Bearotic reports today that BearForce1, the world's most popular "bear band" (and there are a few) has broken up. Oh well, even with more cast changes than the Supremes, they were good for a laugh. I even saw them in "concert" at NYC's Splash Bar and can still do the silly Bearforce1 dance. Here's their first and biggest hit from two years ago, which actually did OK in Europe and landed them numerous gay Pride gigs.
Courtesy of Universal Music, today's Swag Tuesday giftie is the Elton John concert DVD The Red Piano, which goes on sale nationwide today.
Thousands of Elton John fans have traveled to Caesars Palace Las Vegas to see over 200 sold-out The Red Piano shows, helping break attendance records and setting new standards for musical entertainment. Now available everywhere for the first time, the concert DVD or a high-definition Blu-ray format contains the 14-song performance of The Red Piano show, including fan favorites such as “Candle in the Wind,” “Your Song,” “Rocket Man” and “Tiny Dancer.” The Blu-ray features a bonus 50-minute documentary, “The Life and Legacy Of Elton John,” with behind-the-scenes of David LaChapelle’s treatment of the show, plus stage projections, as well as unique raw videos made for the stage backdrop for select songs.
Enter to win The Red Piano by commenting on this post. Only enter once and please remember to leave your email address in the text of your comments. Entries close at midnight Wednesday, west coast time. Publicists: If you'd like to take part in Swag Tuesday on JMG, please email me.
Here's the latest from Gotham's gay glamsters Naked Highway. Even if you don't dig electroqueer, you'll like the soapy boys. Great track, reminds me of late 70's Human League.
Last night Little David and I attended Defying Equality, Broadways huge marriage equality fundraiser. I'll post more about the show once the Broadway sites get their coverage up, but a highlight for us was Matt Alber's fantastic performance of his single End Of The World. Alber plays an "impromptu" acoustic set tonight at the Ritz Lounge in Times Square. Highly recommended.
Here's the first single from the upcoming Pet Shop Boys album, Yes. There are several remixes of Love Etc available as well as a "digital bundle" containing a non-album track.The last PSB full-length release of new tracks was 2006's Fundamental.
This week in 1985, Smalltown Boy, the debut single from UK gay dance trio Bronski Beat, hit #1 on the Billboard dance chart for its only week. The tortured lyrics, haunting melody and heartbreaking video (which depicts a gay bashing) made the song an immediate gay anthem worldwide and it remains a staple of gay nightclubs today. My roommate and I happened across the import 12" of Smalltown Boy in the summer of 1984 and spent the next year collecting every possible mix and 12" sleeve from around the world. I can vividly recall the first day we brought it home and played it dozens of times, pronouncing each playing more profound that the last. Quite simply, there had never been anything remotely like it. The video was directed by Bernard Rose, who also did Relax and Two Tribes for Frankie Goes To Hollywood. It got scant airplay on MTV, no doubt to its content, and we took to recording MTV overnight until we finally captured it. It's 25 years later and I'd still put Smalltown Boy in my lifetime Top 10.
CATALOG: Smalltown Boy hit #3 on the UK pop chart, #48 on the U.S pop chart. Its follow-up, Why?, was also about gay-bashing and reached #5 in the UK. Other notable singles were their cover of It Ain't Necessarily So (1984), and their collaboration with Soft Cell's Marc Almond on a cover of Donna Summer's I Feel Love (#3 UK, 1985). Lead singer Jimmy Sommerville left that year - after only one album with Bronski Beat - to form the Communards, but several months later Bronksi Beat had another hit with new lead singer John Jon in Hit That Perfect Beat (#3 UK, #3 US dance). I recall being so overcome by hearing Hit That Perfect Beat at Washington DC's Lost & Found that summer, that I actually co-howled the "ow ow owoooo!" part on the dance floor, much to the embarrassment of my dance partner. John Jon also left Bronksi Beat after one album and in 1989 the band had their last big hit with their third lead singer, Jonathan Hellyer, when they collaborated with Eartha Kitt on ChaCha Heels, which was based on a line from John Water's Female Trouble. ChaCha Heels was intended to be recorded with Divine, but she died in 1988 before the record could be made.
TRIVIA:Smalltown Boy has been covered by handful of pop artists such as Tori Amos, but for some reason it has become a popular song for heavy metal bands. Check out cover versions by Depressive Age,Paradise Lost, The Fire, and a fairly faithful take on the song by the Atomic Bees.
RELATED: Bronski Beat was one of the first pop acts to tackle LGBT rights in their lyrics, from the stage, and in their liner notes. The liner notes on their debut album, The Age Of Consent, listed the disparity between heterosexual and homosexual ages of consent in countries around the world, although MCA Records deleted the information from the U.S. version in its second pressing once they realized what it was about. The 12" of Smalltown Boy had the phone number for London's gay teen switchboard scratched into its center.
In September we learned that best-selling gospel singer Ray Boltz had come out of the closet after 33 years of hetersexual marriage. Here's Boltz' first post-outing song, Don't Tell Me Who To Love. The clip was created by Soulforce.
According to Boltz's blog, Don't Tell Me Who To Love is a collaboration with Hitplay, the same producers who work with popular gay artists Ari Gold and Nemesis. Go to Boltz's blog for a free download of the single. I really like this track. With the right remix, I could totally see this being a hit in the clubs.
And she was eat'n, she was eat'n. Been singing this all morning. Love the New York "n". What's that called, linguistically? I missed this clip when it came out last week, but it's already gotten 400K hits on YouTube. Our dear Father Tony is a hooge fan of gay rapper Cazwell. Who's the drag queen playing Beyonce?
Dance music and vinyl junkies will be interested to learn that the vast collection of legendary late DJ Neil Lewis is now for sale.
As one of the most highly regarded DJs on the international dance circuit for nearly two decades, Neil Lewis captivated audiences and inspired a generation of loyal fans from around the globe with his mesmerizing and incomparable musical style. Beyond his historic residency at San Francisco's Pleasuredome, Neil established his world-class reputation at some of the most popular dance events around the world, including Sydney's Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, Folsom Street Fair weekend's Magnitude, and Black & Blue Weekend in Montreal. The loss from his untimely death is still deeply felt by the dance world and by all those who loved his music and his gentle spirit.
But his memory and his musical legacy live on.
So many of my fondest memories of my time in San Francisco are woven into the soundtrack that Neil provided us. Every weekend on SF's dance floors his fans would gather together as a giant family. We called ourselves "Neilies". I remain in awe of Neil's talent and generosity.
The entire 7000+ piece collection (listed in Excel format) is being sold as one item and includes many hundreds of classic impossible-to-find releases. Neil was meticulous with his vinyl and I'd imagine that virtually all of the pieces are in pristine condition. His collection represents an aural archive of 20 years of gay nightclub culture and we can only trust that the lucky person who takes it treats it as such.
Full disclosure: As some of you may know, I was one of the producers of Neil's two commercial CD releases: Magnitude 2000and Magnitude: Late Night, however I have nothing to do with this sale.
Furry disco bunnies Bearforce1 are back again with a new single and two new cast members. Man, these guys are like the Destiny's Child of bear groups. How many Bearforce1-ers have there been so far? Seven? For this single they've dropped their Bears On 45 medley schtick.
Here's the first video from San Francisco's Ex-Boyfriends. The JMG reader who sent along the clip notes that the video was shot at SF's armory, now the home of Kink.com, which may explain the bondage imagery. Great song.
Singer/songwriter Mike Ator will perform at the Nashville stop of the Bearapolooza 2008 tour and after hearing Happy, his gorgeous and wistful new single, I asked Mike for the backstory to the song.
"Happy" is a tribute to my friend Lance, a wonderful, unforgettable character, who sadly took his own life last Summer. Yes, I know, a singer/songwriter's ode to a suicide has Phoebe Buffet written all over it. But, there's more to the story... Actually, I took Lance's death very hard and so did others. I knew his mother and best friend and was there for the fallout. That part was strange and horrible, but I personally went through a kind of spiritual crisis afterward. Ultimately, that's what inspired the tune. I wrote it in a flash over two days and recorded it with some sparse accompaniment. I shared it with a few friends and it got passed around some.
In August, a film-maker named JoséAntonio Danner (LA) heard it and contacted me about a doing a video. At first, I thought 'no way.' I didn't know him from Adam and it just didn't seem right for a number of reasons. The whole "experiment" was rather unplanned on my part. I never intended to perform it or feature it in any way. The loss was still so fresh, and part of me felt that it was inappropriate. Well, nobody agreed. In short order, "Happy" became a project with a life of its own. A composer friend Edwin Wendler with whom I've collaborated a number of times - also from LA - took my string parts and re-arranged and re-recorded them, adding some additional orchestration here and there. I worked on cleaning up the demo tracks on my end, and by mid-September we had a mix that was sounding remarkably release-worthy. JoséAntonio kept his word and flew in for a weekend of shooting me playing the song all over inner-city Houston - quite an adventure by itself.
Ator is selling Happy on iTunes and donating the proceeds to OutYouth, an Austin, Texas-based LGBT youth organization that his friend Lance was involved with. Get it on your iPod today. I've already played the video a dozen times, I can't get enough of it. I've always had a weak spot for songs that make me tear up. Best song of the year so far, easily.
Via Queerty, here's the promo vid for Bearapalozza 2008 which features "the talents of over 25 bear and bear-identified performers." The NYC date for the tour is May 6th at the Eagle. Here's their Flickr page of past events.
Out gay disco hottie Paul Parker is back! You may remember Parker from his big hits in the 80's and 90's, (Right On Target was my favorite). His new single Don't Stop (What You're Doing To Me) is now available on iTunes and Amazon. Here's the audio-only YouTube clip of the new track.
The B-52's are streaming Funplex, the first single from their album of the same name, over on their MySpace page. The single is now available on iTunes, the album drops on March 25th.
This is the first new album for the B's in sixteen years. Did I ever mention that I got evicted from my first apartment in 1979 thanks to the B-52's? "Tenant persists in playing loud annoying sound-effects records." Thank you, Planet Claire.
A lyric sample from Funplex:
Chandalabra's in a wonder bra Dress Barn runway-a real draw Faster Pussycat thrill thrill I'm at the mall on a diet pill
Since we're talking Boy George today, I thought I'd put up my personal favorite, Mistake Number Three, from 1984's Waking Up With The House On Fire. Rumor at the time was that "mistake number three" was the girl that Jon Moss was then pursuing. Mistakes one and two were the two times that Moss and George had been boyfriends. So the folklore went, in 1984 at least. This track really showcases the Boy's gorgeous Smokey Robinson-like sound. Hey, remember beautiful, elaborate, memorable music videos?
Mistake Number Three reached #33 on the Billboard singles chart.
Former Village People frontman and songwriter Victor Willis (seen here during a 2006 drug arrest) is planning a tell-all book about his days with the legendary disco group. Willis, who left the group in 1980, begins his musical comeback attempt on August 31 in Las Vegas, with a worldwide tour to follow the launch of his autobiography in 2008.
Willis, who is straight, left Village People claiming to be upset over the public's misconstruing of his songs like YMCA - which Willis says was written with no homosexual subtext intended. In fact, Willis claims all of the songs he wrote, such as In The Navy and Go West, were meant to be taken with absolutely no gay meaning.
Totally not gay lyrics:
Young man, there's a place you can go. I said, young man, when you're short on your dough. You can stay there, and I'm sure you will find Many ways to have a good time.
Many ways to have a good time, such as "hanging out with all the boys." After all, they have "everything that you need to enjoy." Nope, not gay at all.
Afraid the group was doomed as a gay niche act, Willis quit. After leaving the group (effectively ending their string of hits), Willis refused to perform publicly again and his life spiraled into a 25-year cycle of drug abuse and numerous arrests. In 2005, while a fugitive evading drug charges, he was featured on America's Most Wanted. Despite this, he remains the wealthiest of the original members, thanks to lucrative publishing royalties.
TRIVIA: The first Village People album was recorded using Willis and professional background singers. Producer Jacques Morali then built the Village People group concept around Willis, hiring the other five members for the second album, Macho Man. During this period, Willis was married to The Cosby Show'sPhylicia Rashad, who was attempting a disco career of her own.
The soundtrack to this summer's True Colors tour is available now for download with the physical CD due on August 7th. The highlight (to me) is Morel's Pink Noise remix of Cyndi Lauper's True Colors. You probably know Rich Morel from his smash remixes of tracks by Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, and many others - not to mention his partnership with Bob Mould as one-half of Blowoff, Washington DC's smash monthly dance party. Big news: Blowoff comes to NYC on September 8th at the Highline Ballroom!
Speaking of London Pride, today the UK Guardian lists their ten favorite songs about being gay:
1 Jet Boy, Jet Girl, Elton Motello 2 Michael, Franz Ferdinand 3 Homosapien, Pete Shelley 4 Can You Forgive Her?, Pet Shop Boys 5 BD Woman's Blues, Lucille Bogan 6 Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover, Sophie B Hawkins 7 The Man That I Am With My Man, The Hidden Cameras 8 Breathing Fear, Kitchens of Distinction 9 What Makes a Man a Man, Marc Almond 10 I Was Born This Way, Carl Bean
What, no I Am What I Am? Still, it's a great list. And I love Kitchens Of Distinction.
