Tag Archives: #Pride50

#PRIDE50 - MUSIC: Sylvester & Patrick Cowley MENERGY (1980/1984)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SYLVESTER! – Sept. 6, 1947: Sylvester & Patrick Cowley “MENERGY” and MORE. (1980/1984)

“Menergy” is a 1980 dance single by producer Patrick Cowley. Along with the song “I Want to Take You Home”.

Sylvester was San Francisco’s biggest star and Cowley’s muse – a larger-than-life presence around town, dressed to the nines and often carrying multiple shopping bags as he walked down Castro Street. Cowley most famously worked with Sylvester on the ecstatic mega-hit You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) and was a pioneer of the genre known as hi-NRG, a relentlessly up-tempo variant of disco that gained serious traction, especially in the UK and Europe. Sylvester’s legacy still lives on today as before his death Sylvester had bequeathed all of his future royalties to local AIDS groups

“Menergy” spent two weeks atop the Billboard Dance/Disco chart in October and November 1981. It was Cowley’s most successful single of four Top 10 dance chart hits, all of which occurred within the span of 15 months. As with Cowley’s other singles, “Menergy” did not place on any other chart until 1984, when  a version of “Menergy” was released where Sylvester’s vocals were featured and became a huge hit especially with the gay dance crowd.

“The boys in the barroom
Living it up,
Shootin’ off energy.
 
The guys on the sidewalk
Workin’ it out,
Talkin’ ’bout Menergy.”

 

PRIDE Month - Remembering Malcolm Michaels Jr. aka Marsha P. Johnson: The Original Drag Queen Trans Activist (1945 - 1992)

Listen to Marsha P. Johnson Talk About the Stonewall Riots In Her Own Words – “We didn’t start the rebellion.” [RARE AUDIO]

Before her tragic death in 1992 , Eric Marcus of Making Gay History interviewed self identified gay, transvestite, drag queen activist Marsha P. Johnson (aka.Malcolm Michael Jr.) and longtime gay activist Randy Wicker about the Stonewall Riots.


I was uptown and I didn’t get downtown until about two o’clock, because when I got downtown the place was already on fire.  And it was a raid already. The riots had already started.  And they said the police went in there and set the place on fire.  They said the police set it on fire because they originally wanted the Stonewall to close, so they had several raids.”   – Marsha P. Johnson

In this rare and informative audio the details of that fateful night on June 28, 1969 come from Johnson’s own mouth and puts many of the rumors and folklore of the Stonewall Riots to rest once and for all.

History matters.

Accurate history matters even more.

#PRIDE50 - WATCH: Matt Bomer Sings "People Like Us" from Doom Patrol - VIDEO

#PRIDE50 – WATCH: Matt Bomer Sings “People Like Us” from Doom Patrol – VIDEO

Hey everybody loses it
Everybody wants to throw it all away sometimes
And hey, yeah I know what you’re going through
Don’t let it get the best of you, you’ll make it out alive
Oh, people like us we’ve gotta stick together
Keep your head up, nothing lasts forever
Here’s to the damned to the lost and forgotten
It’s hard to get high when you’re living on the bottom