September, 1987

By Edmund Sutton

Bid Adieu to the Summer of Love

For the third straight year, The Pyramid Cocktail Lounge and emcee The “Lady” Bunny bring Wigstock to Tompkins Square Park on Labor Day, Monday September 8. This lively, summer outdoor festival has become widely known as THE summer musical closer, showcasing many well known and emerging downtown musicians and performers for a full day’s celebration of “hair-peace.”
While most New Yorkers were actively beating the August summer heat or escaping it entirely, Bunny was diligently dialing (with a pencil, of course) the leagues of performers on her lists, approving poster artwork (by Scott Lifshutz), recruiting a formidable back-up band, sifting through miles of costumes and hairdos, checking progress on the background set (Tom Rubnitz) and fielding calls from reporters.
The whole thing began as a way of spotlighting downtown’s “best and brightest for the children and housewives who just can’t make it to the nightclub (Pyramid). “Wigstock has been so well received that a critically acclaimed film has been made from excerpts from the last two years’ events. In fact, Tom Rubnitz’s Wigstock The Movie which premiered in New York last spring, was said to be the highlight of San Francisco’s Alternative Film Festival.
As a spectacle, Wigstock is unparalleled; a wig-in out-of-doors. And this year’s line up of acts looks to be no slouching toward the East Village, either, featuring the regular bevy of dragsters including Hapi Phace, TABOO!, Sister Dimension, Lypsinka, Peter Kwaloff and Ethly Eichelberger.
Rock acts will include polka vixens Dash Fur lines, John Sex, Dean and the Weenies, David Ilk, Michael London, Joey Arias and the long awaited return of Lady Claire (ex of Now Explosion).
Promoters encourage everyone to attend sporting their five coif, costume and picnic lunch for the festivities which begin promptly “around noon or as soon as we can get up” until sunset. Recalling Jesse Hultberg’s brilliant Melanie parody, “Lay Down, Lay Down,” an ocean of swaying outstretched hands holding out three middle fingers which form a “W,” the official symbol of Hairpeace, perhaps historians will recall 1987 as not so much a revival of the Summer of Love, but as it should be remembered: The Summer of Wigs.