San Francisco's Folsom Street Events produced another fantastic Up Your Alley street fair centered around the Dore Alley and Folsom Street intersection environs on Sunday, July 30. It was sunny and most of the usual vendors were there. The Up Your Alley fair only lasts seven hours on the last Sunday of July, but there are so many events surrounding the Fair that one could

Leather History in Los Angeles 1945-1983

Avatar Club Los Angeles hosted the opening of its exhibition chronicling the Leather history of Los Angeles from 1945-1983 at the One Archives at the USC Libraries on Saturday night, February 1. The exhibit will run all of February and chronicles the clubs, bars, bike runs, milestones and publications, art, movies. Drummer Magazine was founded in Los Angeles in 1975 and there is a lot about Drummer, the Advocate which was founded in LA in 1969, motorcycle men who returned from World War II with an enthusiastic love for riding and brotherhood. The curator of the exhibit is Thomas Trafelet. The ONE Archive Foundation and Executive Director Jennifer Gregg supported and helped fund the project as did Avatar Club Los Angeles and Ralph Bruneau. The Curator for the ONE is Alexis Bard Johnson. If in Southern California, by all means, see this exhibit. It will give you a better understanding of our roots. One Archives at the USC Libraries, 909 West Adams, Los Angeles, CA 90007. Scroll down for more photos.

https://one.usc.edu/exhibition/be-continuedleather-history-los-angeles-1945-1983

https://www.facebook.com/events/1334001310112146/

Iconic pioneer filmmaker Terry LeGrand (1939-2018) passed at his Hollywood home on April 18. As Marathon Films, Terry produced the great leather classic film “Born to Raise Hell” (1975) directed by Roger Earl starring their discovery, Val Martin, whom “Drummer” editor Jeanne Barney featured on the cover of “Drummer” issue 3. At the infamous LAPD raid of the “Drummer Slave Auction” on April 11, 1976, the intimate friends Terry, Roger, Jeanne, and Val were among the 42 persons arrested. Terry and Roger were longtime friends not lovers, and Terry was the sole owner of Marathon Films. As a producer, Terry was relentless and remarkable. In anti-gay LA, he managed to shoot “Born” in outdoor spaces and at the old Truck Stop bar out in the San Fernando Valley. He and Roger created more than thirty erotic films, most of them leather, and all of them popular.

Most often shooting in LA, Terry and Roger traveled in 1988 to London to shoot their BDSM series, “Dungeons of Europe” with Mr. Sebastian. Wanting to extend that leather magic in 1989, Terry and Roger hired Mark Hemry and me, because we were Palm Drive Video, to travel with them as cinematographers on a wild month-long European location shoot that resulted in the six-film series, “Bound for Europe," documenting authentic Dutch and German S&M. It was Marathon’s first two-camera shoot.  In Amsterdam, we shot “The Argos Session” inside the historic Argos Bar capturing the interior and vibe of that 1950s bar which no longer exists. After Dusseldorf and Hamburg, we shot three of the six “Bound” films in West Berlin bars during the last exciting and romantic summer in West Berlin before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Terry wanted to shoot in East Berlin; but at Checkpoint Charlie we turned around because no one on the crew felt it was safe for a VW van full of pornographers.

Photos of “Dungeons” and of “Bound” entertained leatherfolk in nearly a dozen issues of “Drummer." In 1991, Terry became the founding publisher of “Leatherman Magazine” which he sold to Brush Creek Media where publisher Beardog Hoffman and editor Joseph W. Bean built its success as “International Leatherman.” Terry retired from erotic art and went on to do AIDS-related work until his passing. Last year my long-form interview of Roger Earl telling all about Terry LeGrand and the making of “Born to Raise Hell” was published in the book “California Dreamin’: West Coast Directors and the Golden Age of Forbidden Gay Movies” by Editions Moustache in Germany.

On December 10 the Leather Hall of Fame announced the inductees for 2015.

They are Felix Jones, Pat Bond and Terry Kolb, and Jeanne Barney.

The Leather Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and Brunch will be held during CLAW 15 at the Holiday Inn Cleveland South in Cleveland, Ohio, on Sunday, April 26 at noon.

Felix Jones  (1915--2003)

Felix Jones was a pioneer in the Leather and bike club scene in the United Kingdom and Europe. Felix founded the 69 Club aka SNC London in 1965; it was the earliest gay motorcycle/Leather club in Europe. In 1969, Felix Jones and Alan Selby co-founded the Rubber Man’s Club (RMC).