He is what he is

>> El Coyuco and his big, gay, Latin house

by GENEVIEVE PAIEMENT

It happened last Saturday, at the Black & Blue's only Latino party at Latin gay disco/drag bar Exotica: El Coyuco's debut. Sandwiched between a dark, salsa-rific queen with a papier-mach éOlympic Stadium on her head and a dirty-blonde, busty and beehived big-mama queen came a performance by El Coyuco, aka Guiseppe Fagnano, of his song "That's the Way We Are." Dressed in a white military outfit and flanked by a dancing boy and a vampy queen in a camouflage minidress, Fagnano growled in Spanish over a high-energy house beat and waved some glow sticks about like a real macho, macho man.

El Coyuco is Fagnano's alter ego, a raspy-voiced slow-talker who intones over the music of DJ Simon Hook (aka Mario Sforza). "I've travelled so much, I've met so many types of people, so I created a personality to express all these stories. El Coyuco and I both live and let live--even if we don't want to," says Fagnano, who was born in Italy but grew up in Venezuela. El Coyuco is the name of a restaurant in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, the birthplace of the song.

Despite these inspirations and the fact that some of the words come from his Venezuelan grandfather, who was a poet (presumably not the parts where he shouts "fag!" and "oooh, it's wet, super wet"), the spoken dialogue in the song doesn't run too deep. But perhaps my Spanish is not up to par. "The song is about taking off your mask, with a lot of wordplay and double meanings. The words affirm who we are and what we want."

Fagnano will be performing the song again, as part of Exotica's third anniversary this weekend. And El Coyuco is set to shake this flaming gay bastion of "salsa, merengue, cumbia, disco, mambo, tango, flamenco, lambada, rumba etc." (according to the tiny St-Pierre street sign) on fire. "We've taken the heat and sensuality of latin music in another direction, into house. It's about being open about sexuality, about having no judgment." :

El Coyuco performs with Marcos y Pepa and Mado Lamotte at Exotica (417 St-Pierre), Friday, Oct. 13, 9pm, $7