Sunday Diva/Three From The Hip:
Jayne County
In my big gay church there is a wing dedicated to The Divas Who Represent. They're not all flashy or cocks of the walk - in fact, some never officially came out of the closet during their lifetime - but they are all extraordinarily gifted, sharing their songs, music, and insights, allowing the world at large to learn, in the most subtle of ways, what it's like 'being green'. Thanks to their gifts and their bravery, they help make the world a little more gay every time their voices are heard. And that's been their true super power all along... their voice; they were heard. They mattered. And, whether they liked it or not, they represented!
One such fire bomb?
The salacious Jayne County!
"We used to do things like go into department stores and ride up and down the elevators just screaming, you know, holding up women’s clothes and saying, 'Look at this! He’s going to adore me in this!' One of our big wrecks was going into the men’s room at the Greyhound bus station, a bunch of us queens, maybe four or five. The men were at the urinals with their you-know-whats out and we’d start screaming, 'Ooh, look how big it is! Look at that one! Oh my God, I think I had that one last night! How is your wife in bed, darling? I’d be a lot better!' The guys would be rushing to get their zippers up, so uncomfortable with us in there."
"It’s a wonder we didn’t get killed, a wonder we didn’t get in more trouble than we did. We did get shot at. They would actually come by in their trucks and shoot at us for the fun. You could hear the bullets flying past your head – shhhhhhw! Oh yeah, they wanted to kill us! But I think, because people were so shocked, they usually didn’t have time to think about hurting us. They were just too busy being shocked. By the time they got over it, we were gone and they’d be wondering what the fuck happened."
"I couldn’t get anywhere for a long time because people were too freaked out by me. I wrecked them too much. They had no idea how to market me. [Record companies] had no idea what to do with me at all. It was just too beyond their understanding."
Jayne County set a pre-punk standard for outrageous rock & roll stage antics and regalia with her then bands Wayne County & the Electric Chairs and Queen Elizabeth. Her goal, she boasted, was to "make Alice Cooper look like a nun." Now living in quiet rural Georgia with 19 cats, Jayne is mostly making visual art, and the occasional music.
She’s not slowed down - as she can still be found 'wrecking' on busy roads outside of southern churches.
'Wrecking', as she describes in her 1995 autobiography with Rupert Smith, Man Enough to Be a Woman, is when she and other drag queens would purposefully summon outraged reactions from passersby.
Moving from the South to New York City, she became a fixture at punk clubs like Max’s Kansas City, a part of Andy Warhol’s Factory. As the first - or, at least one of the first and certainly the most well-known - out trans frontwomen of a rock band, Jayne made a name for herself in New York, London, and Berlin with her foul mouth, wild stage antics, and offbeat sense of humor
Her energy has always made a lasting impression, so it was only fitting that she was present for the historic Stonewall riots. Her music, including the song Fuck Off and the band’s Blatantly Offensive EP, was banned by radio stations. On stage, Jayne made a habit of squirting members of the audience with water pistols shaped like dildos and performing songs while sitting on a toilet.
Once, during a performance at CBGBs music club, one of County’s fellow musicians began shouting homophobic insults at her, an action he soon regretted when County broke his shoulder with a microphone stand in response.
She’s not slowed down - as she can still be found 'wrecking' on busy roads outside of southern churches.
'Wrecking', as she describes in her 1995 autobiography with Rupert Smith, Man Enough to Be a Woman, is when she and other drag queens would purposefully summon outraged reactions from passersby.
Moving from the South to New York City, she became a fixture at punk clubs like Max’s Kansas City, a part of Andy Warhol’s Factory. As the first - or, at least one of the first and certainly the most well-known - out trans frontwomen of a rock band, Jayne made a name for herself in New York, London, and Berlin with her foul mouth, wild stage antics, and offbeat sense of humor
Her energy has always made a lasting impression, so it was only fitting that she was present for the historic Stonewall riots. Her music, including the song Fuck Off and the band’s Blatantly Offensive EP, was banned by radio stations. On stage, Jayne made a habit of squirting members of the audience with water pistols shaped like dildos and performing songs while sitting on a toilet.
Once, during a performance at CBGBs music club, one of County’s fellow musicians began shouting homophobic insults at her, an action he soon regretted when County broke his shoulder with a microphone stand in response.
Yes, this diva takes no crap from anyone!
The record companies had no clue what to do with her, but she still managed to find her place in annals of rock 'n roll and gay history.
The gospel according to her?
Well, here are three from the hip, dropping from her lips.
The topic? Wrecking!
"There was a whole gay subculture in Atlanta, and I dived right into it… I turned into what was known as a Scream Queen: wearing make-up, walking down the street screaming at people, screaming at boys, having to run from them. That’s what Scream Queens would do, go out wrecking people’s nerves. We’d put on our Cover Girl makeup and go driving around in Miss Cock’s convertible wrecking people."
"Just deliberately trying to freak out the regular people, the solids as we called them. Shaking people out of their normality, just trying to see what nerves we could push. They need their nerves twisted once in a while."
"There was a whole gay subculture in Atlanta, and I dived right into it… I turned into what was known as a Scream Queen: wearing make-up, walking down the street screaming at people, screaming at boys, having to run from them. That’s what Scream Queens would do, go out wrecking people’s nerves. We’d put on our Cover Girl makeup and go driving around in Miss Cock’s convertible wrecking people."
"Just deliberately trying to freak out the regular people, the solids as we called them. Shaking people out of their normality, just trying to see what nerves we could push. They need their nerves twisted once in a while."
"We used to do things like go into department stores and ride up and down the elevators just screaming, you know, holding up women’s clothes and saying, 'Look at this! He’s going to adore me in this!' One of our big wrecks was going into the men’s room at the Greyhound bus station, a bunch of us queens, maybe four or five. The men were at the urinals with their you-know-whats out and we’d start screaming, 'Ooh, look how big it is! Look at that one! Oh my God, I think I had that one last night! How is your wife in bed, darling? I’d be a lot better!' The guys would be rushing to get their zippers up, so uncomfortable with us in there."
"It’s a wonder we didn’t get killed, a wonder we didn’t get in more trouble than we did. We did get shot at. They would actually come by in their trucks and shoot at us for the fun. You could hear the bullets flying past your head – shhhhhhw! Oh yeah, they wanted to kill us! But I think, because people were so shocked, they usually didn’t have time to think about hurting us. They were just too busy being shocked. By the time they got over it, we were gone and they’d be wondering what the fuck happened."
"I couldn’t get anywhere for a long time because people were too freaked out by me. I wrecked them too much. They had no idea how to market me. [Record companies] had no idea what to do with me at all. It was just too beyond their understanding."
"People are still shockable. You have to get the right kind of person to be shocked. Now people kind just look at you and roll their eyes and are like “oh they must be making a movie or something.” But, you know, down here in the South it is way easier to shock people. A lot of people are ultra conservative. So a trans person in a huge, 3-foot tall wig, it’s sort of attention-getting down here."
“I still to this day do a little wrecking without even knowing I’m doing it.. I have a bad tendency to talk too much when I’m out shopping. Sometimes I’ll say something really outrageous to myself and make the person shopping next to me really nervous. I get a big thrill out of doing that.”
“I still to this day do a little wrecking without even knowing I’m doing it.. I have a bad tendency to talk too much when I’m out shopping. Sometimes I’ll say something really outrageous to myself and make the person shopping next to me really nervous. I get a big thrill out of doing that.”
Paranoia Paradise - Jayne County
from Derek Jarman's Jubilee (1978)
I Fell In Love With A Russian Soldier - Jayne County
I Don't Fit In Anywhere - Jayne County and Am Taylor
And one last parting shot...
"Gay or straight, an asshole is an asshole."
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