With Olympia's decade-long history of overly ambitious, well-meaning, and often exhaustingly comprehensive rock festivals (including the International Pop Underground Convention, Yoyo a Gogo, and the original Ladyfest), it's easy to take the efforts of the city's residents for granted. And god knows, the world needs another specialized music festival like I need a shoot in my bumber. But such oversaturation notwithstanding, the folks of Homo a Gogo, Olympia's latest daunting offering, have fashioned a benefit fit to set alongside this luminous company in the festival history books.

Homo a Gogo, a "pride alternative," covers 65 sprawling hours stretching over four days; it includes band and spoken-word performances, poli-activist and queer-centric workshops, film screenings, and a fashion show. Benefiting Olympia's Gender Variant Health Project, Homo a Gogo expands upon the sexual politics of last year's Seattle Bent music festival by adding the radical activism--various media, DIY tutorials, and workshops--of the Ladyfest phenomenon.

"A lot of Homo a Gogo's organizers worked on those events like Yoyo a Gogo and the original Ladyfest, and we wanted to borrow from these different, equally successful festivals and create a comprehensive reflection of underground queer culture and community," explains Olympia resident Ed Varga, Homo a Gogo's technical director and initial catalyst. "The idea was to create a unique event that had never happened before--catering those festivals' ideas into a forum for DIY culture and radical politics in the queer society."

Boasting a veritable who's who of the independent queer music community (performers include Tracy + the Plastics, the Gossip, USA Sexual, Mirah, Sarah Dougher, Tribe 8, V for Vendetta, the Haggard, Tara Jane O'Neil, Nomy Lamm, Rachel Carns' the Hollow Men, and many, many more), films by national queer luminaries like Bruce LaBruce, and workshops with topics ranging from DIY porn to the errant issues of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, Homo a Gogo is a little too inclusive for its own good--a fact its organizers seem to revel in.

"We're showcasing an element of queer culture, revolving around music, writing, film, and various other types of performances--an element [that] consumer-based 'gay pride' events typically ignore," explains Varga. "An element of authenticity."