Month: October 2026

Siren is a fanzine by Kathie Bergquite about local and not local queer/fem music. Kathie encouraged fans to send in things to be added to the zine. The zine is an amalgamation of interviews, newspaper articles, reviews, and more. 

Hello Dykes, Spikes, and everyone nice! Arabella here, and welcome back to Zine of The Gay! This week I chose a musiczine recommended to me by my Milo, one of QZAP’s Co-founders.

I am going to see Weird Al Yankovic on Saturday, so I thought focusing on a music zine would make for an interesting post. While Weird Al may not be exactly queer, he has shown major support for the community, so props to the freak himself.

Queer music is such a great outlet for not only getting words out to yourself but others as well. Think of yourself when you were a queer teen, or maybe you are a queer teen now; either way, what music represented you? Was it literal in its lyrics, or did you have to read between the lines? I probably listened to Scary Monsters and Supercreeps by David Bowie a thousand times from the age of 16-19. But I always yearned for something outright and raw. 

Songs that read between the lines are important, but having more explicit songs to describe what you are feeling and how other queer people are feeling too is life-changing. It helps connect people with identities and phrases and even politics. I thought I was libertarian until I heard Baby, I’m an Anarchist! By Against Me for the first time. Music opens our worldview and fucks our ears. You can decide if it’s in a good way or a bad way. 

The first band featured in the zine is an all-female punk group from the 1970s called the slits. Their song Typical Girls describes what society traditionally expects from a woman, with the song ending with “The typical girl gets the typical boy”. The lyrics are hard to ignore, which I love; reading between the lines can also mean ignoring. The typical girl persona keeps evolving to adapt to new versions of our society, but at its core it is all to control women. It is important for us to find new ways to keep talking about it and reference ways we have talked about it in the past.

The Slits – Typical Girls

The next section got me very excited personally; it was an interview with a lesbian saxophonist. I am also a lesbian saxophonist! I started in late high school, and I decided to become a high school band director, but the community was so swamped with misogyny that I passed on it to pursue Women and Gender Studies. It feels good to be reminded that queerness isn’t the only thing we have in common with each other; we have all kinds of hobbies and worlds that connect with our queerness in interesting ways. Camille talked about having to play classical saxophone, and as a female saxophone player, I can confirm that is how it feels. Jazz is labeled “for the men,” and women are pushed to the outskirts and expected to stay soft. To combat this, I played Baritone Saxophone. It is hard to force that instrument to be soft. Camille rebelled by playing pop in groups outside of a concert ensemble setting. It is a nice reminder to know you are not alone, and that there is always another lesbo somewhere in the crowd with you. 

“Yeah, all the women were probably turned on by this mysterious leather-clad sax player.”

Girls in the Nose were the next band talked about in the zine. They are a female punk band who have been active since 1985. In January, they did their 40th anniversary show, which I have inserted a clip of below! Their name came from men telling them they needed nose jobs, hence the name Girls in the Nose. Their song More Madonna, Less Jesus is about rejecting purist culture and embracing pleasure. In an article quoted from the zine, Tipper Gore’s wife had this to say about the band, “What this band, Girls in the Nose, are trying to do to our innocent young citizens is convert them to an anti-family lifestyle that is sure to lead them on a path straight to hell!” 

This giant fear of conversion is always lurking; people think if you look at em too funny, it’ll “turn them queer”. Honey, if you’re queer from a queer person looking at you, I can guarantee it is not their fault. Girls in the Nose has a very fun energy to them, and I can’t wait to dig my teeth into more of their work. Viva La Vulva!!

“I prefer to think of these bands as girls who strap it on and rock it hard.”

So what’s on your turntable this week? If you need any ideas, I hope this zine gave you some. If it didn’t, here are some albums that have been on my turntable this week that might pique your interest 

 

By The Time We Get to Colorado by Tribe 8

Tribe 8 is a lesbian punk band that was active in the San Francisco area from 1991-2005. Through writing this post, I found there is a documentary about Tribe 8, which I will be watching promptly after this post is finished. The song Lezbophobia is one of my favorite songs of all time. Growing up a lesbian teen in small-town Wisconsin, I felt like I was constantly being accused of flirting with girls or chased out of locker rooms when I was just trying to change for gym; keep in mind I didn’t even fucking like gym. Lezbophobia takes the words right from my mouth and puts them into context. Fist City is my favorite album of theirs, so I recommend checking that out too.

Bitch and Animal

Bitch and Animal met in Chicago theater school and started making music together around 1995. The duo lasted until about 2004 before going their separate ways to work on solo projects. My dog Magdalena is obsessed with this album. I played it a ton when she was a puppy, so I wonder if the influence rubbed off on her. Either way, her and my favorite song on the album is Drag King Bar. I’m into it for the drag kings and their allure, and I think Magdalena is just into it for the fiddle, but who knows her inner psyche? I let her choose her sexuality, and she chose butch radical feminist, so I suppose she could be like her mom.

“If you treat a woman like a dog, she will piss on you.”

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Arabella (She/They) is interning at QZAP fall of 2026. She is an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee finishing her last year in Women’s and Gender studies. In her free time Arabella likes to spend time with her dog Magdalena and butchering the banjo.