranger entered their work place and ordered them to do something. Despite the supposed glamorous nature, DJing is a job and the aim is to entertain a room of revellers, not one individual (my latest response to these types is “I am not a jukebox”).

You’ve also got to compete with the ‘celebrity’ or instant DJ. In the age of technology and mp3 downloading, anyone can profess to be one. You don’t have to plough through hours of crap and suffer the snobbery of record shop staff, you can sit in the comfort of your underpants, download everything from the latest hip music blog, burn to CD (or laptop for the lazy) and play to a rapturous dance floor. Now this may work a few times but eventually the instant DJ types who are in it for the glory soon filter away because they know jack about music, how to cook a floor and haven’t got the patience to learn about and source it.

There’s something quite fierce about female producers and DJs, much like any woman who does a job that is predominately done by men and I’d like to see more of us out there. I don’t expect to see more female DJs being booked just because they are the minority but I’d like to see them smash through their own glass ceiling and compete with the boys on even terms. But then again,
how can we be expected to be taken seriously when there are plenty of DJanes (a hideous term) who abuse their feminine wiles by posing in headphones and bikinis or are happy to shag a promoter to get a gig?

As for DJ Girl and others like her, if you have a passion for music, willing to work hard, face rejection and misogyny, then go for it lady and get out there, otherwise please support your sisters from the dance floor.

x

Fashanker...The Song

To accompany the following article...