Bad Gays

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Today, we welcome music writer Hannah Pezzack to talk about the experimental electronica band Coil – namely, its two frontmen and only consistent members: vocalist Geoff Rushton, who performed under the stage name John Balance, and Peter Christopherson, nicknamed “Sleazy." At the heart of it all was an intense interest in the occult: in magic, alchemy, and esoteric symbolism. But just as central was their homosexuality: a queerness expressed through sexualised violence, the taboo, bodily fluids — blood, sweat, and scat — and an obsession with self-annihilation. Subscribe to EXTRA BAD GAYS on Patreon or Apple Podcasts to join the community of subscribing members who make episodes like this possible, and get our monthly chat show about gay culture and politics! ----more---- SOURCES:   Hayes Hampton. The Invocation of the Black Sun: Alchemy and Sexuality in the Work of Coil, in Folk Horror Revival: Harvest Hymns Volume I – Twisted Roots (Durham, UK: Wyrd Harvest Press, 2018)   David Keenan. England's Hidden Reverse: A Secret History of the Esoteric Underground, Revised and Expanded Edition (London: Strange Attractor Press, 2023; originally published 2003)   Cormac Pentecost. Man is the Animal, zine issues 1–4, (Temporal Boundary Press)   Genesis P‑Orridge. Nonbinary (New York: Abrams Press, 2022)   Nick Soulsby. Everything Keeps Dissolving: Conversations with Coil (London: Strange Attractor Press, 2023)   Spencer Sunshine. Neo-Nazi Terrorism and Countercultural Fascism: The Origins and Afterlife of James Mason’s Siege (London: Routledge, 2024)   Cosey Fanni Tutti. Art Sex Music (London: Faber and Faber, 2017)   “AN INTERVIEW WITH COIL (Harvest History Month Pt. I),” conducted by Malahki Thorn, Heathen Harvest (originally published 1 April 2004), https://4ibrecords.com/2014/03/05/an-interview-with-coil-harvest-history-month-pt-i/   Hannah Pezzack on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hanapezzack/?hl=en  Hannah Pezzack on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/hannah-pezzack  Many thanks to Alina Valentina and Ruben Verkuylen for their invaluable technical assistance. Gratitude to Elina Tapio (who first introduced me to Coil!) and Marco Segato – both part of eoobe – for keeping the spirit of John and Sleazy alive through their music: https://eoobe.bandcamp.com/  Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner.

A preview of our conversation about Mayor Pete this week. For more, subscribe at Patreon or Apple Podcasts.

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  Join our community of Extra Bad Gays on Patreon or Apple Podcasts for special episodes and more!   Have you ever wondered who the sexual link between Edward Carpenter and Allen Ginsburg was? Wonder no more, and meet Gavin Arthur: grandson of US President Chester Allan Arthur, astrologer, sexologist, Irish Republican, sometime Communist, sometime Democrat, Haight-Ashbury hippie rabble-rouser, and chaotic bisexual. Our guide to his life is longtime friend of the show Maurice J. Casey, historian and author of Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism's Forgotten Radicals.  This episode is based on research carried out as part of the Queer Norther Ireland: Sexuality before Liberation project at Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University. If you have a moment, do fill out their survey.   ----more----   SOURCES:   Maurice J. Casey, ‘”I want to be to Ireland what Walt Whitman was to America”: Esotericism and Queer Sexuality in an Irish Social Circle, 1890s-1920s’, History Workshop Journal: https://academic.oup.com/hwj/advance-article/doi/10.1093/hwj/dbaf004/8096618?searchresult=1 Lisa Cohen, All We Know: Three Lives, New York, 2012 Philip Longo, ‘Between the Sheets: Gavin Arthur’s Sexual Circulation’, in The Routledge Handbook of Queer Rhetoric, ed. Jacqueline Rhodes and Jonathan Alexander, London, 2022, pp. 140–7 Martin Murray, ‘Walt Whitman, Edward Carpenter, Gavin Arthur and the Circle of Sex’, Walt Whitman Quarterly 22: 3, 2005, pp. 194–8: https://whitmanarchive.org/criticism/wwqr/pdf/anc.00943.pdf The 1930 film starring Gavin Arthur and Charlotte Arthur: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_(1930_film)   Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner.  

This is just a trailer! For the full episode, join our community of Extra Bad Gays on Patreon or Apple Podcasts.  Weird Vibes Pride Month, nefarious nellies! What is this Pride Month's vibe? Who is its target audience? We're confused. How do we build power as queer movements hollowed out by corporate sponsorship appear to crumble? Then, we mourn the late, great Edmund White before turning to our now-standard Gaggony Guncles segment, in which a listener writes in with an exciting bisexual dilemma.  

We're coming to a city near you! Berlin on June 7, Sheffield June 20, and Bath June 22!  Tickets and info: badgayspod.com/live

This month, it's all about a fantastic reader question about the sex we cannot have. What do we learn from it? How do we think about it? What can it teach us? Please keep sending your Gaggony Guncles questions to us: emailbadgays[at]gmail[dot]com.  And for the full segment, and to support the show, subscribe to Extra Bad Gays on Patreon or Apple Podcasts.  

Today we welcome Michael Huldt, host of Worm From Home, an environmental history podcast focused on East London, to discuss the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. Born in Berlin in 1769, he would travel the world amassing a wealth of botanical, geological, and human knowledge. Working in Europe, Russia, and South America, Humboldt became a pioneer of Western environmental thinking, breaking with contemporary scientific norms to forge an interconnected, ecological view of the world that still resonates today. His life was one of illuminating contradictions, and he is a fascinating figure for thinking about the creation of new concepts of 'Nature'  as racial capitalism was in its ascendancy - a vocal anti-slavery advocate, who was personal friends with Thomas Jefferson; an early European proponent of the idea that colonial extraction created massive environment destruction, who also forged a career through that colonial infrastructure; and a man with many famous friends whose very private - and homosexual - private life is still shrouded in mystery and historiographic embarrassment.  Support our show and enjoy monthly extra episodes! Subscribe to EXTRA BAD GAYS on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. ----more---- SOURCES https://www.andreawulf.com/about-the-invention-of-nature.html   https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/pioneering-maps-alexander-von-humboldt-180973342/   https://www.antarcticglaciers.org/antarctica-2/people-in-antarctica/alexander-von-humboldt/   https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/explore/alexander-von-humboldt/the-sensual-humboldt-is-yet-to-be-discovered   https://qnews.com.au/on-this-day-january-6-von-humboldt-tainted-love/   Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner. 

Subscribers to our monthly "extra" show get to hear advice segments that we, (hopefully) charmingly refer to as the Gaggony Guncles. Here's last month's sample–for one or two juicy questions and thoughtful answers each month, plus conversations about the latest in queer history, culture, and politics, subscribe at Patreon.com/badgayspod or on Apple Podcasts.