Note: Due to air quality on the original scheduled air date, the planned bike livestream was rescheduled to October 7 to accompany a rebroadcast of the episode.

Metro Art has partnered with local community driven radio and arts foundation, dublab, to create this special programming series. Each episode is a multimedia dive into the various intersecting musical histories embedded into the streets, buildings, and neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Hear from a spectrum of musicians who defined their respective scenes along with a collaged soundtrack of hand selected music, interviews, archival photos, and a broadcasted livestream of the accompanying geographies as seen from a Metro Bike as visual accompaniment.

The first three episodes corresponded with a Metro Rail transit corridor that is currently under construction: Regional Connector in Downtown LA, Purple Line Extension along the Wilshire Corridor, and Crenshaw/LAX connecting to Mid-City and Leimert Park. The next three episodes connect more music and social history geographies multi-modally accessible via Metro Rail, Bus and Bike: the Sunset Strip extending west from the B Line (Red) from Hollywood via Metro Bike and Bus, Hyperion Blvd. in Silver Lake, and the future Los Angeles River Path project.

Deep Routes Episode #5 – Silver Lake, Industrial Strength Queer

In Episode 5 of Deep Routes we are joined by host Chris Cruse – nightlife organizer, dj, and the person behind the QueerMaps.org project. QueerMaps.org is an explorative and interactive website that documents LGBTQ locations throughout the Los Angeles area. Chris, along with other guests, will guide us through the now famous Silver Lake neighborhood – and reflect on its once very queer, adventurous, and provocative landscape. 

Silver Lake hills, aka the “Swish Alps,” has long been a haven for LGBTQ folks — since at least the 1900s when the area was a film town, part of Edendale. With deep roots here, the community in Silver Lake has weathered police brutality, hate crimes, and the AIDS crisis. But despite fear and hardship, a vibrant, buzzing culture flourished in Silver Lake during the 80s and 90s. The area was an LGBT melting point — truly queer, outsider, punk, and unapologetically individual — before that pejorative word “queer” was officially reclaimed, and eventually became a catch-all term.

The music coming from the clubs in Silver Lake was far from the smooth disco blends (and smooth bodies) in West Hollywood. The clubs here clashed and clanged with searing guitars, punk yells, industrial drum machines, electronic body music, and acid house — and a spirit that embraced passion over perfection. This culture surrounding these scenes is a part of what made Silver Lake exciting, and eventually drew so many others to move to the area. The stories are still there, just beyond the walls of the fancy boutiques and $10 juice shops that today populate Silver Lake’s avenues and boulevards.

This is meant neither as a complete nor exhaustive list of queer spaces in Silver Lake, but we’re here to scratch the surface of a few of these spots and get a feel for what it felt like, looked like, and sounded like along this little strip when Silver Lake was queer.

Joining us for Deep Routes: Silver Lake, Industrial Strength Queer (in order of appearance) is: 

Michael Matson, discussing Club F*ck
Frank Rodriguez, discussing Club Sucker, Vaginal Davis
Marvin Jones, discussing Cuffs
Jonesy, discussing Cuffs
DJ Paul V., discussing Dragstrip 66 at Rudolpho’s
Scott Craig & Peter Alexander, discussing Akbar’s Roots and Theoretical @ The One-Way

This project is made possible by a mini grant through the Southern California Association of Governments’ Go Human program, funded by the CA Office of Traffic Safety.