 The Queers - The Queers are Here DVD Review
by Kevin Wierzbicki
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There has never been a Queers DVD before and that probably has to do with the fact that there is just not that much usable footage available. I'm sure that in the early days the band gave little thought to filming their shows and much of what is used here may have been recorded by fans on the sly. Some of the material goes way back (The Queers are celebrating their 25th anniversary) but the performances were captured at various points between 1993 and 2005. Some of the footage is in black & white and some is in color; all of the segments are fairly short as the band writes very short songs. So even though there are over 2 dozen songs on The Queers are Here, the video only clocks in at a little over an hour, and that includes lots of commentary from the group's mainstay lead singer, Joe King (aka Joe Queer.) Mostly Joe explains how various songs were written but he has a bit of wonderment in his voice when he recalls the band's beginnings, back when their only goal was to land a gig with Screeching Weasel and to put out some kind of record. The wonderment turns to bile though when he comments on the state of music today; I won't repeat here what he says about My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy but it aint nothin' nice. At a tour stop in Florence, Italy the band is joined by former vocalist Wimpy who rips through some of the band's fabled hard-core; "We'd Have a Riot Doing Heroin," "Terminal Rut," "Fagtown" and "Wimpy Drives through Harlem." Some of the band's lighter fare, their surfy, poppy stuff, is represented too, in the form of videos for "Tamara is a Punk Rocker," "Punk Rock Girls" and the cartoon-vid "I Can't Get Over You." Fans of the Queers-lite will want to check out their new album on Asian Man records, Munki Brain, and fans of the Queers-hard core will be happy to know that Asian Man is reissuing many of the group's earlier efforts later this year. Both factions should find something to like about this DVD.
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