If you’re expecting limp-wristed DJs spinning Kylie remixes and lesbian singer-songwriters with unshaven armpits cranking out Ani DiFranco covers, perhaps it’s time you took a second look at HOLES AND POLES, the queer band festival with attitude. CHAD PARKHILL chats with ANTHONY SMITH, the festival organiser.

Some people like holes. Some people like poles. Some people like both. But – as anyone with an ounce of sexual imagination will know – there’s more than one hole, and you can use a lot of things as poles. As such, the very name Holes And Poles signifies that this festival is about more than stereotypical gay and lesbian music – indeed, it emphasises gender fluidity, sexual diversity and changing sexual roles. Even people in heterosexual relationships can be queer – if they’re in the right frame of mind.

This openness and inclusivity is directly at odds with some of the attitudes Anthony Smith has faced in relation to the event. “I’ve had a bizarre experience organising this,” he says. “There were people who felt that making it a queer night was making it too selective, and some people who just thought it shouldn’t exist.”

According to Smith, there were two main arguments against Holes And Poles: the first being that music is universal, and so there should be no such thing as ‘queer music’. “I’m running this so that bands that don’t really have a voice can get seen,” he rebuts. “It’s not easy to be a queer band and try to get exposure. Girl With Cake can’t get into Pride festival, because they’re deemed too heavy. Anal Traffic are deemed too adult. It makes it hard; there’s not a lot of outlets.”

The second was that it might not be necessary to hold a queer event. “There seems to be a real movement of normal queers, normal gays,” he says, “who feel that anything that steps into the gay culture is a negative.”

“I’ve had people say, ‘Should there be a queer event? Do you have straight band fests?’” he says. “Well, it’s a minority. That’s not the point of it. It’s to show there is good queer music out there, not to be selective about it.”

Smith is quick to add that very few of the artists playing at the festival fit into a stereotype of what ‘queer’ music is or should be: “While with some of the bands, the music is definitely queer, some of it is universal, but they have queer band members. It wasn’t as if I was being selective about queer music, although bands like Anal Traffic, Master & Stryker, they’re very much queer music.”

As such, a lot of the music on display here deviates dramatically from what you’d expect. There will be no DJs spinning commercial house remixes of Kylie and the Scissor Sisters, nor groups of hairy-armpitted lesbians singing acoustic folk tracks about chamomile tea and sisterhood. Indeed, one of the few things to link the diverse group of musicians playing is their in-your-face attitude.

“The bands all have an edge about them,” Smith says. “They’re really good bands, which is why I wanted to run this: to make people aware that this kind of music exists out there, and that it’s really good.”

Holes And Poles takes place on Friday at the Globe, featuring Suzy Loves Dick, Dizzygotheca, Master & Stryker, Anal Traffic, Twist Oliver Twist, Kristy Apps, Girl With Cake, and more.

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