Rare Mention of Theremin Connection in Queer History

Came across an article in the New York Times Online about the young performer Patrick Wolf written by Jessica Brinton .

[img]http://women.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00228/Style_228354a.jpg[/img]
Wolf at the Door (http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/celebrity/article2761771.ece)

In his teens he built a theremin and played with Leigh Bowery, one of the most astounding, visually shocking and "out there" performance artists of all time. Wolf even connected with Wigstock organizer Lady Bunny from NYC.

""
It’s been a journey for the boy who, at 13, was shown how to disguise his acne with pan stick by drag queens, and who spent years in the gigging wilderness. “I went from being a boy with a Bontempi organ, travelling the seaside towns of northern Italy,” he has said – he does a nice line in self-mythology – “to a piano player with a fierce celtic drummer in Amsterdam, to playing to thousands as a pop star across the world.” When he was 14, he lied to his parents that he was doing “creative projects” with schoolmates, when he was playing a homemade theremin in the performance artist Leigh Bowery’s band, Minty. “My parents sent me to boarding school when I brought [the drag queen] Lady Bunny home to do a demo.”
""

I really, really, really hate Patrick Wolf.

Good to know Alexander from what I can tell you're not alone. I don't know his stuff at all honestly, but I was glad to read that Leigh used a theremin in his band. He was one of a kind.

My experience is that an abnormally large percentage of people involved with the Theremin are gay, and a large percentage of the rest are Jewish.

Is there something about the instrument that attracts minorities? Outcast instrument attracts outcast people, maybe? I continue to wonder.

Interesting, that hasn't been my impression. It's always seemed to me that the gay demographic was much smaller than usual in the arts.

The only abnormally large percentages I've noticed is that players, at least the ones we usually see promoted, tend to be almost exclusively female, and theremin builders/hobbyists tend to be almost exclusively male.

I suspect the instrument most of all tends to attract alternative thinkers regardless of lifestyle. This would be a good sociology survey if nothing else.

My better half and I from time to time observe that it is odd so few people are normal, like us!

I have an ingrained tendency to believe that if something is too popular, it must be unsatisfactory. This has led me to avoid seeing some good movies until years and years after they came out; it has proven a good approach with respect to computers (we are a Microsoft-free home; IBM OS/2 and Mac OS X in use).

I find myself agreeing with Alan. There is an inverse relationship between quality and popularity.

As for normal people, I met one once. Average build, average looks, average height, typical family, even temperament, not particularly smart, unremarkable house, usual car, usual interests, run-of-the-mill job, nothing to write home about, a neutral presence, bland and inoffensive, immoderately moderate, entirely defined by his statistics, a marketeer's demographic wet dream. Mr Fifty Percent.

Gordon, I know that guy...

I just can't remember that much about him.


I think I worked with him once or met him at school or something.

As for the Gay/Jewish connection, I am neither but some of my best friends are Gay Jews.

I'm Dutch.
Does that count?

[i]I'm Dutch.
Does that count?[/i]


It counts double.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hYX9txeFbg4