Mariella Luz:

My name is Mariella Luz and I am recording for the City of Olympia Music History Project. Today is January 18th, and I'm talking to Ed Varga. Do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself?

‍

Ed Varga:

My name is Ed Varga and I lived in Olympia in the early 2000s and put on a music festival called Homo A Gogo.

‍

Mariella Luz:

How did you choose Olympia? What brought you here?

‍

Ed Varga:

I was putting on shows in Minneapolis where I lived in most of the ‘90s. I started putting on Homocore Minneapolis shows in 1995, and started meeting a lot of bands from the northwest. Maybe, I would have met them going to shows, but a lot of bands weren't coming through town. So, I started putting on shows and I met The Need [added for clarity: Ed met The Need around 1997 through putting on a Homocore Minneapolis show for them.]. They were on tour in the spring of 2000, and they were working on The Transfused rock opera. They asked me to come to Olympia to be the sound engineer for The Transfused. I made the decision at that point. I was looking for a reason to move to the northwest for sure. I loved all the music from there. I totally loved K records and Kill Rock Stars. All of my favorite bands were - Chainsaw. I was listening to all of that music from those three labels during that time and, and really wanted a reason to move to the northwest. So, when they offered that to me, I was like, “All right. Let's pack up the van and go.”

‍

Mariella Luz: 

How did you get from The Transfused to Homo A Go Go?

‍

Ed Varga:

Through doing Homocore Minneapolis shows, I started learning how to become an audio engineer, and then was doing that in rock clubs in Minneapolis and also getting a more legitimate job at the Walker Art Center. So, I had kind of a loose plan that I'll go to Olympia, hopefully I'll fall in somewhere being able to possibly tour as an engineer with bands or get to do some studio stuff, get to record some people. I was just hoping I was going to get to work with bands in the capacity of being an audio engineer. So, I moved to Olympia, did The Transfused and then almost immediately after The Transfused was Ladyfest. During Ladyfest I signed up to- because I'm a dude or a transgender man- Ladyfest was run by women and they were trying really hard to staff everything including like all the audio and engineers and stuff with women engineers. That didn't happen. But backing up, I volunteered to be off to be in the background in Yo Yo Studios. Yo Yo Studios had a little control room in the capitol theater that was above the backstage. I was on the recording team with a handful of people. I think Diana Arens and Donna Dresch and then Pat of course, Pat Maley. We were just going to record. Then the first night of the festival-  they had hired a sound company from Seattle to do sound, requested women engineers. Not only had they sent men engineers, the front of house engineer was a total dick and was pissing everybody off. So Beth Stinson came up to me in the middle of the very first night asking, “Will you do live sound?” and I basically got shoved into doing live sound the first night in the middle of the night, in the middle of the event that night. So, then I did sound for Ladyfest, which was awesome. It was difficult. It didn't always go so well. I was kind of walking into a hostile situation with a sound company. I didn't really have a plan after that. Because Pat was one of the first people I had met and because he had done the recording of The Transfused and then Ladyfest, we had become friends and he pitched the idea to me. He's like, “Well, would you want to…” [Pat] never really recorded anybody or hadn't done a lot of recording of other bands who weren't [his friends or weren’t] on Yo Yo Records. And he was like, “Would you want to open up the studio to non Yo Yo bands and be able to hire yourself out and hire the studio out for people to do recording projects.” So, I started doing that. I started trying to kind of piece together income in Olympia. I was picking up any kind of tech sound work that I could like at the Washington Center [for the Performing Arts].  Did sound design at the Harlequin [Theater]. In between that, I had a part time job at Music 6000 [music store]. I started working for my friend at Pacific Stage [AV Company] Dave Sederberg. I just kind of started piecing together being an audio person. I really did want to try to tour with bands. Not everybody could really afford to take somebody on tour with them, so they weren't really. Most bands weren't really taking engineers on tour. I was always trying to make that happen, but  I instead started- I was able to do some things. I was able to work on so many amazing events in Olympia. At the time, the person who was the Technical Director at the Capitol Theater wasn't super easy to work with. So, people just started hiring me to do their events, like the Sex Workers Art Show, for example. I was doing kind of one off night, one night event things at the Capitol Theater. I was in and out of the Capitol Theater all the time doing stuff. Then I did sound for Yo Yo A Gogo [festival]. The original question was, “How did I get to Homo A Go Go?” Sorry, I totally went on a long thing. I stayed in Olympia. It was very hard, honestly, financially, and I could have really easily left because it was so difficult to make a living trying to be an engineer there. I stuck around thankfully and Pat put on Yo Yo A Gogo in 2001. Or, Pat and Michelle [Noel] and the other Pat, Castaldo, decided to put on Yo Yo A Gogo in 2001. Because I was involved with the studio, and I saw Pat every day at the Yo Yo office, I got involved with that team. So, we did Yo Yo A Gogo. My main job was- I did a little bit of booking in bands with everyone- but my main job was just the production and doing sound for the festival. After that, 2002 came around and there was kind of a lull. It had been two exciting years of The Transfused, and Lady Fest, and Yo Yo A Gogo, and it was a bit of a lull. In the beginning of the year of 2002, I kind of started kicking around the idea of doing a queer music festival, which had been an interest. Taking the idea of booking small local shows in Minneapolis and being able to do something bigger, and then having this experience of being a part of three festivals at the Capitol Theater, and what a special experience that was, all three of them in different ways. Wanting to do something like that for a queer music festival. So just kind of started. Would people be interested? Would people want to work on it? Started talking to Beth Stinson, and Teresa Carmody, and Pat Maley. We were the first four that started meeting about doing Homo A Gogo. I got Pat involved because it was kind of like should we tie it into Yo Yo? Could it be a Yo Yo sponsored event? Could it somehow be tied into Yo Yo? I think Pat was getting married that year. Pat was like, “I just don't have time to really be involved with it.” I was like, “Well, what do you think about us using the name in this way is kind of a nod to Yo Yo and also it's funny sounding?” So that's kind of how we got to Homo A Go Go. We picked a day based on when we started organizing the festival. What's the minimum amount of time that we can pull this festival out of our asses? But still have it not be rainy season. So, we did at the end of September in 2002. Then, we started having community meetings and getting more people involved, kind of shaping the festival. Also, it was all taking inspiration from Ladyfest. Particularly having a multidisciplinary program of music and film and various performances, a fashion show, stuff like that. All those things were kind of borrowed from the Ladyfest format versus just doing a straight up music festival like something like Yo Yo.

‍

[Added context provided by Ed regarding the spelling of Homo A Go Go: “When I realized how many different ways Homo A Go Go was being written about, sometimes with dashes in between go go or between all the words, sometimes with go go being one word,  I just decided to pick a way to do it and stick to that for all of our publicity materials.  I believe we started doing it this way in 2004. I’m sure it was sloppy and all over the place in 2002 with the spelling. I believe I made a style and messaging guide for all the core staff, probably in 2006, but maybe for 2004, and we definitely had a google doc for staff in 2009.  It’s confusing because you see Yoyo so many different ways as well, I believe it is Yoyo A Go Go, but some of the posters I think have dashes or with gogo as one word. I was never too worried about correcting it if it was out in the world wrong but if a media person asked, I always stuck with one way to do it starting in 2004 so that I would always have an answer when asked.”]

‍

Mariella Luz:

How long was the planning process?

‍

Ed Varga:

I started talking about it at the beginning of the year in 2002. We didn't really get going until March or April of that year, really kind of kicking into gear. So, it was really fast to throw together a festival, with trying to put on 50 bands and hundreds of short films and things like that. But, there were a lot of people involved. We had at least 20 core people who were coming to meetings every week.

‍

Mariella Luz: 

That's a big group. Do you want to tell us a little bit more specifically about some of the events from Homo A Go Go? And what you thought of as the planning challenges?

‍

Ed Varga:

The planning challenges, a lot of it was how do we get the word out about getting submissions from artists. How do we get the word out, first of all, to get a program put together. The band networking kind of stuff was fairly easy. But, we wanted to have a diverse program in the sense of we wanted to have- we didn't necessarily just want to have bands from the northwest. How do we find other bands that might not be on the touring radar? There was a little bit of digging that had to go into finding other bands in other regions, for example. The film stuff–I wonder how we put the call out. I can't remember because we were all so much more tied into these music networks. 

‍

[Added context added by Ed: “I'm guessing that Bridget Irish had a big role in finding, curating and booking the film program.  She was one of the core organizers in 2002 and I believe was the lead on the film program.  We may have gotten some input from Lisa Ganser who was still in Minneapolis at that time.  Lisa had done a documentary about me and Homocore Minneapolis and they produced a queer film festival there called The Flaming Shorts Film Festival.”]

‍

It was kind of trying to use different DIY networks that might already be happening. Are there other kind of underground-ish DIY film festivals?How do we find somebody's list to blast to try to find artists? A lot of it was who do we know in what city and where can they put up flyers? We were doing that for calls for submissions, and for trying to get people to the festival. Those were the biggest challenges. We're a completely unknown event. We're doing this for the first time. We're trying to get a decent program to get people there. And, we're doing it all on ticket sales, which means that somebody is fronting the money ahead of time: me, and more credit cards. We're fronting the money to make these expenses that we need to make. We're doing everything as cheaply as we possibly can, because we're waiting for the ticket sales to come in. Back then, there weren't these robust ticketing systems like Eventbrite or Brown Paper Tickets or anything like that. BuyOlympia had done past sales for Ladyfest, and Yo Yo A Gogo, so it was tapping into the infrastructure that they had to be able to sell passes in advance for all the festivals. Then we had some cash flowing in before the festival happens. Getting the word out and the financial challenges were the biggest ones.

‍

Mariella Luz:

What about some of your successes from the festival? Obviously it was successful, because you decided to do it again and again. 

‍

Ed Varga:

Well, we were able to pull a festival together, and pay the bills, and pay people, pay artists, and still be able to donate money to the Gender Variant Healthcare Project [a trans centered health care organization operating in the early 2000s], which we also did. We did all of that somehow on less than $20,000 the very first year. So, that's got to be counted as a success. I was a little primed for this interview because I did an interview a couple days ago. So, I have some things fresh in my mind. Some of the things about the festival that are some of the greatest or most satisfying moments for me are the ones where these beautiful spontaneous things happened. You try to program and bring together some great artists. You try to bring your community together and then whatever happens then- you don't plan for every little thing. So, all these magical little moments, or these little nuggets of magic, when all of those things collide are some of the some of my favorite parts of the festivals over the years. Also, knowing that they mean successes, knowing that we put on a festival really meant something to people. People were coming up to me and other organizers, and sobbing and hugging and how much it meant to them. I had a friend who, after the first festival who came back the next- in 2004- and was like, “I transitioned.” - he's a trans guy-  “I transitioned because I met you and because of the festival.” All of those things that are less tangible and/or successful in real world metrics are much more important than anything to me. Doing something that really meant something to people, and had an impact on people's lives, and most likely had ripple effects. Did somebody go home and start putting on shows in their hometown? Did they go home and start a band or decide to make a film or something else that inspired them? So all of those ripple effects, those things are priceless.

‍

Mariella Luz:

Yeah, I'm sure even that feeling of people going home and knowing that, even if they don't have community in their own town, that they have a wider community of people who think like them. I think that that's a really huge thing.

‍

Ed Varga: 

Yeah, totally. I'm sure people met people, and kept in touch, or fell in love, or hooked up, or whatever. And, that some of those things, some of those relationships probably sprung from the festival, that could have made lifelong friends. Those things are all really beautiful.

‍

Mariella Luz:

Was Homo A Go Go the first, or one of the first, queer punk festivals? I know that, of course, music festivals were sort of big in the ‘90s. But, I don't know of any others that were specifically those two things.

‍

Ed Varga:

In the ‘90s, there was [Spew] a big [queer] zine convention that connected a lot of people. I wasn't there, unfortunately. There was a, more of a national, queercore zine festival that connected a lot of people. Then there was the–oh my god I'm totally spacing out the name of it. There was a queer punk festival that was not always in the same location that I'm totally spacing out the name of with my old brain today. That was around for a long time. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm spacing out the name of it. I’d have to do some Google digging to figure that out [added at review: Queeruption festival in rotating cities and Scutterfest in LA]. Of course, there were queer film festivals. There was the Mix Festival in New York [and Lisa Gasnar’s Flaming Film Festival in Minneapolis]. Like I'm trying to think of something that's more on the DIY punk side than just your average queer film festival. The Mix Festival in New York was another one. I went there with a documentary that somebody had made, that my friend, Lisa Ganser, had made about Homocore Minneapolis. They were soliciting filmmakers from all over the country and probably all over the world. I would say that had kind of a national feel to it. I traveled to go there. I'm sure people traveled to go to Mix. So, there was a handful of things like that. Music wise, it was the one that I can't remember the name of right now off the top of my head [added at review: Queeruption]. There weren't queer punk music festivals happening to my knowledge.

‍

Mariella Luz:

Yeah, same. I don't remember that. And, even Ladyfest, I remember- after the first Ladyfest- I guess it wasn't like a trademark brand, but Ladyfest ended up spinning off and people would have little Ladyfests in their own town. I remember a bunch of us actually ended up going to Ladyfest Scotland, in 2002, I can't remember, 2001 maybe. A lot of the original Ladyfest bands, or a handful of them got asked to play Ladyfest Scotland and we all went to Scotland together because we thought it would be fun. Sort of branching off this idea into other communities, just to sort of spark that sense of community like we talked about.

‍

Ed Varga:

That was a call to action by Kanako [Pooknyw]. Go home and do your own festival. That was awesome. That was awesome that people felt inspired to do that. It made me personally feel a little guarded on the Homo A Go Go name. Like over the years, people did wanna do Homo A Go Go’s in other ways, in other Ladyfest- I think it just became a- I didn't want it to be a thing where there were a bunch of Homo A Go Go’s happening, and then nobody was going to want to come to Olympia. That was what I was afraid of. If there's a Homo A Go Go happening 100 miles from you, versus 400 miles from you, [you may want to go to the closer festival. I think that happened with] Ladyfest. But, that doesn't mean that other things didn't happen that were similar. In Austin, there's a queer music festival that I think happened that kind of spun out from the queer film festival there [and used to happen around South by Southwest]. I'm sorry, I'm spacing out names right now [added at review: Gay by Gay Gay]. Without having the Ladyfest effect happening to Homo A Go Go, It's hard to know what exactly were the ripple effects. What were people inspired to do after they left Homo A Go Go?

‍

Mariella Luz:

I think that even if people didn't necessarily use the name, the ripple effect just happens. There's an impact whether or not it can be seen or documented.

‍

Ed Varga:

Yeah, it definitely happened. My curiosity brain wants to- or maybe my ego wants to know, like, what did we inspire people to do or something. Anyway.

‍

Mariella Luz:

In the moment, you're not really thinking, What will this be like in 20 years?  Here we are, it's been 20 years. But when you're in the middle of planning a festival, that's not something that you're thinking about.

‍

Ed Varga:

No, you're just trying to get through it [laughter].

‍

Mariella Luz: 

Would you mind telling us a little bit about Transfused? I know that we're going to talk to Rachel [Carns] a little bit. But, hearing your experience about Transfused should also be very interesting.

‍

Ed Varga:

Oh, The Transfused. It all feels like a big, warm love cloud to me when I think of The Transfused. The Transfused was my first introduction to the big Olympia spirit of, “Let's all put on a show and make it happen.” There was over 100 people involved doing all these things. I moved to town at the end of May, or early June, and the performances were in mid July. During load in, people are loading in these crazy sets, and I had no idea what anybody was building. There was things happening that I didn't know were happening, and I was trying to get our sound in shape very quickly from when I got there. So, it was pretty- just seeing the sheer amount of love and energy that got put into that- yeah, it was an amazing thing to be a part of. Of course, the music. The music was amazing. I love The Need and it was very compelling. Them being a part of it was compelling. I didn't really know Nomy [Lamm] at the time, but Rachel and Nomy wrote an amazing piece of music.

‍

Mariella Luz:

I was under the impression that not just yourself but other people moved here as well.

‍

Ed Varga:

Oh yeah. It's true. Me, and Beth Stinson, Andy Duarte, Blake Martinez, all of them moved up from Riverside LA area, or I think Beth actually lived in LA. Our lighting director Kath Doyle came into town, didn't stay, but came into town from, I think, Athens, Georgia. Another recruit that The Need had met on tour. I can't think off the top of my head who else, but people moved to be a part of it, and some of those people still live in the northwest. It was such an incredible experience. When I think back on it, it sends chills up my spine. Being a part of it meant so much to me. It was very challenging, it was the hardest thing I had ever done at that point in my career as a sound engineer. There were so many things about it that I was winging or just trying to figure out how to do. Every night, you’re just getting to see your favorite band and your favorite people do this amazing performance. It was just so beautiful and amazing. And then every night, we were partying, and there were people who were coming into town. It was a two week party during the actual performances. So in that sense, it felt like a festival. It is unfortunate the only documentation we have of it is a crappy VHS tape. That's all we have. There was talk of it going on to do other things, and that didn't happen. Everybody who was involved was like, “Yes, I would do this as my job. I will give up my other musical things that I'm involved with and just do The Transfused for-” Of course, there was tensions and difficulties, but everybody had so much love. There was so much love that was poured in that project. And really, it was my first experience with that specialness that really can only happen in Olympia. There's something about it that I've never seen, and I've lived in a lot of other cities. The way the community can come together around a project like that.

‍

Mariella Luz:

For sure. It's one of the reasons why I stay in Olympia because from my somewhat limited point of view, there's just an easy way to get things done here that maybe is a little bit harder in other places.  You're like, “Oh, I need the thing.” And you're just like, “Oh, maybe just call that person or text that person.” And then there you have it.

‍

Ed Varga:

There’s a generosity in community, a generosity and also- at that time, being in your 20s, or a lot of people being in their 20s during that time, who were involved with it. You don't have money, but you're happy to help out or whatever. People are always doing stuff for people. The other funny thing that just popped into my head when you said that: people didn't have cell phones when I first moved there. I was moving there from the big city and I had a cell phone. But, people were like, “Oh, we need to find someone, so well let's just go downtown. I bet we can find them.” Like in the middle of a day or something. I was like, “Where am I?” The Transfused feels to me like a classic moment in Olympia music history. I hope that Rachel is able to fill in all the gaps I'm really leaving out about how it happened. I came in at very much at the tail end of the organizing and had so much to do from a technical standpoint to get the show up and running that, I don't feel like I necessarily missed out on anything, I was there the whole time, just I could have had probably more fun if I if I hadn't felt so much- been trying to figure out where we were going to get all those microphones for all this sound system and trying to really cobble together what we needed for the production.

‍

Mariella Luz: 

That leads me to a question, which is, you said that you had started, before you came to Olympia, that you were booking shows, then you got into your tech side. I know you play music now. Were you playing music back then too?

‍

Ed Varga:

I grew up playing drums. I played in punk and indie bands as a drummer since I was in high school. Such a big question for me. At the time, whether it was the right choice for me or not, I was putting all my energy into my career as a sound engineer. One of the things about being a freelance sound engineer, when you're really hustling and picking up work at all hours of the day and night, is that it's really hard to be in a band because you can't really commit to- I couldn't commit to a practice schedule. I did play in a band with Beth Stinson and Bridget Irish and we never played a show. I think later Beth and Bridget played with someone else on drums. Angie. With Angie on drums. Angie, whose last name I can't think of. I think they did play at Homo A Go Go 2006 actually. Anyway, I wasn't in bands and also I had a lot of frustration as a drummer. I wanted to write music, and I had no idea how to do that. I played drums, I didn't play- I hadn't learned another instrument. I was trying to learn how to play guitar. So I wasn't playing in bands. I probably would have gotten to go on tour if I would have just played drums in some bands. Because who doesn't always need a drummer. I've played music since I was a kid and now I'm working on a degree in composition for film, TV, and video games. So, my journey with music has been as a producer, behind the scenes person versus a lead person has been a long and winding road.

‍

Mariella Luz:  

You had mentioned also that after the Transfused, you started working with Pat Maley over at Yo Yo Studios. I know at the time there weren't really any recording studios for hire in Olympia. How did you find that experience?

‍

Ed Varga: 

I think Vern [Rumsey] was hiring out his studio. People sometimes were probably recording at Evergreen and people were recording at K but it was not for hire. So, how did I find that experience? I met bands who were kind of outside the Olympia community that I was a part of. How do we even get the word out at that time that we were recording bands- that you could hire us is kind of a mystery. Once you have these tools that you can blast things out, like social media and stuff. I'm sure we put up flyers somewhere, probably at Music 6000. I was putting up flyers a lot because people were coming in from the smaller towns around Olympia to buy gear or buy guitar strings or whatever they needed. I met a lot of bands that were kind of outside of the music community that I was a part of in Olympia, but also I got to record some bands- I did some stuff with Tae [Won Yu], and I did some stuff with Lois [Maffeo], and I did some stuff with Mirah [Yom Tov Zeitlyn] on the “Cold Cold Water” album, which is that's not the name of the album [Advisory Committee]. I got to record Fagatron’s album. I did get to work with some people who were- oh, I got to do Lords of Lightspeed. I got to do a record with Lords of Lightspeed, which was the Weaver brothers [Nathan and Aaron] and Joshua Ploeg. So, I did get to work on some cool projects. Those are projects- this was a time before people had fancy computers enough that- it was kind of the beginning of computer recording. We were recording into the computer. We were using some workarounds, but it was basically computer based what we were doing.This was right before people could do a lot of recording at home. We were recording people who may have otherwise gone to Seattle. We were doing it really cheaply. I think we were charging 25 bucks an hour or something, and we were splitting it between me and Pat. So, we were doing it really cheaply. There's things about it that are funny. We're recording in the Capitol Theater, and because of the Capitol Theater’s movie schedule, I did some overnight sessions with people. When the films would end, we would start recording. Boy, those were rough, because everybody’d be humming along and everything would be great, and you'd hit like, four in the morning and all of the sudden everybody's hitting a wall. It's hard to play, it's hard to think, people are getting cranky. Those were fun and interesting. But, I wasn't able to do a lot during the day that would involve a full band, because there was also businesses around there. The Painted Plate would complain if there was a bunch of noise. It was really fun to record in the Capitol Theater. The Capitol theater is just such a special, special place. I can smell it right now. If I could be there right now I would, because I love the Capitol Theater. It was a very special place to get to record and hang out in alone in the middle of the night. Because it wasn't set up to be a real recording studio, we'd say, “Is there an empty office down the hall [added: where we can record vocals or a guitar overdub]? Are we putting people like on this stairs going down to the backstage to record their vocals?” Mixing in this tiny room. There's a lot of fun that went into those recordings that I got to do there.

‍

Mariella Luz:

I asked because I think of the Olympia music scene in this one way, but, being part of this project, and then in my later days at K, there were so many bands that wanted to pay to record that I had never heard of. There are so many bands in Olympia, whether or not they're playing out downtown. Just people who were really serious that maybe got a glimpse of that otherwise you would miss.

‍

Ed Varga:

Yeah, I did. The people who were paying, this is stuff that people would probably be doing in their homes now given what people can do on their own computers or even on their phone. Not that we weren't doing- we did have a nice microphone locker, we had some decent things. I met people that I wouldn’t have met just going to shows and being around the bars downtown and stuff like that.

‍

Mariella Luz: 

Can you tell us a little bit about how the politics of the time might have impacted the work that you were doing?

‍

Ed Varga:

Yeah, I was thinking about this question and where to go with it. Those were the George W. Bush years, and also 9/11 happened. We had actually flown home from Boston. There was a show called Frockrocket, which was a lot of folks from The Need [corrected in review: The Transfused], but it was a smaller production. I believe  [Nomy Lamm] and Rachel [Carns] cooked up the idea and there was a band. They invited performers- Jody Bleyle from Team Dresch who was living in San Francisco at the time. People came in from out of town to be a part of the show. So, we took that show to Boston, and we flew back the day before 9/11 happened. We were supposed to go on tour on the West Coast right after that. Something happened where I think Kwo, Teddy Kwo got left or decided to- he was going to do some things on the East Coast, maybe with Rachel and I think the two of them got trapped on the East Coast and we couldn't- first of all, everybody was just canceling shows. But I think Ted and Rachel got stuck on the East Coast, because you couldn't get home [after all the air travel shut down after 9/11]. They were gonna stay for a couple extra days after we were in Boston. So that had some real impacts. When I think back to that time, besides what we saw with the Patriot Act and all these kind of evil things that happened as a result of trying to “make us safe” after 9/11, besides that, given what we saw with the Trump era, what we're going through now, I think that we felt there was a real complacency. We could have done more. There's always just like, we could have done more kind of feeling when I look back at it. Because it wasn't as bad as we saw it was able to get, and we could have done more to fight some of the things that were happening during that time.  It wasn't like the Rock Against Reagan era. There wasn't the kind of stuff that we're reacting to with Trump and the Republican era we're going through right now. But I think what I could speak to, when I was thinking about this question my lens is a little bit different. I think about what it was like to be a transgender man during that time in Olympia. I had come out as trans and transitioned in the late ‘90s in Minneapolis, and I moved to Olympia. For me, there were a lot of things that were really challenging. I didn't have this history, I didn't have this queer history. I had been in Minneapolis about 10 years. I didn't have this history that people had seen me transition. I was just a dude who showed up and was getting involved with different things. So not having that history impacted me in the way of not being seen as queer or being questioned of why I might be a part of something or why I might be in a space. That happened a lot. That happened at Ladyfest, for sure. The queer community [and the music scene] at that time, there weren't–in Olympia, I ended up meeting people later–but there weren't trans guys, trans masculine who had transitioned. There was a handful of us [trans guys] and none of them were part of the music scene. During that time, a lot of the queer folks who were in the music scene were identifying as gender queer. Some of them might, these days, still identify as non-binary, or if non-binary had been a thing back then that might have been a more appropriate identity for where different people were at. So, I both had this queer community and, for me personally, I had gone through so much as a kid, being a butch dyke in the early ‘90s, so much harassment, and so much bullying, and to finally pass- I hate to use the word pass- but to finally pass as male, and not [be] questioned, and not be stared at, and not be bullied and not feel like I'm in danger just for being me, there was a lot of sense of relief. I wasn't always coming out as trans in every circle that I was in in Olympia. That was compounded by being a sound engineer, which is an incredibly masculine/ male dominated world. So, for me, the politics of the time, I think back to that it was a different moment in time to be a trans person than it is now. It was a different moment in time. There was a different moment in time for us, for people to be queer then it is now. Things are better and things are worse in different ways. Since then, a lot of the people that were part of that community came out as trans or identify as trans now, or transitioned, or are non-binary. So, I felt a little isolated, I guess I would say, as a trans person. There hadn't been a big trans community in Minneapolis. I think the trans communities, especially the trans masculine communities, there's just more community in every city. Now I could go back to Minneapolis, and I could hang out with a bunch of trans guys. There was no way [back then]- I knew like two back in the ‘90s. So. That's what stands out, for me personally, in terms of the politics of the time.

‍

Mariella Luz: 

Yeah, I was thinking about that, as I was preparing for this interview, how different things are. For female identifying people back then it was like butch or femme. Non-binary didn't exist when Homo A Go Go first happened. The number of trans people was really small.

‍

Ed Varga:

Yeah. I can think back to my personal experience of growing up, and being trans was not an option. It wasn't an option, and now it is an option for younger people.  My life would have been different if it had been an option.  Although there are laws that are trying to make that not so. But, it can be an option for people. I think having more dialogue and having more trans people in a queer community just gives people more space to come out. That's what I would say, that the people who came out as trans, everybody has to go on their own journey, and it's also about having the space and having the option that you might not have had before. All of those people who came out as trans later, who weren't necessarily trans identified publicly in the early 2000s, maybe they felt that way 10 years before, but if you don't have the space to really embrace that part of yourself, it doesn’t happen.

‍

Mariella Luz:

When I think about it, now we talk about trans rights. You can throw it into almost any conversation and everyone will know what you're talking about. When you came out as trans, people would be like, “What the fuck do you mean?”

‍

Ed Varga:

[laughter] There was more than one person that when I came out as trans, when I first moved to Olympia, who were like, “Wait, what do you mean? Wait, what?” Throughout my entire life being trans sometimes people are like, “Wait, you mean, you want to be a woman?” Not really wrapping their head around- like, “Oh, You're a trans guy.” Seeing me as a guy, seeing me as a cis guy, basically. The space opened up, that's what I think about politically. It was not as trans friendly of a time. There just wasn't as much trans community, during that time.

‍

Mariella Luz:

How do you feel like the LGBTQ story has either already been told or not been told? And how have you navigated telling your own story versus other versions of this history?

‍

Ed Varga:

There are books being written in academia now about the queercore movement, and about what was going on in the queer music scene in the ‘90s and 2000s. Sadly, Homo A Go Go has been left out of a couple of books and documentaries. There's things about archiving Homo A Go Go, and things about trying to tell the Homo A Go Go story that I would really like to make happen in some way. Also being afraid of it being left out of some of these books that will become known as definitive histories of that time period and of queer core. It was also a time right before everybody was carrying a phone and a video recorder in their pocket. So, a lot of what exists is either ephemeral physical things that people had from the festival, or their memories at this point, or photos that they might have taken. We just passed the 20th anniversary of Homo A Go Go. I really wanted to do something to commemorate it.  Rachel and Nomy might say this about The Transfused- it's hard to put energy into the past. Even though this thing was important, and you might want the story to be told, might want the story to not be lost. We all have busy current lives that make it hard to preserve our past. So, I'm glad this project is happening, for example. That people are telling stories around this music community that we are a part of. What else can I say about it? I also think that the story that has been told about queercore, in general, hasn't-  there have been people who are writing books and doing a couple of different documentaries. They’re younger people who weren't there. Nobody within that community that I know of is working on something that has actually come from that community. I wish that that would happen. Again, we're all busy people, it's hard to look back. There's also something to be said for sexism and homophobia making you feel like your story isn't important. Whether or not you think that, that's something that’s just been absorbed over the years.

‍

Mariella Luz:  

For a long time, I was reluctant to talk about our past, because it was something that I held very dear. I didn't want to- and I know that this has probably happened to you- even when I get interviewed for things and I read those interviews, they totally take what I say out of context. It's not always bad, but it's not really how I said, or what I said. So, why I joined this project is, even though I do think all those things, I also think that it's important that we get to tell our stories. As people who are marginalized, thinking of ways that we can tell our stories. Even though they're in the past, they're still relevant to us, and I hope that you figure out a way to, because, when I look up Homo A Gogo there’s-

‍

Ed Varga:

There's very little. It used to be more. The website’s down right now, and it has been for a while. I still own the domain and everything. It's also, queer history that I know about, or that I've read about, that I've learned about from the past resonates with me, and I know that there's a thread that runs through it to who I am. Before I transitioned, the butch/femme bar culture of the ‘50s and ‘60s was a big part of a historical identity for me., I don't have the perspective of not being a part of this particular ‘90s 2000s moment in time, but I know from my experience reading about the past, learning about these people that came before me, who made it possible for me to be here today, made the queer community possible against a lot of other different types of odds, that there is a thread of history that runs through people that is meaningful to know. It does influence you. Because, I read about that dyke culture in the ‘50s and ‘60s, my senior project in college was an oral history project about butch/femme in the ‘90s. That's purely because I was influenced by this past history. Telling these stories is important. Yeah, I totally think it's important. Yeah. The archival stuff with Homo A Go Go, I've been picky. I don't know where to put it. I'd like to get the website up and running. There's a lot of things I'd like to do, it's that thing that just keeps getting pushed, pushed, pushed back..

‍

Mariella Luz: 

I hope that it happens sometime. But, it sounds like you're very busy right now. How long did you live in Olympia?

‍

Ed Varga:

I was a short timer. I lived there for three years.

‍

Mariella Luz:

Obviously, in three years you did a lot of things. Wow, three years, that is short.

‍

Ed Varga:

But, then we kept doing Homo A Go Go there. I moved to LA with another harebrained scheme that I would get involved with doing audio post production, sound design for film, only to find out that Homo A Go Go was the most important thing in the world to me at the time. I loved living in LA, but I was coming back to Olympia to work on the festivals in 2004 and 2006.

‍

Mariella Luz: 

That makes sense. Olympia is such a funny place because even though it is such a small town, there are so many people here that are in bands and stuff that if you don't see somebody for like a year, your just like, “Maybe you were on tour. That's why I didn't see you. Not because we don't live here anymore, but just because you weren't around.” Do you have anything that you want to talk about that inspired you while you were living here?

‍

Ed Varga:

Homo A Go Go came into existence because I was inspired by The Transfused and Yo Yo A Gogo, and the fact that I was putting on shows in Minneapolis. I say this to Jody [Bleyle] and Donna [Dresch], my dear friends who are in Team Dresch all the time. If you hadn't done Team Dresch, I can see down the line these things wouldn’t have happened. If I hadn't met you- in 1994 I think I met them- if I hadn't started putting on shows I wouldn't have met these bands. I don't know how I would have made my way to Olympia. All of that stuff, I can go back to back in time and see how things inspired me in this path that I took. There are so many people in Olympia who inspired me artistically and activist wise, organizationally. I wanted to have a record label and I was really inspired by Chainsaw and Kill Rock Stars and K, Donna, and Slim, and Calvin. All those people were my heroes. Before I moved to Olympia, I was just an Olympiaphile. Completely. It's all an overwhelming blob of inspiration when I think of all the people. There's so many special things that I remember in Olympia I'm like, “God, I'm glad I got to go to that show.” The Halloween cover band shows, things like that, that are silly and they're just a local thing and whatever, but they were so much freaking fun. Those bands, they're incredible musicians and they would just pull this out for Halloween and put on an amazing show and it was so much fun. Or, All Freakin’ Night, was that the film thing that Zack did? I probably was falling asleep in the first movie. All of those things were really inspiring. That whole spirit of let's put on a show, let’s put it on together. That spirit of generosity, of lending your skills, abilities, talents to make something happen that's for the community. Super inspirational and always makes me- those are the things that I remember about Olympia and being a part of everything there.

‍

Mariella Luz:

Do you think you could have done or would have done Homo A Go Go, or some other version of it, if you hadn't lived here?

‍

Ed Varga: 

We did do one. We did do it in San Francisco  2009.

‍

Mariella Luz:

Like just the first one. If you hadn't spent the time doing Transfused and Ladyfest, do you think it would have been something that you would have manifested no matter where you were? Or do you think that being here in particular, sort of made it?

‍

Ed Varga:

When I think about if I had done that in Minneapolis, what it might have looked like, I think that it would have been a regional, local thing. I think it could have happened, At the time- I'm older now, so it's hard to understand if this is still happening- but at the time, people were moving up and down the west coast all the time. Like, I'm gonna go live in San Francisco for a while. Okay, that didn't work out, I broke up with whoever or I lost my job or whatever, I'm moving back to Portland, I'm moving back to Olympia, or even just between Portland, Olympia, Seattle. Just that constant movement. So I felt like the whole west coast was really- there was a music community, and a queer community that was all up and down the West Coast. I think that was really influential in getting people to come to Olympia. These festivals had happened, Yo Yo, and International Pop Underground, and Ladyfest, all these things, people traveled to them because they were events that you wanted to be at. Would people have come to Minneapolis back then? I kind of doubt it. It was a little bit of a harder sell. It wasn't as cool, at the time, as Olympia. Not that it wasn't a cool city, or is a cool city. I think it would have been much different. We really tried to make it a national or even international event of having people who are coming from all over the country to perform or show their work. I don't know if we would have gotten- if we would have had John Cameron Mitchell, if we would have had all these people, if we would have had the Indigo Girls. We had some crazy rosters that were amazing. I don't know that it would have happened. Even the San Francisco version of the festival was different. I think there's something that happens with festivals in Olympia or big events that people come into town for, you get that feeling like the whole downtown is taken over by everybody who's at this festival. It just lends to that kind of party atmosphere. You might feel like you're at a Coachella or something. I've never been to Coachella, but you might feel like you're at one of those festivals where you're having a lens to the experience of all of a sudden you've taken over downtown. The very first festival, I remember Sara Seinberg saying everywhere you'd go you'd spit on a queer, if you spit, something like that. I'm totally ruining Sara Seinberg’s quote. It's really special to do an event like that there. That's why when we started talking about should we do a 20th anniversary thing, it's like, “What do we do and where do we do it?” If we did something in Olympia would people still come? Would people come who had come to the festival 20 years ago or whatever?

‍

Mariella Luz:

Well, I think the easy answer to that question is, yes. Because, I think that people here really do love that kind of thing. I went to one of the Bikini Kill reunion shows, and it still feels like that when there's a big event at the Capitol Theater. Whoever is doing their thing down at the theater, all the blocks surrounding were people going to the show, and the QB, and all these other places. People coming into town and bumping into them at the coffee shop.

‍

Ed Varga:

Yeah. I think that's what's missing. Because, I've been to music festivals and larger cities. You can be in a big city and be at a music festival and have no idea that the festival is going on. If you go away from where the events actually are. There's something special about the way it happens in Olympia that, I don't know. That event, it would have been so much- it would have been different. It just would have been different if it had been somewhere else.

‍

Mariella Luz:

I'm biased, but I like to think that it was extra special because it was here.

‍

Ed Varga:

I'm biased in that way, too. We did it in San Francisco, and we put on a great festival here. It was successful by all the metrics. We had a great roster of artists. We did the festival here in San Francisco. It didn't have that same kind of feeling. There were a lot of totally fun things about it, but I don't know. It didn't have that feeling of taking over the town. We didn't take over San Francisco.

‍

Mariella Luz:

It had been seven years since the first one, right? So there was just a different-

‍

Ed Varga:

We were trying to do it on a regular schedule. I had decided that I was going to make Homo A Go Go a sustainable organization and make it a sustainable festival that would continue. That's probably the biggest non-success. I don't want to call it a failure. I could never figure out how to make the festival financially stable, financially successful. After doing it four times. The stage crew was ready to- only because we have great love for each other do I think they didn't walk out in 2009. Because, I hired somebody to engineer and they all hated him. So, I felt like I had burned through the free labor of people who had been involved with it from the beginning. I wasn't sure anybody was gonna want to do it again. I wanted to make it an organization that could do other things besides just the festival. I still grieve it in different ways. But, I grieved that for a long time of not doing the festival or feeling like- when I say that I put any kind of energy- I wasn't in a band or wasn't making music at that time- any kind of energy- I felt like this was my thing. This was my thing that I was supposed to be doing. This was my art or whatever. This was my thing that I was really supposed to be doing and giving to the world and being in the world. You run up against the capitalist roadblock. It's disappointing that that's the stumbling block. But, that's the thing you hit, is just the money thing. It happened so much in life. But, if it weren't for the money thing, we could do this festival. There are things now that may have- crowdfunding kind of stuff. If we had had crowdfunding in 2010 or something, maybe the festival would have had momentum to keep going. Pat had a crowdfunding dream for YoYo A GoGo. He was like, “Well, what if we sold passes, but if we couldn't make a certain amount of money by a certain amount of time to put on the festival, then we're going to refund everybody the passes?” Pat was thinking about crowdfunding before it was existing. We all thought, “How would we even do that?” Anyway.

‍

Mariella Luz:

I think that that sort of goes back to one of your points from earlier. When you first moved to Olympia, a lot of us didn't have money, but we had a lot of energy. One of our resources was time to invest into other things. When you're in your 20s, you need less sleep, and you're willing to eat worse food. When you're in your 40s, and your 50s you're just like, “I don't actually have 40 extra hours a week to do my volunteer thing.”

‍

Ed Varga:

Yeah, it's totally true. We get older and people have kids, or they have other responsibilities, or have businesses. 

‍

Mariella Luz:

They have shows to watch. [laughter]

‍

Ed Varga:

For me, I often get in that nostalgic headspace for Olympia. But, it's the Olympia I had at a certain age. That wouldn't necessarily be my reality now. I kind of try to have to check myself on that. It's true, you have your energy to give, you can be generous with your time because you're not working a full time job. You don't have kids. You don't have this, you don't have that. All that’s true.

‍

Mariella Luz:

My last question is, do you want to tell us something that you're excited about? Or inspired by today? [We're in 2023.]

‍

Ed Varga:

Well, a few years ago, I decided to embark on a new journey as a 50 year old. I've been going to college at Berklee College of Music, located in Boston, but I go online. I've been going for music composition. I feel super lucky that I've gotten to do this at this point in my life. It's my sad narrative. My sad narrative is that as a kid, I was the girl drummer in a band, so I wasn't encouraged to go- I wanted to go to college for music. I didn't think I was good enough, because all the boy drummers were the real drummers. Being able to do this, finally, , 30 years after when I first wanted to do it, and actually getting to realize some of these things that I didn't get to do in the last 20 years is inspiring to me. Another piece of that, that inspires me, is getting to collaborate with people more as a composer for visual media. I'm trying to help somebody else's- I'm trying to be a part of a team that's making a piece of art come to life, versus, I also do a singer songwriter project that is all me and I'm alone in my creative space in that which there's things I like about. But, it kind of pushes me outside of my comfort zone to work collaboratively with other people. It kind of goes back to that feeling of I'm just not good enough to do that. I'm not good enough to help you. So, it challenges me to kind of get out of that narrative, and inspires me to kind of keep some- I'm just kind of trying to move forward. I'm inspired by a lot of the queer art that's being made these days, in film and TV, because those stories weren't being told 10 years ago, even. Even though I'm an old guy now, being able to try to connect with younger, queer filmmakers who could get to work with a trans composer. Being able to work with people on your team who are from the queer community, it's way better. It's just nicer to have that shared experience, shared history, with somebody, when you're working on a queer story. Instead of like, “Oh, we've got to find a composer, and there's a white cis dude that we can hire.” So, I'm inspired by that, by the queer art, the queer film that's being made now. It's interesting that a lot of the people who were part of the queer music community in the ‘90s are now working in Hollywood. I'm inspired by the, by the queer community, by the trans community by- a lot of the trans youth, stuff around trans youth. It's a reactive inspiration to want to protect trans rights, because a lot of stuff that's going on right now, anti trans stuff is directed at youth. So those are things that in a reactive way are inspiring of like, “We have to do something. We have to have some organizing and activism around those things.” Because, they're coming for all of us. Anyway.

‍

Mariella Luz:

They are coming for all of us. That was awesome. I got a little teared up there for a few minutes. So thanks for that. What's that saying? We're not free until we're all free. So, there are still folks out there who are really trying to lift other people up. That's what we all need.

‍

Ed Varga:

A lot of the youth who are really redefining gender and trans, and who have very “radical identities.” People who have politically radical identities in this world, that have really articulate voices and who are out there in the world doing great work. Writing, or speaking, or performing. Seeing the younger voices of this next queer generation is pretty inspiring.

‍

Mariella Luz: 

Even when they do it quietly. I can appreciate how effortless it is. I think that we have folks like you to thank for that, that makes it easy for them to just be in the world in an easier way, because they had folks who came before them.

‍

Ed Varga:

I appreciate that. I feel the same way about the people who came before me. I have a friend from high school who has a trans kid and seeing how she helped him navigate everything and get to go off to college being exactly who he wanted to be. Those things are just beautiful and inspiring.

‍

Mariella Luz:

They really are. Do you have anything that you want to add before I stop recording?

‍

Ed Varga:

I don't think so. It's a real honor to be a part of this project. I appreciate you asking me. I really appreciate being a part of it. If it hasn't been clear enough in my interview, when I think of my time in Olympia it makes my heart feel full. For all the frustrations I may have had at different points living there, looking back, I know it was a special time and a special place for me to be in. I feel incredibly lucky that I was there and got to do Homo A Go Go and also be a part of other people's projects that were amazing.

‍

Mariella Luz: 

Agreed. We were so lucky to have you. 

‍

Ed Varga:

Thank you. 

‍