POP MUSIC FEVER DREAM, MUSICIAN
As we seek and struggle to find OGLs (original gay liberationists) we have not featured, we are starting a new series called Cutting-Edge Catalysts, people who are post first wave of gay liberation and doing important work.
Here we have Carmen, who is the bass player in the band Pop Music Fever Dream (PMFD). PMFD is one of the most exciting bands I have seen in years. I saw them perform in Tompkins Square Park in New York City in 2023. They are a post punk explosion with an insane stage presence. The lead singer, Tim Seeberger, climbs on the ceiling and crawls on the floor. Carmen, on the other hand, plays like a statue with eyes that pierce the audience. She is a trans trendsetter and female force.
— August Bernadicou, Executive Director of The LGBTQ History Project
“I feel like there are two different areas of my gender expression. I was such a little girl growing up. As a small child in T-ball, when I was like four, I would be in the outfield blowing dandelions and stuff like that. The classic glove on my head.
It kind of went away as a child. I started listening to harder punk rock music. I put my hair in a mohawk and dressed punk. I got weird looks for being different. It’s funny because I was involved in theater in school and adolescence, and it was my ‘regular boy phase.’
It was advantageous at the time to be the straight boy in the theater. I could really nail the straight point in theater mode. I got all of the leads. In college, I was broke and thought, ‘Okay, this isn’t working.’ I was really depressed. It goes back to your question: when did you know you were different? Punk and alternative music really gave me the outlet to articulate that I was different. So many trans kids like myself found their niche through alternative music and the alternative music scene. It was common knowledge, and I figured it out eventually.
I saw my first trans woman—well, it was a cis woman playing a trans woman—in the show Ugly Betty in the early 2000s. It was the actress Rebecca Romijn. I recently rewatched it and thought it was sensitive and interesting. She did her best. Even though I watched it when I was younger, it didn’t resonate with me until I was in college. There was also Laura Jane Grace, who was in the band Against Me. She found herself in her music, which put it in context for me—a clear example reflected in myself. We had so much in common, both being brought up artistically. It gave myself permission and put it in context.
I told my mom during a long road trip. She was taken by surprise, initially very confused. It was disheartening, but she did a lot of work independently and has since become one of my biggest supporters. It’s wonderful and more than I could ever have hoped for. We had a really close relationship when I was growing up. My dad wasn’t around. I have family on his side that follows my social media so he may know. I would imagine he isn’t cool with it, but it doesn’t matter.
With my music, I don’t want queerness to be the linchpin of everything. I think it makes people less critical and a little bit discerning. It’s limiting, it makes our fan base just one sect of people. I don’t want that label to be the first thing people think about when it comes to us, because I see a lot of bands being sequestered into a “queer” subcategory that has nothing to do with their genre or message but more to do with packaging. I wish it would just go without saying. So many artists get boxed into the queer bubble, and it feels like a marketing strategy. It almost feels like it limits what your art can do.
I want our music to stand on its merits, and I want to be counted amongst our sonic contemporaries, no matter what their sexuality. Queerness is of course the lens through which we’re expressing ourselves here, but it’s not everything we have to offer.
I want as many people as possible to hear what we have to say. For example, no one would call the Ramones a gay band, but they had a song called 53rd and 3rd, which was about prostitution in Midtown East in a gay part of town.”
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