April 1, 2005 GAY. PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 11
evening'sout
Sophomore jump
Three second albums build on past success
by Anthony Glassman
Fischerspooner, Odyssey
Following the success of their first album, #1, and its big single "Emerge," many thought that Fischerspooner would disappear back from whence they came, the New York City art world.
They were wrong.
Casey Spooner and Warren Fischer, the new-millennium Andy Bell and Vince Clark, are back with their sophomore effort, Odyssey. While the influences of earlier bands are harder to spot in this album than in their first (there were a lot of "Hey, I remember this riff from a Human League song" moments with #1), the duo remains firmly in touch with their musical roots.
While the first single, "Just Let Go," isn't the immediately engaging hook-machine that "Emerge" was, it's certainly dance-floor worthy.
In fact, the entire album is solid, perhaps even more than the first. The two are expanding their horizons, the gay singer Spooner working with Susan Sontag and singersongwriter Linda Perry, hetero programmer Fischer using actual musicians instead of just himself. There are some crunchy guitar riffs in a track or two that might do Parliament proud.
Fannypack, See You Next Tuesday
Three female singers, two male producers, a handful of races, ethnicities and sexual orientations, Fannypack's sophomore release also breaks the "sophomore slump" curse. Continuing in the down-and-dirty, female-
centered, nasty-ass hip-hop vibe that they established with their 2003 debut So Stylistic, which featured the single "Cameltoe" don't ask! See You Next Tuesday could be the perfect bridge between the gay community and hip-hop.
Fun-loving and playful, the women in the band are not bashful about their desires or their fears, and producers Matt Goias and Fancy blend sounds and styles together as seamlessly as if they were making a musical smoothie. You can catch the banana and the strawberry and the apricot, but they can't be separated back out from each other. The album hits stores on May 10 from Tommy Boy.
Shall we dance?
Girlyman, Little Star
When the two women of Garden Verge moved into a Brooklyn apartment with an award-winning singer-songwriter, they didn't realize that the marriage of convenience would result in a new portion of their musical ca-
reers.
Folk-rock harmonies and a refusal to conform are the trademarks of Girlyman, composed of Doris Muramatsu, Nate Borofsky, and Ty Greenstein. According to their bios, Doris is the Tootsie Roll center of Girlyman, Ty can now breathe the bi-gender air thanks to the band, and Nate is the one with the penis.
Openly gay dancer-choreographer Mark Tomasic envelopes Liz Flynn in the spirit of the dance.
The two are part of Verb Ballets, who will be performing at Cleveland Public Theater's DanceWorks '05 from April 7 to 10.
Tomasic's "Memory Room" is one of the pieces the troupe will perform, along with queer choreographer Sean Curran's "Mozart Piano Trio" and a world premiere by Verb Ballets art director Hernando Cortez, among other pieces.
Audience members will have the opportunity to engage in a talkback with the dancers following the Thursday, April 7 performance, which begins at 7:30 pm. The Friday and Saturday performances start at 8 pm, while the Sunday matinée is at 3 pm For more information about this or other DanceWorks performances, call 216-631-2727 or log onto www.cptonline.org.
-Anthony Glassman
While absolutely the least-energetic offering of this trio of second albums, Girlyman are quite capable musicians and singers, flawlessly blending their voices into haunting harmonies.
Now if only someone would slip them some speed, maybe they would release something with a beat that you could dance to . . .
Girlyman, with their cherubic faces and seraphic voices, should definitely appeal to fans of the vocal stylings of the Indigo Girls, only with a little bit more testosterone thrown in to be inclusive.
Little Star comes out May 24 on Daemon Records.
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