+++ Portland’s newcomers Purple & Green (see picture above) have just released their new 4-track EP “Sunshine”, which can be downloaded on bandcamp for whatever you wanna pay for it (including nothing). There’s also a new video to the title track “Sunshine”, which you can watch here, as well as their last video “Human Nature”.
+++ MEN founder JD Samson is featured in a fashion shoot of the latest ”Vogue Homme”. Check out all four pictures of photographer Maciek Kobielski on the website of the French gay magazine Tetu +++
+++ The website Homoground is a great source for music of queer artists. Every Monday the site releases a new mixtape by people related to the queer music scene, every Thursday you can download an audio podcast featuring music by queer musicians. The site also features tour date, live videos and much more. Check it out! +++
I interviewed JD Samson about three weeks ago for the Mai issue of the Berlin’s gay city magazine siegessäule. She and here band MEN had just finished their tour. Here’s the (nearly) uncut version of the Skype conversation we had, JD talking about topics like the importance of touring for the band, the new member Tami Hart, the tour costumes, activism, and the inevitable Lady Gaga.
You had the last show of your tour yesterday as far as I know. What does it feel like, are you happy, exhausted, sad?
I’m really tired because we had 14 shows in a row, so I need a rest and I’m really excited to sleep in tomorrow, but at the same time I’m kind of sad, because we had such a wonderful time on tour and yesterday I just woke up with such a great feeling and I knew that the show would going to be great. And we were really all in such good moods and came together on stage, so the energy in the room was just incredible.
You played a lot of shows in general, didn’t you? I have the feeling it was a really important thing for the whole project. You played three Berlin shows for example…
Yeah, we just play whenever we have the opportunity, and when people invite us to come we figure out if it financially makes sense and if we’re even gonna make a dollar with it usually we’ll do it. I mean we don’t like to loose money, but it’s really good for us to just continue playing, I think I’ve seen this project as really a live thing. We started off playing live before we had any music out, so I think that that’s really how people make money right now in the music industry, but also the way that this band really can succeed.
+++ Hercules and Love Affair have announced their tour dates for July and August. They can be found on omg blog. It’s where I found the photograph of hunky Andy Butler I posted on top of this post +++
+++ An mysterious artist from NYC called Sali has recently realeased a track called “Toldya”, which features a voice sample of M.I.A.’ and musically reminds of the stuff she’s into herself. You can download the song and two other ones on his website by leaving your email +++
+++ I’d like to introduce you to The Loveliers from Poland which wrote me a nice email a few days ago. Here’s their current song “Interactivity”, a chilled and melancholic low-tempo dance track:
+++ The awesome queer culture blog Young Creature has recently posted a mixtape by JD Samson. You find the download link here +++
+++ Rusty Lazer is a DJ from New Orleans who’s currently supporting the Sissy Bounce superstars Big Freedia, Katey Red and Sissy Nobby live. You can download two of his Bounce mixes on his Soundcloud profile (via omg blog) +++
I’m a little late with this: Drag legend Vaginal Davis is currently showing a 10-day-long performance piece at 122, a performance space in New York. Following the text on the PS 122 website the show “re-examines the heyday of 1970s American daytime television chat and variety programs. (…) Ms Davis isn’t interested in assimilating into the mainstream entertainment complex, but instead wishes to dissect a kind of TV staple and reconfigure it by presenting an array of live and Skype guests from the various worlds of literature, dance, theatre, film and art.” Amongst the illustrious guests of the upcoming evenings are Bruce LaBruce, Annie Sprinkle & Beth Stephens, Slava Mogutin, JD Samson & MEN, Johanna Fateman, Genesis Breyer P-Orrigge and Joel Gibb. More about the show on the website of PS 122, Vaginal Davis’ blog. You also find a few pics of the appearence of Brian Kenny and Gio Black Peter two days ago on Slava Mogutin’s blog. The picture on top of this post is part of this series.
Expatriarch Radio is a monthly radio show hosted by Joey Hansom, an American journalist and DJ based in Berlin. Like his website Expatriarch.com it is focused on the interfaces between post-feminist and queer politics and pop culture and features music of mostly contemporary artists from different backgrounds that all subvert gender expectations in their own way. The show airs every second Friday of the month at the Berlin based radio and webmag BLN.FM and debuted on March 12th. The two shows that have been broadcasted since then can be streamed online (#1 / #2). There are also transcripts and audio files of interviews for the show with artists such as JD Samson of Le Tigre or Peaches both on BLN.FM (English audio file, German text) and on Joey’s website (texts in English).
UPDATE: Joey is DJing at HBC (Berlin-Mitte, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 9) next weekend:
