somewhere between the soul and soft machine

Sims is best known for founding the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Marching Band and the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. In 1978, he decided the local Gay Freedom Day parade could use more music. He posted fliers around town, ultimately gathering together a few wind and percussion instrumentalists to form a marching band.

In June 1978, a block of 70 musicians led by a skinny music teacher in jeans swung onto Market Street playing “California, Here I Come.” The crowds along the length of the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade went wild as they passed by. They knew a radical act when they saw one. Jon Sims and the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Marching Band & Twirling Corps stepped out of the closet and into a tableau of Americana by marching down “Main Street” in their community’s parade. The headlines that year were filled with stories of Anita Bryant campaigning against gay rights, and in California, the Briggs Ballot Initiative threatened to ban gay teachers from California classrooms. At a time when losing your job or your children for being gay was a given, and gay rights and repeal initiatives appeared on ballots across the continent, a gay marching band was heady stuff. Behind them, Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official, rode in an open convertible plastered with his motto, “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” and the band answered with a musical flourish.

That same year, the Gay Men’s Chorus made its debut performance at a candlelight vigil at City Hall after the assassinations of Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone.

What was supposed to be a summertime-only effort morphed into a permanent fixture. Today, the marching band claims to be the world’s first openly, publicly identified gay cultural art group.

Following the creation of the San Francisco Band, lesbian/gay bands quickly sprang up in Los Angeles, New York City, Houston, Chicago, and other cities across the continent. Today, there are more than 25 bands in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe in the Lesbian and Gay Band Association (LGBA). In September 1982, these bands formed LGBA which has supported the formation of new bands and performed en masse at such milestone events as an electrifying first concert at the Hollywood Bowl (1984), the ’87, ’93, and 2000 marches on Washington, Gay Games’ opening and closing ceremonies, and Presidential Inaugural celebrations for Bill Clinton (twice) and Barack Obama (twice).

I told you long ago on the road I got what they waiting for