Pansy power

Divers/Cité's alternaqueer line-up is a little bit country and a lot rock 'n' roll

by DANNY LEGARE and SARAH MUSGRAVE

Cosmo cities know queer culture is not all disco and glitz - gays like it gritty, too! This year, Divers/Cité continues to counterbalance spit-shined and sparkly entertainment with a bigger-than-ever line-up of alternaqueer acts. From Sex Garage to Homorama to the Pride Ball, Montreal celebrates gay grit with electrorockers, blues garagists and even cowboy crooners.

Turbo homos

Leading the cock-rock contingent, Brooklyn-based Black Moustache fuses raw-nerved guitar, electronic energy and a heavy dose of pop culture self-consciousness. To wit, the name of this one-year-old outfit combines the most-overused colour in underground band monikers with a long history of faggy facial hair, from '50s porn prototype Tom of Finland to Queen's Freddie Mercury (not to mention current soap stars and Canadian political leaders).

"Some people think moustaches are gay - especially in the Tom of Finland way," fuzz-faced frontman Spencer Product says. "But other than that, it references the '70s, when a lot of men wore moustaches and when, it just so happens, porn was becoming huge."

Groin-grinding is familiar ground to Product who, in addition to pioneering the electroclash movement along with Larry Tee a few years back, is known for his Prince-covering alter-ego, Prance. His latest live projet d'art, combining punk rock aesthetics with electro antics, finds itself somewhere between the New York hardcore scene and a Hollywood pool party. It's post-modern, it's pro-dance, it's pre-coital and it's won over mixed audiences in NYC - most of them, anyway. "I'm still trying to convince my older brother that a sampler is a musical instrument, too," Product jokes.

Black Moustache play dirty with local fave DJ Frigid at Homorama, a night of leather and lust, co-hosted by the retro rebels of peeler posse Skin Tight Outta Sight at Just for Laughs Studio (2109 St-Laurent), Friday, July 30, 10 p.m., $20.

Parton me, pardner?

"Queers love a good time and country music is a good time," says singer/strummer Tucker Doherty of the Jane Waynes, a Toronto group that takes the Sex Garage stage in a decidedly Western direction. "Country music can sort of grow on you and it takes a well-adjusted Canadian to actually admit they love it. There will, of course, always be those queers who are too cool for country. They'll wait until someone tells them it's okay to like it."

These gender-bending banjo rockers started "as drag country," Doherty explains. "We dressed like cowboys and we often sang from a male point of view. While it's clear to see why some would see a post-modern edge, we were also just some dykes playing with gender. It's part of dyke culture to do that." More than mere novelties, however, the Waynes admit to being shameless fans of Dolly Parton as well as Loretta Lynn. "She has a song called "Women's Prison" on her new CD and so do we. Of course, in the Jane Waynes' version, women's prison is a blessing not a curse!"

The Jane Waynes take prisoners at de Maisonneuve and Berri, on Sunday, Aug. 1, along with locals Duchess Says and Echo Kitty, plus Kids on TV (see sidebar), starting at 1 p.m. On Saturday, July 31, programmer par excellence Plastik Patrik has booked the stage with the garage/blues sounds of Olympia, WA, trio the Gossip for a soirée of stripped-down soul. They share the bill with Chernobyl Cha-Cha from Quebec City and Frigid live (yes, the one and sexy same).

Electrical outlet

This year, the Pride Ball gets a shock of original electro thanks to Tommie Sunshine, whose unpredictable mix of rockin' disco punk has earned him the title "the Iggy Pop of DJs." Originally from Chicago, then based in Atlanta, now NYC, Sunshine has collaborated in the studio with Felix Da Housecat and DJ Hell, and provided his production madskillz on everything from Fischerspooner to Avril Lavigne to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. In addition to early electroclash fests, he's played Bjork's tour wrap party in Reykjavik and opened for New Order in London - a band, along with Kraftwerk, that he still holds in high regard.

Sunshine shed some light on his evolution. "I was influenced by early New York electro when I was an eighth grade breakdancer, but the main thing that I took from electro, as most people call it, was the possibility of telling a story over seriously moody music," he muses. "The so-called comeback was a different kind of electronic music. Just as disco became house, electro became what was regrettably called electroclash. The artists that will endure the fad are the ones who can present themselves in a way that is not a re-creation of their idols' work - influence is not a bad thing but mimicking the past is."

Mimic the future on Sunday, Aug. 1, at 11 p.m., when Sunshine illuminates the Electro room at Club Aria, along with spin cycles from Spencer Product and Montreal mademoiselle DJ Mini. In the main room, DJ Peter Rauhofer headlines the event. Tickets are $45.