by RAF KATIGBAK

After exploding onto the Montreal music scene three years ago, and then logging extensive tour mileage and media adulation, Montreal’s Lesbians on Ecstasy are back with a vengeance: darker, louder and drunker than ever. “I feel we’ve all become way harsher alcoholics since we started touring,” reveals technical mastermind Bernie Bankrupt, half jokingly, “which is a lot to say, since we were really big drinkers to begin with. It really takes the edge off of touring.”

And tour they have. Thanks to opening slots with underground sensations Le Tigre, LOE have managed to empty fridges in 11 European countries and in almost every major city across the United States and Canada—no small feat for a band that does mostly covers. But rest assured, there’s nothing gimmicky about LOE’s electro-punk reworkings of lesbian anthems by Indigo Girls, Tracy Chapman, Melissa Etheridge and k.d. lang. With solid production and a darker, nu-goth-metal-tinged live show that’s an all-out, in-your face dance riot, the quartet rounded out by frontwoman Fruity Frankie (aka Lynne T), bassist Véronique Mystique and drummer Jackie the Jackhammer is set to make waves again with the imminent release of their remix album Giggles in the Dark. With an emphasis on DJ-friendliness, the nine-track, vinyl-only release features thumping remixes of their debut full-length by Le Tigre, Scream Club, Tracy & the Plastics, Sean Kosa, 1-Speed Bike, Katastrophe, DJ Aï, Jody Bleyle and Kids on TV.

Add to that plans to return to Europe in the spring to support the release of a track on a Chicks on Speed Records compilation, and possibly a split seven-inch on a London label, for the Lesbians on Ecstasy, it seems the world is their oyster.

According to their soon-to-be-completed debut video, the LOE world is an oyster filled with gay clones and zombies. “We wanted to do this gay-clone-zombie concept and we wanted to shoot it during Pride, when all of the gay clones come out in great numbers,” explains Bankrupt gleefully.

As it turned out, the shoot didn’t go exactly as expected. “We had this whole plan to be abducted on stage by zombies. We were backstage and our friends were in zombie makeup and costumes, ready to go, when suddenly the generator ran out of gas. We were like, ohhh… In the end, we still had a zombie street dance. And later on we relocated to an empty alley in Mile End.”

Partly a statement on the homogenization of gay culture, and partly an excuse to get a bunch of friends to dress up as zombies and drink and dance around, the video, shot in Super 8 by film collective Volatile Works, ended up a smashing, brain-gorging success. “Fifty people came dressed up as zombies and danced like gay clones in the alley, and then got transformed back to being radical queers through the power of dance. We were superheroes who killed all the zombies with the power of excellent dance moves.”

Record launch with DJ Mini at Parking tonight,
Thursday, Sept. 29, 10 p.m.

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