Grum presents Through the Night

So what if the bromance/sexual connotations of 80s buddy/cop flicks were made explicit.

This really is…something. Can’t quite call it funny (or maybe you can) since it’s so gosh darn sincere.

Grum – “Through The Night” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws5rz3-AvBU

SS+GaGa

Such an obvious combo it makes my brain hurt.
A natural fit…

  http://www.scissorsisters.com/news/scissor-sisters-to-join-lady-gaga-on-tour

Terminally Scissor Sisters

So, in the hubbub of my Seattle sojourn, I forgot to write about the snappy show the Scissor Sisters put on at Terminal 5 the night before I left. I scored some fancy access and the good (in focus) pictures are courtesy of Tyler who helped elbow through the gay masses for some proper photographs. (Darn you blackberry camera!)
 
“Invisible Life” – definitely my favorite song from their new album – was the highlight of the show, along with their performance of the remix rendition of “Filthy/Gorgeous” (which I far prefer to the original).
 
I always like it when a concert prods me to revisit a song I may have overlooked on the album, and in this case it was Ana Mantronic’s “Skin This Cat” which sounded a lot smarmier and gutsier in person. Definitely has an early Eurythmics thing going for it…
 
Ana also reminded us that the band’s been together for 10 years now…..10 years!! Everyone, especially you NYers, can you imagine? Darn you, father time!

GaGaMSG

So Gaga was characteristically resplendent last night in a concert that was basically a souped up version of the radio city concert she played earlier in the year.

 

 

The sets were bigger.

 

 

There was a loose narrative (Gaga and gang leave brooklyn, take the subway into Manhattan…and then the narrative pretty much falls apart) to help organize the show – one can’t help but wonder what wonders Gaga could do with some sort of narrative concept album. Gaga needs to do her own Wall, a la Pink Floyd.

 

The crowd was ecstatic. And she loudly articulated her ‘be who you wanna be’ ethos. This being her first performance at Madison Square Garden, she took the time to absorb the crowd (and her success) that felt inclusive and quite moving, and only a bit indulgent.

As my friend Jenn said, Madonna gave birth to this girl. It was especially clear during “Alejandro” when a large statue of Mary (which had been dripping water) suddenly began shooting off sparks 4th of July-style. What does all this religious imagery have to do with the song? I still have no clue.

This was one of a few big set pieces that really showed how gaga was bringing the arena spectacle. She also appeared in a plastic-y opaque looking dress/hat concoction that was almost alarming to watch – the headpiece MOVED on it’s own. Opening and closing, contracting and undulating in an almost insect-like manner. She was Glenda the Good Witch meets Kafka. When she turned around (and before she was carried up into the sky), you could sing wings on the back of the dress. More bug than butterfly. But somehow beautiful nonetheless…and right in line with her ‘Sexy Ugly’ motto.

 

 

 

 

My favorite part BY FAR  though was when an fish enormous emerged from the darkness, stripped her almost naked and then consumed her.

 

 

 Look out behind you, Gaga!

Only to have her emerge a few minutes later in a metallic bar that spat at flames from the nipples.

[Those curious about her new record were given a treat earlier in the night when she previewed a song – “You and I” during the slowed down “Speechless” set (playing the piano with her right heel on top of the keys, natch). I LOVED it: Very 70s-inspired, an Elton John melody with Janis Joplin vocals. Even ended with some “Hey Jude” style vamping.]

I’ve seen her at practically every venue she’s played in NYC, and it’s nuts to remember her small club-style show at the Highline Ballroom. It wasn’t long ago at all.

And now she’s playing arenas. Ra ra indeed.

 

 

Thanks for letting me steal your pics, Blake!

Too Darn Hot

So this hot weather is absolutely ridiculous, and nothing spells cooling off to me like a little political activism, 1990 style.

  Thanks for the tip-off, Kenny. Take it away boys…

  From the Red, Hot and Blue compilation –
Erasure – “Too Darn Hot”

Kylie – Aphrodite Overview

Kylie’s new album will be out in the US on July 6 – And “All The Lovers” is already a big favorite…(nude pyramids! floating elephants)

  But here’s a nice sneak peak of Kylie’s new album Aphrodite. Stuart Price (Madge, Killers, Seal, the new Scissor Sisters) executive produced the record and it seems to be a non-stop dance floor burner.

  Scissors’ Jake Shears and Calvin Harris help out on “Too Much” and the songwriting team behind “When Love Takes Over” penned Kylie’s “Put Your Hands Up.” I think the title track (which closes this megamix) is probably my favorite.

 

  And for a little amusement, how about a mellow country-fried Kylie cover of “All The Lovers” from the Scissors’?

Big Gay Sketch Show

So I lost total interest in this homo-style SNL show on LOGO last season but the first episode of this season really surprise me with a very funny take on The Amazing Race, and a Swiffer commercial with a very bad attitude. HeeHeee!
 
Check it out: http://www.logotv.com/video/misc/501343/episode-1-season-3-part-1-of-4.jhtml?id=1635644

La Cage Aux Folles

So the reviews are giddy for the revival of La Cage Aux Folles (starring Kelsey Grammer) which opened on Broadway last night. Suppose this isn’t surprising as the production (which moved mostly intact from London) got raves in the West End. Having seen the overly pretty and overly produced version which played on Broadway a few years ago, I opted out of this take. Looks like it was a mistake. Suppose there’s still time to correct it.
 
Variety loved it.  http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117942582.html?categoryId=33&cs=1&ref=ssp

So did the New York Times.  http://theater.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/theater/reviews/19cage.html

And I love this interactive story that basically let’s you sit-in with the ad company as they discuss their various drafts of the show’s ad campaign, explaining how they got to the final poster… Fascinating. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/21/theater/20100321-lacage-interactive.html

The Pride by Alexi Kaye Campbell

I can’t stop thinking about The Pride. This new play opened a couple weeks ago Off-Broadway to great reviews and praise for the central performances of Hugh Dancy and Ben Whishaw.

 

The play bounces between two time periods (1958 and 2008) and focuses on the relationship of Phillip and Oliver. In repressed 1958, they are two men whose brewing feelings for one other sputter into a hidden affair, tethered in shame and guilt. And in the more liberated 2008, they are a couple facing down the problems of one partner’s infidelity and promiscuity.    

 

The chasm of 50 years and the way the play toggles back and forth highlights a nagging sense that if the gay ‘movement’ has made such strides in the last 50 years, why has so little changed at the same time? Or, after liberation? What is there?

Has anything really altered how we as gay people (men, specifically) feel about ourselves? Do we hurt each because we still look at ourselves through the same cultural lens of disgust? These are big questions – and for the entirety of Act I, The Pride is relentless, drawing us into the funhouse mirror of these two alternate time periods until it concludes with such heartbreaking cruelty that most of the audience has lost their composure by intermission (the fact that it feels familiar, from Brokeback Mountain, to any number of gay-themed texts somehow makes it all the more upsetting in its familiarity).

 

This subject of how gay people treat each other and how we feel about ourselves has come up in numerous conversations for me in the past few weeks….As gay kids we are not socialized in the same way, we don’t date like our high school counterparts, and we are taught that our sexuality is  a shameful secret. Our sense of selves ends up completely polluted. And this cycle is part of what’s being examined in The Pride. Judgment is internalized, and then externalized on our friends and lovers and ourselves, over and over again. The Pride illustrates how even in our relatively liberal present – visibility doesn’t necessarily breed acceptance (from society as a whole, or from gay people about themselves).

 

As for the performances, Dancy and Whishaw traverse their two separate yet inexplicably linked characters with expert skill, managing to reference and inform their time-shifted alter-egos with practically every turn of phrase. And they capture a yearning and loathing that curdles perfectly. Not an easy feat. And if it’s a bit frustrating that the central female character doesn’t have an arc as clearly compelling as her male counterparts, The Pride is still a profound work that people should seek out.

 

And it’s not all dreary. There’s an obvious hopefulness about The Pride, especially since Philip and Oliver’s relationship, as they try to sort things out through all prisms of time, is the play’s primary focus. The Pride is about failures but it’s also about longing – a longing to understand. And if it falls apart a bit in the second act — the play seems to end with more of a shrug than a statement  (a “We’re here – so now what”) –  perhaps the inconclusiveness of it all is entirely the point. How can the play resolve when we are so obviously struggling with how to shed a destructive history (far beyond just a simple span of 50 years) that has been the basis for our entire upbringing and identity. The Pride certainly shouldn’t be faulted for trying to bite off more than it can chew.  

It’s no accident that the play ends with the repeated phrase, “It’s okay, it’s okay.” In a play about how acceptance remains elusive to a community that mostly needs to accept itself – that’s a powerful conclusion. Go see it.  

 

 

Whisper in the Dark

Happy snow day New Yorkers!
 
Anyone else think that the keyboard line in Lady Gaga’s “Dance in the Dark” sounds awfully similar to that infamous saxophone hook from Wham!’s “Careless Whisper”….. Give ‘it a listen.
 
Lady Gaga – “Dance in the Dark” 
 
Wham! – “Carless Whisper”