1990s
In 1990, the J.D.s editors released the first queercore compilation, J.D.s Top Ten Homocore Hit Parade Tape, a cassette which included bands from Canada, such as Fifth Column; Nikki Parasite, Big Man, and Bomb from the U.S.; from England, The Apostles, Academy 23 and No Brain Cells; and, from New Zealand, Gorse. During this period of queercore in the late 1980s to the early 1990s, many of the punk rock bands involved were not necessarily queer but their ethics were motivation for supporting this movement. Other bands, such as Los Crudos and Go!, had one queer and outspoken member. The sexuality of band members has never been an issue in the choice to align oneself with the queercore movement or not.
Other early queercore bands included Anti-Scrunti Faction, who appeared in J.D.s, and Comrades In Arms, Homocore editor Deke Nihilson's band. Shortly after the release of the tape J.D.s ceased publication and a new crop of zines arose, such as Jane and Frankie by Klaus and Jena von Brücker, Shrimp by Vaginal Davis and Fanorama by REB. The zine BIMBOX published statements such as "BIMBOX hereby renounces it's past use of the term lesbian and/or gay in a positive manner. This is a civil war against the ultimate evil, and consequently we must identify us and them in no uncertain terms, a task which will prove to be half the battle". The first queer zine gathering occurred at this time; "Spew", held in Chicago in 1991, offered an opportunity for all those involved in the scene to meet. Although organizer Steve LaFreniere was stabbed outside the venue at the end of the night, he quickly recovered and the event was deemed a success. Spew 2 took place in Los Angeles in 1992, and Spew III in Toronto in 1993. These Spew events also included musical performances by queercore bands.
Among the better-known bands from the early 1990s are Fifth Column, God Is My Co-Pilot, Pansy Division, PME, Sister George, Team Dresch, Tribe 8, and Mukilteo Fairies. As these bands gained popularity and awareness of the movement grew, zines began appearing from around the world; The Burning Times from Australia, and P.M.S. from the UK are examples.
In Chicago, Mark Freitas and Joanna Brown organized a monthly "Homocore" night that featured queercore bands performing live, offering a stable venue for the scene to proliferate; most of the bands mentioned played at Homocore Chicago. As well, as Amy Spencer notes in DIY: The Rise of Lo-Fi Culture, "Through Homocore events, they aimed to create a space for men and women to be together, as opposed to the sense of gender segregation which was the norm in mainstream gay culture - They attacked the idea that due to your sexuality you should be offered only one choice of social scene..."
In 1992 Matt Wobensmith's zine Outpunk also became a record label, and began to release its own queercore compilations, singles, and albums, and was crucial to the development of queercore. The first recordings by Tribe 8 and Pansy Division were released by the label. Some of the bands appearing later in the mid-1990s on the label include Sta-Prest, Cypher in the Snow and Behead the Prophet, No Lord Shall Live. It was also at this time in the early 1990s that Riot Grrrl emerged. "In many ways the angry- girl genre owes its existence to punk homocore 'zines..." writes Emily White in Rock She Wrote. It follows that many of the participants, their zines, and bands like Excuse 17 were involved in both movements. Along with Outpunk, independent record labels such as Alternative Tentacles, K Records, Kill Rock Stars, Lookout! Records, Yoyo Recordings and Candy Ass Records also supported and released material by queercore artists but in the mid to late 1990s several other small labels, alongside Outpunk, sprung up solely devoted to queercore.
Donna Dresch's zine Chainsaw became a record label as well, and began to release recordings by newer bands such as The Need, The Third Sex and Longstocking. Heartcore Records is another label, whose bands have included The Little Deaths, Addicted2Fiction, Crowns On 45 and Ninja Death Squad. These bands, many of whom are no longer together, constituted the 'second wave' of queercore bands which also included IAMLoved, Subtonix, Best Revenge and Fagatron from the U.S., Skinjobs from Canada and, from Italy, Pussy Face. Of these early queercore labels, Chainsaw and Heartcore are still active and are still releasing new material.
By the mid 1990s, zines in the U.S., such as Marilyn Medusa, and in Canada, This Is The Salivation Army, began to link queercore with a Paganism; at the same time, other strands in queercore began to link themselves with Riot Grrrl, and still others with anarchism. Mainstream media coverage intensified when Pansy Division toured the U.S. with Green Day,. In 1996 in San Francisco, the Dirtybird 96 Queercore Festival presaged other queer music gatherings which occurred in the following decade. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, DUMBA provided an ongoing venue in New York for queercore bands, continuing in the path of Homocore Chicago and leading the way for other, similar clubs to come in the 2000s.
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