Dykes can dance!

The gals of Lesbians on Ecstasy deliver the goods

by JOHN CUSTODIO

Think "lesbian music" and what comes to mind? The earnest political folk of the Indigo Girls? Ani DiFranco? The stadium rock of Melissa Etheridge? Riot Grrl punk? Le Tigre? Probably not dance music, though, right?

Enter the Lesbians on Ecstasy. I had the privilege of seeing this group's debut performance at the Maids in Cyberspace festival last winter. If you think you know your lesbian anthems, think again: until you've danced to the Lesbians on Ecstasy versions, you haven't fully experienced them. The Mirror spoke to the group's founding members, lead vocalist Fruity Frankie and Ensonique player Bernie Bankrupt.

Mirror: First of all, what's with the name?

Frankie: We think our music is what lesbians taking ecstasy for the first time would want to hear. We take their favourite songs and set them to danceable electronic beats. It's kd lang like they've never imagined, but always dreamed of.

M: You know, even before I had actually heard your music, I loved your concept. Lesbian anthems with beats you can dance to: brilliant! Whose idea was that?

Bankrupt: We went to this party and it turned out that the entertainment scheduled for the evening included this folk singer -

F: - who did this amazing, stripped-down version of Melissa Etheridge's "Like the Way I Do," and I couldn't help thinking: what a great song!

B: We were really stoned and we thought, wouldn't it be great if someone did a kind of mega-dance cover version? Two days later, I found a vinyl copy of that Melissa Etheridge album at a garage sale.

F: It was a sign (laughs).

Beyond parody

M: You're laughing, but you're not just doing parodies, are you?

B: Not at all. If anything, we're paying tribute.

F: We want to reach lesbians who don't normally listen to dance music, but we also want to introduce content into dance music.

M: What do you mean?

B: Political content. That's what's so great about a lot of lesbian music, it doesn't shy away from strong political messages. That spirit is missing from most dance music.

F: We do a cover of an Indigo Girls song, for example, which gives me the opportunity to sing lyrics like "Someone's got his finger on the button in some room / No one can convince me we aren't gluttons for our doom."

B: And when we do "Constant Craving," we make it over into an anti-consumerist manifesto.

M: So you're like riot grrls gone all electronic and digital.

B: Well, we're all over the genre map, not just electronic. What does that mean now, anyway? People think electro-clash - either that or some guy with a laptop.

F: We never wanted to go too far in that virtuoso-with-a-laptop direction, Jackie [aka the Jackhammer, percussionist] especially. Both she and Véronique [Mystique, bassist] come from rock backgrounds, so there's a strong emphasis on the live performance aspect of our music.

B: We did think it would be funny, though, to set up a couple of those cardboard display computers like you see at IKEA, and pretend to play them.

M: For the MUTEK festival? Yeah, they'd love that.

B: Or real computers, even, but just so we could check our e-mail.

F: But that's another project.

The Lesbians on Ecstasy will perform at Plastik Patrik's Sex Garage stage at Divers/Cité on Sunday, August 3 at 3pm