Cruise lines crossed

>> Queer history and dirty dyke dance jams collide on the latest from Lesbians on Ecstasy

IN THE KNOW: Lesbians on Ecstasy

by ANDREA ZANIN

When Montreal’s Lesbians on Ecstasy got on stage for the first time in 2004, little did they know their savvy, tongue-in-cheek reworking of classic lesbian tunes into hyper-charged techno tracks would make them an instant dyke hit. They began touring with le Tigre even before releasing their self-titled debut album later that year, which was picked as Album of the Year by The Advocate.

Since then, they’ve been touring across North America and Europe, and recording their new album, We Know You Know, launching this Friday at Club Lambi. The Mirror caught up with the Lezzies’ keyboardist/sampler operator Bernie Bankrupt to quiz her about the album, and got a surprise crash course in lesbo music history.

Mirror: On your debut album, you turned Melissa Etheridge’s passionate “Like the Way I Do” into a hardcore genderfucked sex song, and k.d. lang’s melodious “Constant Craving” into a frenetic anti-consumerist rant. On We Know You Know, you’ve continued to create darkly danceable songs, like “The Cold Touch of Leather” and “Party Time (A Womyn’s Luv),” but this time you started with unknown, 1970s womyn’s acoustic music from small, independent, feminist-run labels. What inspired that choice?

Bernie Bankrupt: It’s an easy sell to pick music you know and play around with it. For us, the challenge was, what is other lesbian music? Anyone who’s into sample-based music knows there’s a wealth of music produced in the past—a lot of the work is about finding it, but it’s out there. So we started to dive into indie music that didn’t get much radio play. We took a lot from an Olivia Records compilation album called Lesbian Concentrate. It was the first album ever put out with the word “lesbian” in the title, and it came out exactly 30 years ago. It was a fundraiser to promote lesbian community groups as a response to Anita Bryant, who spearheaded a major anti-homosexual campaign called Save Our Children. The songs have titles like “Leaping Lesbians” and “Ode to a Gym Teacher.” It’s great! From that, we decided what to explore with our mash-up techno style.

Olivia Records started in 1973. All the music was made by a very separatist collective, no men were allowed. They used female technicians and sound engineers, and it’s all obviously optimistic and utopian. But 30 years later, it’s hard not to be a little bit jaded. In the mid-’80s, the record label turned into Olivia Cruises, a luxury cruise line for wealthy lesbians. It makes you question things, like, where is feminism at, how do you work with second-wave feminist discourse today?

Militancy or mirth?

M: So you take queer/feminist academic analysis and turn it into hefty, dark techno-industrial music. That’s gotta be an uncommon approach.

BB: Well, I’m overstating it in a way. Really, we just listen to songs and make funky techno versions of them. I do think about all these things, about the way we choose and work with songs, but in terms of our process, it’s all subtext, we don’t talk about this when we’re remixing and sampling. At the end of the day, it’s all about the music.

M: Does everyone get the joke?

BB: I don’t know. I think for straighter people in the music scene, they don’t know if we’re super-militant crazy lesbians, or if we’re just taking the piss out of it all. Some people have criticized us for being obsessed with being lesbians—“Why can’t you just make music?” But why can’t we just have fun with our culture and our scene?

M: The album isn’t even out yet, and you’ve already turned it into a rock opera, Amphitheatre of Homosexuality. How did that happen?

BB: The idea came when we were asked to perform at the Biennale de Montréal. The rock opera follows the narrative flow we felt was already on the album. It’s gonna be all about the fall from enchantment with the possibility of feminism, but hopefully with some redemption at the end of it.

M: Tell us about the album launch.

BB: We’re really excited to have our own party in Montreal. Things get complicated in the music industry, but we just want a good, raunchy queer dance party.

CD launch with the Ballet, Kandis C, Jordan Dare and Leila P at Club Lambi on Friday, April13, 9 p.m., $12 at the door. Amphitheatre of Homosexuality is at the SAT on Saturday, May 12, $25, info at www.ciac.ca/ biennale2007/en/musique.html