Arts
Post-Summer Soundtracks
Post-Summer
Soundtracks
by Ric Kasini Kadour
ABBAlicious
FigJam Entertainment
The elite of New York City's drag
scene got together and covered an album's worth of ABBA songs. It is,
perhaps, the gayest thing you'll ever experience. Here are some highlights:
Yolanda and Hedda Lettuce team
up as the Chixie Dix and sing a country western version of "Dancing
Queen." The wonderful Sade Pendarvis does a rhythm and blues version
of "Knowing Me Knowing You," not to mention a near a capella
version of "Voulez-Vous." And Connie Cat does "Money Money
Money" in Sixties pop.
What makes this a great album is the
ability of Abba's music to transcend disco. Hearing Edie's acoustic guitar
version of "Chiquitita" shows just how well Abba's music holds
up. The songs work as Broadway show tunes and go-go dance numbers, as
well as blues rock and pop.
Those Vermonters familiar with Yolanda
(don't we all just miss her?) will enjoy the three tracks on which she
appears: "Dancing Queen," mentioned above; a soulful "Lay
Your Love On Me"; and as part of the ensemble's "Mamma Mia,"
a sort of drag equivalent to "We are the World."
ABBAlicious was produced by Donnie
D., a singer-songwriter-turned-producer, and Jack Chen, the progenitor
of FigJam and ardent supporter of queer music.
Trax Records' 20th Anniversary Collection
Trax Records
The Next Generation: Trax Records
Trax Records
To really appreciate two new
collections marking the 20th anniversary of Trax records, you need to
know three things:
First, house music doesn't live and die on the coasts. Trax rose out of
the racially segregated Chicago of the 1980s. It happened that when Space
Place - a largely a white club, so white, in fact, skinheads protested
the occasional black band - got raided and shut down. The folks at Warehouse,
the largely black club, opened their doors to the displaced white clubbers.
They had something in common: both groups rejected Disco in favor of a
punk/new wave sound that blended well with the emerging hard core dance
scene.
The second thing you need to know
is that the music put out by Trax Records - from Marshal Jefferson's "Move
Your Body" to the Screamin' Rachel's Fantasy - was the soundtrack
to the death of radical gay sex in the 1980's. Put simply, it was the
music gay men danced to in between AIDS funerals and a night at the Mineshaft.
It was the music that played while ACT-UP was created.
Ok, that's history. The
third thing to know is that you will not find a better collection of American
house music. The beats may be simple, the production values lack the over-sampled,
boom-pow of contemporary house music, but the music in these two collections
deserves respect: they did it first.
Trax Records is to house music what
Motown Records was to soul or Sub Pop is to grunge. More than a record
company, its mere existence is a testament to the culture of a generation
and the evolution of music as we know it.
Revival
Daniel Cartier
Endurance Music
Daniel Cartier is what happens when a talented, sensitive gay boy grows up in a small, conservative New Hampshire town: he grows up, tattoos his head, moves to New York City, records an album in a subway station, gets signed by a record company, and is declared an East Village icon.
Well, that's the upside of the story, the part before you run out of popcorn. In Act Two, the star becomes the victim of corporate machinations. His record deal is cut short. What will he do?
Form his own damn record company, apparently. In 2002, Cartier formed Endurance Music with his long-time collaborator Sara Symons. Cartier taught himself sound engineering, programming and sampling, and, with Symons, serves as a conduit to over thirty other artists and a variety of music industry insiders. Revival is Cartier’s second album under the Endurance Records banner.
The opening song, "Lay It On," is a resilient, bluesy tune in the school of Sheryl Crow with great guitar chords and a nice rhythm back up (including a piano) that reminds me of Ben Folds Five. Cartier lays on the some thick, sexy vocals, and when the lyrics finally come through, you realize you're listening to one of the sexiest songs ever recorded by a New Hampshire-ite. Cartier delivers lines like "Sweet Jesus, I just can't believe how good I feel when you're doin' what you doin' to me" or "My body's hurting for ya cause you got something I've been wantin' baby" with a yearning tenor that is both vulnerable and wanting while emotionally strong. We should all be so lucky to have lovers like that.
Then there's "Supafly," an electronic romp about picking up someone. The song hits a climax with a line delivered a capella that'll make you shiver. "Supafly" highlights Cartier's vocals and skill as an engineer.
Songs on Revival run the gamut from blues to dance, grown-up-grunge to modern folk. Cartier seems unwilling to be locked down into one genre. Thank God!
Party Groove: GayDays Orlando, Volume 1
Centaur Music
When 135,000 gay people take
over a resort city in Florida, there's bound to be a soundtrack. Well,
this is it.
GayDays started in 1991 as a take
over of the Disney World theme park. The event is an exercise in the Disney
Corporation having it both ways. While they discourage protests from the
radical Christians who threaten to disrupt the event every year, they
don't officially support the event. Regardless, they like the money the
event brings in.
GayDays formed as a business in 1998.
The company markets the event, secures sponsors, proclaims accommodations
official, and operates on online store where you can purchase among other
things, GayDays t-shirts, GayDays dog tags, and Centaur's Party Groove:
GayDays Orlando, Volume 1 CD.
The CD offers 72 minutes of gay club music.
The album is mixed by Randy Bettis, the hot East Coast club and studio
DJ who, incidentally, is a former Disney performer. The album's roster
reads like a who's who of the gay club music: Donna Summer, Elton John,
Boy George, Taylor Dayne, Kristine W., Simply Red, Michelle Weeks, and
Lonnie Gordon. Depending on your musical orientation that can be a good
thing or a bad thing.
If the whole concept of GayDays leaves
you feeling a little flat, then don't bother with this CD. There is club
music that is transcendent and spiritual; music which takes you inside
the groove, elevates you, and spits you out on another level. The songs
on Party Groove: GayDays Orlando, Volume 1 lack depth, subtext, or feeling
other than happy.
However, the songs are sunny and fun, the sort of background noise that
livens up a goodbye-to-summer pool party. Pat Hodges's "You Make
Me Feel Good" is a classic disco-revival with great horns. Deborah
Cooper's "Real Love" is a great anthem. And Daphne Rubin-Vega's
rendition of Elton John's "Rocket Man" is, well, just wrong.
Ric Kasini Kadour gets his Trax and other musical fixes in Shoreham,
when he's not in Montréal.