Kick out the jams

Homocore comes to Ohio from
the Land of Lakes

by Anthony Glassman

Are you ready for some homocore from the land of 10,000 lakes?

Of course you are.

Central Standard, a queer punk band fronted by musician and filmmaker Lisa Ganser, is swinging through Ohio for two dates this weekend, on Friday at Pat?s in the Flats in Cleveland and on Sunday at the High Five Bar in Columbus.

Joining them for the Cleveland show will be hometown hero Amy Kasio, whose synthsational song stylings put her at the top of the class. She is, perhaps, a little too popular, since she?s going to be spending summer in Sweden before running off to California.

Local band Black River Baby will join Kasio and Central Standard in the Cleveland show.

Central Standard will rechristen themselves Hey There Cowboy on April 28. The Minneapolis band exemplifies the DIY sound of homocore, with Ganser?s raw, strident vocals combining with bandmates Tages? menacing guitar, Scotty Brat?s moody bass and Justin?s driving drums to create a palette of punk. Their dystopian soundscape melds anger with wit, disgust with disarming charm.

Take, for instance, the song ?Recycle.?

?Put your current lover here, and your exes over there, it doesn?t matter the sexes, just ante up those exes so we can recycle,? Ganser belts out.

Humorous, incisive, and it sounds great.

Of course, whether or not it can compare to Kasio?s cover of Silk?s ?Freak Me? is another question altogether. The layered vocals, the ethereal sound of a basic Casio keyboard filtered through guitar pedals creates the oddest sounds imaginable, and a sprightly young woman singing lyrics that qualified as . . . well . . . smutty if inane when the original song came out is simply surreal. She sounds a bit like Terri Nunn of Berlin (?No More Words,? ?Take My Breath Away?) in the richness of her voice during the song.

Hopefully, she?ll play her signature song, the childhood nightmare-inducing ?Blow Up the Ice Cream Truck.? It is just plain fun.

The Cleveland show is at 10 pm at Pat?s in the Flats, 2233 West Third Street. Cover is $5.

Central Standard heads down to Columbus two days later for their High Five Bar show.

Joining them there will Darynyck, the Hot Damn and Cole Thornhill.

That show will also be at 10 pm; cover is again $5. The High Five Bar is at 1227 North High Street.

For more on Central Standard, check out their MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/centralstandardrocks.

Amy Kasio?s page is http://www.myspace.com/amykasio, and her music is also available at http://www.purevolume.com/amykasio.