Lost Spaces: Memories from Gay Bars, Lesbian Clubs, and LGBTQ+ Parties

So, this week is a big week. We've made it to 100 episodes. This is the 100th episode. That's weird, right? Whod've thought we'd make it this far? 100 whole episodes, and we've never been to the city where I grew up.... Adelaide. But, that's all about to change today!  I got to sit down with the comedian Lori Bell to talk all about her experiences on Adelaide's queer scene (all two venues!).....

We're headed back to the lesbian bar! My guest on this week's show, Bobby Macumber, is a comedian, MC and radio host from Melbourne.  We caught up to talk about The Glasshouse, one of Melbourne's only lesbian bars, which opened in 1991, and closed in 2011.  The Glasshouse was the very first queer bar that Bobby went to with her cricket teammates back when she was a closeted 23 year old.....

Big Hair. Oil Rigs. BBQs. Beyonce... Yes, this week we're off to Texas! And our tour guide is actor, producer and director Emerson Collins. He's taking us back in time to The Village Station in Dallas, which was the very first gay bar he ever went to. Though he can't remember the songs he heard that night, what he was wearing, or what performances he saw, he does remember how it felt... The excite...

Hayden Winston is a Black, bisexual novelist, poet and activist whose work draws on his experiences as a QPOC and the child of West Indian immigrants.   Though he currently lives in Sacramento with his husband Tom, he was born and raised in and around Los Angeles. It was here, in West Hollywood, that he started to explore the queer scene at the 18-and-up night Tiger Heat.  And Tiger Heat...

Simona Castricum is a musician, DJ and producer based in Melbourne, Australia. We caught up to talk about Hugs and Kisses, a night that ran in the 2010s and took advantage of the looser licensing laws that applied to the venue it was based in, which created this wonderful, hedonistic atmosphere reminiscent of the early rave scene.  We talked a lot about being safe on the scene and how to crea...

Barb Snelgrove is a radio presenter, inductee in the Canadian Queer Hall of Fame, and owner of megamouthmedia, a boutique media relations firm.  She is also a life-long Vancouverite, and has seen the queer scene shift and change since she first started going out as an underage teen. We first caught up to talk about a bar called The Odyssey, but... well... you already know what I'm going to sa...

Michael Dumlao is an artist, activist and the author of 'The Wisdom of Guncles', a new book that celebrates the role of gay uncles and highlights the diverse perspectives and lived experiences they have to offer their families.  Born in the Philippines, he spent his childhood in Sydney, Australia, and then California before moving to Washington, D.C. in his early 20s.  It was here that h...

Erika and Paul are the co-hosts of That Aged Well, a podcast that examines 80s/90s pop culture through a modern lens. The two have been friends for over 20 years, and were finishing each other's sentences, and volleying back and forth throughout our conversation about their lost space. And, you'll be pleased to hear, there was a higher-than-average amount of giggles and guffaws. We met to discuss...

Actor Kevin Steinberg moved to San Francisco in the mid-90s after a particularly memorable trip to Burning Man festival (I'll let him tell you all about that), and quickly built a life for himself working as a living sculpture and a go-go dancer. And it was at Club Universe, a queer nightclub in SoMa that was open from 1994 to 2002, where he first donned his skimpy shorts and worked the podium. Do...

This week we are catching up with Pandora Boxx, drag queen superstar and contestant on Ru Paul's Drag Race Season 2, as well as All Stars 1 and 6. And we are going to find out all about her early days in drag. Back in the 90s she was one of the top performers at Club Marcella, a drag bar in Rochester, NY, that rode on the crest of the wave of that decades drag explosion (think Ru Paul's 'Supermode...

What is it about the punk and the goth scenes that is so appealing to queer kids? This week I caught up with author, podcaster, and entrepreneur Demi Wylde to help explore that very question.  I got to find out all about his teen years growing up in the southern California city Riverside, and the refuge that he found at the Showcase Theatre, an alternative rock club in the neighbouring city o...

When most people think of G-A-Y, the iconic club night that has hosted performances from such superstars as Kylie Minogue, Spice Girls, Madonna, and my personal favourites Daphne & Celeste, they think of The Astoria, the central London music venue that hosted the night from when it started in the 90s up until the late 00s. The Astoria was the victim of Crossrail, a railway construction project...

Seren Oakley is a multi-disciplinary artist and events organiser whose work is based on queer spaces and elevation of others, which includes marginalised groups like asylum seekers. Currently based in Leeds, England, she grew up in Swansea, Wales, where she found solace and community at a venue called The Scene, which hosted gigs for under 18s in the early 2010s. In this episode we talk all about...

Gay Sydney in the 90s was a magical time according to today's guest, chef, youtuber and podcaster Andrew Prior, who lived very close to the city's main gay hub, Oxford Street, in the early 90s.  Our conversation focusses on this area, which Andred dubs the 'gay ghetto', at two periods of his life - the early 90s, when he was a teenager, living away from home for the first time, and the late 9...

Today we are catching up with Conor Collins, a Visual Artist based in Manchester, England, who is known for making artworks using unconventional materials such as diamond dust, blood, and hate speech found on social media. He first moved to Manchester to study, and it was here that he found Poptastic, a club night targeted mainly at students that played an eclectic mix of music.  We caught up...

This week we are talking to David Paisley, a Scottish actor known for roles in soap operas Holby City, and River City. He is also a tireless LGBTQ campaigner, recently being acknowledged with an Attitude Pride Award for his  campaigning against the trans-exclusionary agenda of the LGB Alliance. He first moved to London when he got the role as midwife Ben Saunders in Holby City, and hated...

This week we are talking to Tim Lagman, a certified sex educator and pleasure advocate based in Toronto, Canada.  He is also the host of the 'Sex Ed with Tim' podcast, where he interviews sluts (his word, not mine!) from all walks of life and delves into the good, the bad, and the stinky sides of love, sex, sexuality, relationships, and more. And where did he get so damn knowledgeable about a...

In ye olden days (ok, like 20 years ago) London used to be full of small neighbourhood queer bars that had more of a community feel than the bigger, anonymous drinking establishments in the West End. And, if it was a lesbian bar you were after then your best bet would be to head to Stoke Newington in the north east of London, which has been described by today's guest as a 'lesbian mecca'.  An...

Today we are talking about Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, which on June 12, 2016, became the site of the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. since the September 11 attacks of 2001.  And, the repercussions were felt worldwide- I remember how shocking and terrifying it was to hear about this happening in a country like America.. But, before it was the sight of this tragedy Pulse was a...

Today's guest has a pretty damn impressive CV. She is the recently elected Chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party, as well as the co-founder of San Francisco's Transgender District (which happens to be the first transgender district in the world, so no small feat!). Oh, yeah, and you might know her as a contestant on Season 5 of Ru Paul's Drag Race, where she showed off, amongst other things,...

This week we are heading to San Francisco to meet Creative Strategist Nat Gunn. And, when I say strategist I do mean strategist! Moving to San Francisco in 2014 Nat came equipped with a game plan that she took that seriously, throwing herself in to the dating world. It was this very plan that led her to meet her partner Bridget, and their first date together brought them to Virgil's Sea Room,...

This week we are heading to the northern Scottish city of Aberdeen for some old school drag glamour. We are talking to none other than the mama of Aberdeen's drag scene, Romy Deepcheeks, a queen who has been pioneering the artform in the city since the early 00s. We caught up to talk about the scene, and discuss venues including Club 2000, Castro's and Foundation, but, in typical Lost Spaces...

This week we are catching up with Craig Seymour, an American writer, music critic and former stripper. And, we are heading back to the 1990s to find out about his time stripping at various clubs throughout Washington, DC. At that point in time there was a strange quirk in the zoning laws that meant that strippers could be fully naked and fondled by customers. Whilst a graduate at the University of...

This week we are heading back to the Big Apple with Conor Kelly O'Brien, an actor, theatre maker and creative arts organiser, originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania -- after a day of soul-zapping auditions Conor found himself at 9th Avenue Saloon, a gay dive bar in Hell's Kitchen. It was here, whilst commiserating over an alcoholic beverage or two, that Conor met a man, got pleasantly distracted,...

This week we are heading back in time to the early 00s - this is the time when the Spice Girls were unravelling, we had e-mail but not social media (not even MySpace!), and electroclash was at its peak. And it was at this time that my guest Jordan King - a Canadian multi-disciplinary artist, archivist, and historian, with her personal work currently focused on the overlap of drag culture and...