Edward/Nervous Gender

From the Dublin corporation schemes to the Dickensian slums of London's Liverpool Buildings Edward Stapleton had been flung on to the streets of LA at 17. It was a long 17 years of feeling out of place and somewhat different. He was an avowed Communist by the age of 12 and annoyed his family and friends with his Marxist rantings. Having packed his treasured green platforms, velvet jacket and a few cherished records he found LA to be a very sad place for a glitter boy. By his second year here in the land of the sun, Edward missed the dreary fog and cold of London. He decided he must return to London to attended art school. Once there he spent his weeknights at an ashram, for he had not been given any money to live on while in school, and other times he would go anywhere he could find a heated room. At times those rooms came with strange companions.Within a year he returned to LA and continued school at Design Center -- he would say it was the lack of heat and avocados that drove him back to California. Avocados were not easy to come by in the London shops and he had grown far more accustomed to the California warmth than he had realized. It was upon his return that he began receiving parcels of tapes of music from a close friend in London. He was listening to music he was not hearing here. Shaving his head he came to the decision that he was going to create new music. Music along the lines that he heard coming out of London. He was going to form a band. That band was to be the fabled Nervous Gender which was comprised of Edward, Gerardo Valesquez and Michael Ochoa. For ten+ years they were a "thorn in the side of the LA rock scene." Difficult to categorize at the time they have since become known as one of the seminal "synthpunk" bands of their era.Today you will find Edward spending his days helping the working poor and homeless. Catholic guilt is strong and penance plays out in many way. Which is not to say that a "Mother Teresa" complex is a bad thing. With the reanimation of Nervous Gender (July, 2007) there is time for music and performing. Along with Michael Ochoa and Joe Z. a whole new generation of people will be exposed to something they will not always understand, but will never forget. Edward takes great pleasure in watching young men scream along to the lyrics "Cardinal Newman is my savior, Sister Gabriel's a horny bitch" -- who would have thought that 27 years from the establishment of NG there would be audience members joining in the blasphemy.