Out local musician Scott Free Scott Free is releasing his new album, The Last Revolution, on Friday, July 3, and is launching Alt Q Radio, an independent queer music station.
The Last Revolution, described as a protest album, is Free's first solo album in 12 years. About the subject matter of the timely album, Free said in a statement, "I've always looked at the world from an outsider viewpoint, so this delving into the realm of protest and social justice music is natural for me. I've always done a form of protest in my music, although in the past it was focused from a personal perspective. This time I wanted to take myself out of it - let the song itself be the focus."
Free added that his decision to do an all-protest song album was also "a way to explore ways to merge the more modern genres of punk and rap with the original acoustic protest genre: folk."
He has also launched Alt Q Radio, an independent queer music station. It is a commercial-free 24-hour station on the Live365, the internet radio broadcasting network. There are programs featuring women's music, queercore, trans musicians and queer rap, among others. Free said, "The overall focus of the station is new music; we want to be on top of the latest releases by independent queer artists."
free has released four previous solo albums, and an LGBT family album by his cartoon group The Diesel Tykes, which featured many Chicago LGBT musicians. He has two original cast albums of his musicals, Zombie Bathhouse ( book by Brian Kirst ) and Witches Among Us ( book by Rick Karlin ). Scott was a producer in the original house-music scene in Chicago, was part of the '90s Chicago queercore scene, and had a rap video on BET. Free was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 2010.
He currently produces Homolatte, the longest-running queer performance series in the country ( although on hiatus during the pandemic ).
The Last Revolution will be available on Bandcamp, Spotify and iTunes.