GrooveOut

by Gregg Shapiro

LISTEN UP

It’s early May, and I am sitting in front of my computer preparing to write about music by queer artists. After all, Gay Pride month is just around the corner. The 2003 OutMusic Awards ceremony, scheduled for June 1 at the Knitting Factory in New York to celebrate and acknowledge the work of LGBT artists, is just weeks away. There is a stack of two dozen CDs by LGBT artists sitting on my desk. It’s good to be gay.

Perhaps the most talked-about disc of the 2003 Pride season is The Smell of Our Own (Rough Trade) by The Hidden Cameras. A multi-member Canadian unit, The Hidden Cameras are led by Joel Gibb, who creates a large and lush sound reminiscent of The Polyphonic Spree. Additionally, the openly gay Gibb doesn’t shy away from graphic subject matter. In fact, the disc opens with the retro romp of “Golden Streams” (“Golden stream/turns from warm to cold/in frightful time/in the frozen dead of night”) and closes with the exquisite plucked and stroked strings of “The Man That I Am with My Man”—a couple of songs that make reference to golden showers in ways that I’m sure no one has ever heard before. The down-with-love sentiment of “Ban Marriage” is perfect for dancing The Pony, while the gorgeous “A Miracle” lives up to its name. The hand-clapping foot-stomping roof-raising gay gospel of “Breathe on It” was exhilarating, and “Smells Like Happiness” sure sounds like it.

All in all, the 10 glorious tracks, clocking in at less than 45 minutes, left me feeling as if I might have had an actual religious experience.

I witnessed quite a few people having a religious experience when Andy Bell and Vince Clarke of Erasure were doing a CD signing at a book and music store prior to their concert at the Chicago Theater in March, as well as during the show itself. Many of those same devotees, some of whom probably own the import edition of the 2000 disc Loveboat (Mute) will be happy to know that the release is finally available domestically. Considered by some to be a return to form following the detour of Cowboy, the album was co-produced by Erasure and Flood and has a dark and filtered quality, giving it a more experimental bent (listen to “Perchance to Dream” to hear what I mean). While there are none of the jump-out-at-you dance tracks that Erasure lovers have come to expect, “Here in My Heart,” “Catch 22,” and “Moon & The Sky” do offer plenty of opportunities to move.

Mission Impossible (Delicious) by Agency-X sounds like the early ’80s version of Vince Clarke’s first commercially successful bands, Depeche Mode and Yaz. More synth-pop than electroclash, the songs on Mission Impossible do have a beat and a style that is, well, impossible to resist. A collaboration between openly gay electronic music artist David Mahr and Swedish musician Lars Wallden (of AvantGarde), Agency-X probably won’t remain a secret for long due to original songs such as “S.O.S. (On the Radio),” “Happy Together,” “Don’t Hold Your Breath,” and “At the End of the Day,” all of which sound as if they would fill the dance floor at any party or nightclub.

Electro-folk duo Testosterone Kills has released an exceptional disc of tunes called War All the Time (Fortified) on which the self-proclaimed “Queer Sons of New York City’s infamous Antifolk scene” sing about how ’N Sync makes them horny, among other things. David Gray proved that synthetic beats and acoustic guitars could exist in harmony, and Tim Daly and Pablo Ratliff of Testosterone Kills keep that trend alive. Beginning with the punchy opening track “Where I Stand” and continuing on the powerful anti-bashing number “I’m Gonna Tell Ya,” Testosterone Kills keeps us alive and listening with their songwriting skills. Other songs worth mentioning include “Crazy,” “Arizona,” and “Autopilot.”

If you are craving crazy beats, I recommend Hello Doctor (Kill Rock Stars) by Gravy Train!!!! Yes, all four exclamation marks are necessary; one for each band member, including Funx, Drunx, Chunx, and Hunx. Imagine the queer electronic wizardry of Le Tigre crossed with the sexual essence of Peaches, and you’re on the right track. These electroclash vixens tell it like it is. “We wore the little pleated skirts and hiked them up to show our goods,” Chunx rails on “Titties Bounce,” as she has her way with the church, declaring, “Gravy Train’s the living testament.” “Hella Nervous” inspires dance fever with the lines “you are long in the pants/short in the weiner/suckin’ my muff like a vacuum cleaner.” Gay boy Hunx pipes in on the explicit “Double Decker Supreme” and steals the show on “You Made Me Gay.”

If you’re hell-bent on dancing, Charles Stephen Hughes provides the beats and blips to keep you going from the discotheque on Saturday night to the Sunday-morning church on Love Notes (Independent Records). Hughes combines songs of man’s inhumanity to man (“This Day Shall Be”) and the complexities of man-to-man love (“Love Hurts,” “Running for Your Love,” “What Is Love,” “Destiny”) with songs of devotion. Hughes sings the praises of his heavenly father on a few tracks, including “Love Letter (Dear Lord)” and “Praise Him,” making even an atheist such as myself marvel at the depths of this man’s commitment.

Beats of a different kind pulsate throughout Visions (Thrust Recordings) by Butt Boy. The seven songs on the disc are “designed to set the tone for dungeon scenes”—a soundtrack for S&M, if you will. The seven electronic tunes, ranging in length from six-and-a-half inches, I mean minutes, to eleven-and-a-half minutes, vary in intensity and rhythm, and have titles such as “Riding Centaurs,” “The Ritual of the Whip” (complete with smacking sound), “The Beating of the Minotaur,” and “The Hooded Ungulate Flogger.”

Odd Man-Out (Re-Perkussionz of Sovereign Art) by Nebulai is a blue-eyed soulful journey into the realm of folk funk, melding acoustic guitars and exotic instrumentation with vocals that testify to the power of love and coming out of the closet. The amazing “The Whole World’s Watching” has anthem potential, and Nebulai sounds like Ani DiFranco’s kid brother on “Coulda Woulda Shoulda,” “Don’t Bite the Hand,” and “Your Silence Won’t Protect You.” Like The Hidden Cameras, Gravity Train, and Testosterone Kills, Nebulai is actively working to expand and redefine what we expect to hear when we think of LGBT music.

Bisexual lead singer Brian Molko and gay bass player Stefan Olsdal make up two thirds of the British band Placebo. Over the course of four albums, including the latest Sleeping With Ghosts (Hut/Virgin), Placebo rocks out with punk rock fury (“Second Sight,” for example) and knocks out a dance beat like old pros. “English Summer Rain,” the second track on the disc, is ripe for remixing and dance-floor picking. However, unlike the last few Placebo albums, Sleeping With Ghosts sounds like a band haunted by others, including Coldplay, who you can hear traces of on “Special Needs.” Needless to say, no one but Placebo could come up with “Bulletproof Cupid,” so maybe it’s too soon to call in a priest.

Next month, Shapiro reports on more GLBT music.

Pop culture journalist Gregg Shapiro is also a published fiction writer and poet. He has a poem in the new collection, Sweet Jesus (Anthology Press).

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