Localized X GenderFuQ

SLUG is shaking up our usual June Localized show by partnering with GenderFuQ for their 21+ Pride Kick-Off Party at Metro Music Hall on Thursday, June 26. Hosted by Gaye Whore and The Rock Princess, Localized x GenderFuQ will feature numerous acts, from bands like Cher Khan and Ginger & The Gents to drag performers like Veronika DaVil and Agony Ray. Tickets start at $15 — get yours here.

Gaye Whore

Gaye Whore blesses the stage as this year’s GenderFuQ emcee and, if you know anything about Salt Lake drag, you know the night’s in dangerously good hands. With over a decade as a performer (and heels somehow sharper than her wit), Gaye Whore isn’t just a host — she’s the main character, using her spotlight to uplift Salt Lake’s queer community. If you’ve spent any time near a Salt Lake drag stage in the past decade, you know she’s the atmosphere and the anchor.

She first emceed GenderFuQ in 2022, following in the footsteps of her drag mother, Mona Diet, who stepped down from the role. “It was the most nervous I’d ever been in drag,” she says, “but I knew how special it was.” That blend of reverence and readiness is still what she brings today.

Known for her humor and spellbinding presence, Gaye Whore is a walking contradiction in the best way: commanding and tender, theatrical and grounded. She smells like Nirvana Rose by Elizabeth & James, and looks — by her own account — like a whore. There’s no act. No posturing. Just a full-force presence honed over years of showing up when it mattered.

Hosting isn’t easy, she admits. But she doesn’t do it because it’s easy. She does it because it matters. And when she takes the mic, you’ll feel exactly why. To those treating queer art like brunch decor, she says, “We’re not here for your tokenism.” If you want to understand the value of queer entertainment, she invites you to join us at Metro Music Hall on June 26.

The Lavender Menaces

The Lavender Menaces march to their own brass-drenched beat — sequined, subversive and loud enough to shake the pavement. As Salt Lake’s first all women, nonbinary and trans street brass band, they’re not just making music; they’re making space.

“A queer activist marching band appeared and blasted people’s ears off,” they laugh, noting the energy they’ll bring to their GenderFuQ debut. They’re new to the event, but not new to turning heads. With a glitter-dusted mimosa’s punch, they are resistance wrapped in glamor — sequined vests, a giant purple tuba and the raw joy of being unapologetically visible.

The band’s name reclaims the defiant legacy of the original Lavender Menace, a group of 1970s feminist radicals who demanded inclusion when lesbians were sidelined. “We’re claiming the term again,” they say, “to ensure all queer and trans people are included in identity rights fights.”

But this isn’t just nostalgia — it’s movement work, with a horn section. The Lavender Menaces flip tradition on its head: “Where they wear uniforms, we wear drag. Where they’re militant, we’re the mob.” They may be new on the scene, but their message is loud and clear: they’re here, they’re honking and they’re not asking for permission. Their sound doesn’t just fill the air — it demands you listen.

The John & Erin Show

The John and Erin Show isn’t here to make sense — they’re here to make sound. Their music lives somewhere between séance and satire, conjured in C minor and laced with the kind of humor that leaves you wondering if you’ve just been hexed. (You have. You’re welcome.)

Their accoustic performances are strange rituals of catharsis: Leaving a taste in your mouth like angry letters to Orrin Hatch, they fill the air like the memory of a wallet lost at The Great Saltair in 1963, and feel like arriving at a state liquor store four minutes after closing. It’s disappointment turned performance art, wrapped in laughter and just the right amount of volume.

Though they joke about wishing for invisibility (“If I could be completely invisible in a superpower sense, I’m doing that instead”), what they create is unmistakably seen. Their chaotic genre-blending is “clinically proven to inspire people to accept the Oneness of the Cosmos and take up knitting,” mirroring queer identity itself: ever-evolving and gloriously unrestricted.

“It’s wonderful to be alive and weird and able to try new things,” they say, “and not be worried if those changes ruin the wet dreams of ad campaigns.” They’re here to glitch the system. And at GenderFuQ, they’ll do just that — with ghosts, jokes and exactly one C minor chord too many.

Cher Khan

Cher Khan isn’t here to posture — they’re here to disrupt. Blunt, honest and loud in every sense, the hardcore band is less concerned with performance than with presence. Their Pride doesn’t wave flags for applause; it demands real inclusion, real listening and a refusal to play by the rules that never served them in the first place.

Rather than centering queerness as branding, they let it exist as part of their fabric, woven into their sound, their bandmates and their ethos. They’re not interested in being reduced to a label or placed on a novelty shelf. Some members are queer; some aren’t. All are here to make noise. Good, cathartic, pissed-off noise.

“Any time we’ve played somewhere that doesn’t treat us or view what we do as only ‘queer band making queer music’ has been pretty affirming,” they say. “At the end of the day, we’re all literally just people.”

Don’t expect theatrics. Expect a band that shows up, plugs in and makes the walls rattle. Their stage presence is stripped down, but their message is anything but. Gritty, raw and disarmingly self-aware, their sound defies polish and embraces something messier, more real. Something that “looks like shit, smells like shit, tastes like shit” — and still absolutely slaps.

Read more SLUG Localized features:
Localized: Sad Cowboy
Localized: The Lingo