Joshua Plague

Joshua Ploeg (born January 31, 1972), better known by the stage name Joshua Plague, is an influential American musician, zine editor, and vegan chef. Plague was the singer for several early queercore bands. He began using the name "Plague" as a play on mispronunciations of his last name, and it stuck throughout his career with different bands.

Musical Endevours
Plague was the singer for the queercore/hardcore bands Mukilteo Fairies, Behead the Prophet, No Lord Shall Live, Lords of Lightspeed, and The Special Friend, spanning a period from 1993-2001. Since then he has played drums for the band Kiss Me Kill Me and engaged in various spoken word, noise, and vocal projects. He is currently in the band Warm Streams.

All the queercore groups he sang for were noted for DIY ethics, releasing their recordings on independent record labels, booking their own tours, and playing all-ages shows. Plague is notable for his intense, often confrontational lyrics about being queer, in songs such as "Closet Check" and "Queer Enough For You?", usually sung in a screechy style, which resulted in these bands being highly regarded by later Screamo aficionados. While popular in their day, appreciation for each of Plague's bands has increased since they initially released their records, and their influence grown.

In 2004, the hardcore band Limp Wrist released the song "Ode" on their Complete Discography CD, a tribute to Plague, Gary Floyd of The Dicks, and Randy Turner of Big Boys, for being the pioneering queer hardcore musicians who had paved the way for groups such as Limp Wrist.

Mukilteo Fairies
Based in Olympia, Washington, Mukilteo Fairies were active in the early 1990s and included Jason Reece on drums. (Reece would later move to Texas to form …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead.) They played in a very fast, abrasive style of hardcore, bordering on grindcore. Mukilteo Fairies' name is a pun on the ferry that travels between the Mukilteo peninsula, on the coast of Washington, and Whidbey Island. Mukilteo Fairies were an early queercore/homocore band, and Plagues lyrics frequently dealt with homosexuality. According to essayist Ashley Dawson, "Mukilteo Fairies tear apart the binary opposition of homo- and heterosexuality by invoking their worn clichés of queer identity amid a welter of furious noise. delivers the lyrics in a throttled scream that unsettlingly juxtaposes an ironic invocation of homophobic discourses with the frothing anger of the traditionally male hardcore singer."

Discography
* Special Rites - Kill Rock Stars 7"
* Closet Check - Outpunk split 7" with Los Mordidos
* Queer Enough For You? on Outpunk Dance Party, Outpunk compilation CD/LP
* Bloody Breath on Periscope - Yoyo Recordings compilation (1994)
* Push, push, you make me want to choke on Yoyo A Go Go - Yoyo Recordings compilation CD
* We Are Not Your Entertainers on Rock Stars Kill - Kill Rock Stars compilation CD/LP
* Four Letter Love on Some Songs - Kill Rock Stars compilation CD
* Contention on We Are All Guilty: A NW Punk Comp - Outcast Records compilation
* Join The Queercorps - Queercorps compilation

Behead the Prophet, No Lord Shall Live
After Mukilteo Fairies broke up in 1994, Plague's next project was Behead the Prophet, No Lord Shall Live which lasted until 1998. Taking their name from a Deicide song, BTPNLSL was also based in the Pacific Northwest and featured Plague on vocals accompanied by the usual punk instrumentation (guitar, bass, and drums) but also violin and saxophone. They released their first 8 song 7" single on Outpunk Records in 1995. Their next release, "I Am That Great and Fiery Force," received a 4.5/5 star rating by All Music Guide.

Discography

* Soul System Blackout, 7" EP, Outpunk, 1995
* I Am That Great And Fiery Force, LP, Outpunk / K Records, 1996
* 7" Split-single with Thrones, Voice of the Sky, 1998
* Making Craters Where Buildings Stood, 7" EP Sound Pollution, 1998
* Join The Queercorps 12" remix, Queercorps, 1998

Later Projects
After BTPNLSL broke up, Plague sang for the queercore bands Lords of Lightspeed, and The Special Friend. Since then he has played drums for the band Kiss Me Kill Me and engaged in various spoken word, noise, and vocal projects. He is currently in the band Warm Streams. He has also appeared as a guest on the Hoodwinked CD Stab Stab Stab and has performed, sometimes with ex-bandmate violinist Michael Griffin, at events such as Bands Against Bush and Homo-a-go-go. Most recently he has performed under his own name or as "Joshua Plague's Sanctuary Of Sound", also known as Sanctuary Sounds and has recorded several releases including Hymns & Conjurations, which includes some songs sung in Latin. His song "Take My Airs" was covered by the band Western Graves.

Cooking
Today, Joshua is principally a gourmet vegan chef who tours the country cooking for dinner parties and creates new cookbooks that he sells. For several years he wrote a food column for Satya Magazine, and he continues to operate on the same spirit of DIY ethics that has always propelled him. He is working on a new cookbook to be published by Microcosm.

Writing
Plague is the editor and writer of over 30 different zines, the best known being the Now I.. series, including Now I Write A Dic-tion-ar-y, Now I Devour You, and Now I Don the Mask of Melancholy. Another more recent title is More Garbage On Paper. In 2006 he issued the compilation zine Archivision (#1)/Now Let's Put On a Show (#6), subtitled A Torrid Tale of Collected Art, Tales and Recitations.

Vegan Cooking
Plague wrote a column on vegan cooking for the now defunct Satya magazine of New York. He currently contributes to Sacramento's Midtown Monthly, and the Sacramento News & Review. He has put out several comb-bound vegan cookbooks, including "Something Delicious This Way Comes: Spellbinding Vegan Cookery," "Dutch Much," and "Fire and Ice."

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