Pictured: Arnold Madlangbayan (right) and the author, circa. 2006
As I’ve noted before, not every post on this blog will be about zombies, and today I want to write a post to recognize my friend Arnold Madlangbayan, guitarist/singer/songwriter in my band the Blissters for doing his first feature print interview! It appeared yesterday in The Windy City Times, one of Chicago’s gay newspapers. (Chicago doesn’t just have a free ”alternative” newsweekly like most cities do; it also has two explicitly GLBT newsweeklies.) Anyhow, talking to reporters can be an intimidating process, but Arnold did a great job. He just jumped right in and totally was himself, which I think is the best approach to take!
Also, I thought it was brave of him to be interviewed “because he is gay.” We’ve been around for a while, and have always just been “a band that happened to have a gay member” not a “gay band” or anything. When this newspaper asked to talk to Arnold about being gay in the rock scene in Chicago, it was the first interview where he’d had to step up and be “a gay rock guitarist” instead of just “a member of the Blissters who happens to like dudes.” I wonder if I would have been brave enough to do that if I had been in Arnold’s shoes!
Anyhow, the Blissters are awesome people, whom I love like family, and I am so proud of Arnold taking a chance and representing us like this.
You can read the entire Windy City Times interview with Arnold here, and you can see the Blissters at Reggie’s Rock Club, 2109 S. State Street, in Chicago, next Wed., Oct. 8. The show (21 and over) is free– doors open at 8pm, and the Blissters play around 10:30pm. (Zombie fans are especially invited, and I will be happy to sign any copies of The Zen of Zombie that are proffered.)
Final thought: Reading the Windy City Times article, I notice they refer to Arnold as “the openly gay member” of the Blissters. This wording seems to imply that other members of the Blissters could also be gay, but just not out of the closet yet. I wonder what they know that they aren’t telling us. (John… I’m looking in your direction…)
