Miss Stacia, Geek Bridezilla

If, hypothetically, a man wanted to marry me today, we would have to become water brothers first. For the growing closer. We'd teleport everyone to San Francisco for a reception at the Museum of Comic Art where the main exhibit would be a Neil Gaiman retrospective, with a display of poster artists who have crossed over into comic books in the adjacent room. (Hello, Tara McP!) The first half of the night everyone would dance to Neo's "Closer," played on repeat. The second half of the night, "Closer" would alternate with "Crazy In Love," for old time's sake. The one slow dance of the evening would be to Taylor Swift's "Breathe," (our wedding song in spite of its melancholy theme) and every person, single and coupled, would be forced to play Snowball in honor of my illustrious bar-mitzvah dancing career. Graffiti artists would decorate our tablecloths and our party favors would be blind box Kozik Smokin Labbits with pictures of the in-love couple's faces taped to the bunnies' infamous buttholes.

My husband and I would don Wedding edition Nikes, and I would wear a white playsuit - something like this:

But whiter, and frillier, and with black tights.

Our invitations would be screenprinted by Kayrock and Wolfy and hand-delivered by Phillipe Petit.

I would throw a bouquet of chocolate-covered bacon to my bridesmaids before Edward James Olmos picked me and my man up in the Galactica to take us on our honeymoon on Caprica, which will have been rebuilt for the occasion and staffed by nothing but shirtless Anders' and red-dressed Model 6's. Our fidelity wouldn't last the week, but neither of us would care.

Sums and Summaries: 2008 In Mathematical Review

The Basics: Counting One Through Ten (Albums)
1. Lil' Wayne – Tha Carter III (If you are "the best rapper alive," it probably means you're number one.)
2. Taylor Swift – Fearless (It only took the musical musings of a fifteen-year old to make me want to pick out a white dress and baby just say, yes.)
3. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago (Drives home the heartache. Worth every falsetto-inspired tear.)
4. Lykke Li – Youth Novels (Electronically-engineered coyness. I Lykke a lot.)
5. Girl Talk – Feed the Animals ("No Diggity" over "Flashing Lights," over my first race of 6.2 miles. Not to mention a cameo by Rod-the-young-hearthrob-Stewart.)
6. Jenny Lewis – Acid Tongue (Grand poeticism awash in indie country loveliness.)
7. Kaki King – Dreaming of Revenge (Humble instrumental contemplation.)
8. Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight (The Frames minus the movie deal.)
9. Vampire Weekend – Self-Titled (You can be pro "Oxford Comma," while remaining anti-Oxford comma.)
10. Why? Alopecia (Why[?] do I love thee? For your bar mitzvah references and Williamsburg Bridge companionship.)

Remainders
Fleet Foxes – Self-Titled (Breezy harmonies.)
Amanda Palmer – Who Killed Amanda Palmer? (Brash horns.)
Kanye West – 808's and Heartbreak (Vocoder soul.)

Now Ten Back to One (Songs)
10. M.I.A - "Paper Planes" (Thumping. Bass.)
9. Kaki King - "Pull Me Out Alive" (Heart. Aches.)
8. Beyonce – "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)" (Man. Up.)
7. MGMT – "Electric Feel" (Throw. Back.)
6. Lil' Wayne - "Let The Beat Build" (Lift. Lower.)
5. Kanye West – "Love Lockdown" (Bang. Drum.)
4. Jenny Lewis – "Acid Tongue" (Sparse. Strum.)
3. The Dodos – "Fools" (Chorale. Rush.)
2. Lykke Li – "Little Bit" (Maybe. Love.)
1. Ne-Yo – "Closer" (Billie. Jean.)

Simple Equation for a Swedish Idol Sandwich: Lykke Li's "I'm Good I'm Gone" + Amanda Jennsen's "Do You Love Me" + Lykke Li's "Little Bit" = Syncopated Strutting Down City Streets

Fitness Routine Breakdown in Percentages
20% Ellipticalness: Robyn – Self-Titled (Inspiring Stacey's haircut '09?)
30% Weightensity: Rihanna – Good Girl Gone Bad ('07, so sue me.)
40% Treadmillocity: Beyonce – I Am Sasha Fierce (Run those thighs into '88 leotard shape.)
10% Abdomination: Lil' Wayne - "Let The Beat Build" (Over and over and beyond (8)'08.)


Who Says These Lists Have No Logic?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beyonce's I Am...Sasha Fierce (Disc 1) < Solange's Sol-Angel & The Hadley St. Dreams < Beyonce's I Am...Sasha Fierce (Disc 2)

THEREFORE:

Matthew Knowles = RICH
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" > I'm From Barcelona's "Paper Planes" (On the dance floor.)
M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" < I'm From Barcelona's "Paper Planes" (In the headphones.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
IF:
Anyone who like Taylor Swift has something in common with eight year old girls.
AND
Miss Stacia likes Taylor Swift.
THEN:
Miss Stacia has something in common with eight-year old girls.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Random Data and Analysis (No Numerical Equivalent):

Electric show no one else (critic or companion) seemed to enjoy: M.I.A. @ McCarren Park, 6/6/08 (Put my neon Nikes to their proper rhythmic use.)

Oops! Forgot I had a ticket to: She & Him @ Terminal 5, 7/26/08 (Was it good? Anyone?)

Discovered I like leaning on the balcony more than standing on the main floor at: Wolf Parade @ Terminal 5, 8/31/08 (I also like a game of shuffleboard, some warm milk, and a nap after the show.)

Partied like it was my birthday at: Girl Talk @ Terminal 5, 11/16/08 (And nearly spent the midnight transition to age 26 on the coat check line.)

Most uncomfortable broadway show to see with your grandparents: Spring Awakening (Incestuous rape and live sex-simulation, followed immediately by intermission. "So how do YOU like it so far?")

How can I justify having watched so much of: The Pickup Artist (I claim research for self-defense against furry hats and goggles and terms like "kino.")

Biggest waste of Maggie Gyllenhal: "The Dark Knight Returns" (Better when Maggie is the dark one.)

Proof that a stellar cast, a decent concept, and a sprinkling of directorial fairy dust does not an awesome movie make: "Be Kind Rewind" (WTF Michel, I thought you HAD this!)

Best reason to stay home (or stay up drunk until 4am with your DVR) on Summer Friday nights: Battlestar Galactica (I heart thee Kara Thrace.)

Why the frak are they making me wait from June until 2009 for: The Battlestar finale. (This is Cylon-prison-on-New-Caprica-level torture.)

Movie That Made Me Want to be French (more than usual): "Man on Wire" (It also made me want to be muse to a man in leggings.)

Totally didn't need to see you twice in theaters: "Sex and The City The Movie" (Seppuku with a Manolo before viewing number 3.)

So glad I double dipped in: Murakami @ The Brooklyn Museum (Semen lassos! Breast-milk jump ropes! Anime-chicks transforming into airplanes!)

Proof that the lord is my personal curator: "Warhol's Jews" exhibit at The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco (Where screenprinting meets Golda Meir.)

Proof that Weezy groks the fullness of Robert A. Henlein's, Stranger In A Strange Land: The freaktastic lyrics to "Phone Home" ("We are not the same, I am a Martian.")

Almost lived up to the greatness of Sandman: Y The Last Man and Alias. (Is the fantasy to DATE Yorick and/or Jessica Jones or BE Yorick and/or Jessica Jones. I haven't yet decided.)

Got its ass kicked by the King of Dreams: Girls by the Luna Brothers (A hundred naked chicks per frame, all paling in comparison to Death's gothy hottness.)

Fortune Cookie Fortune Found At The Bottom Of The Wallet '08: You find beauty in ordinary things. (Like fortune cookie fortunes. And year-end lists.) Do not lose this ability.

Summer School Session 1: Old Men, Young Men

Around age 10, after two years of tearful tantrums and rebellion against practicing on the Jones family’s glorious and virtually untouched baby grand, the piano and I parted ways, citing compatibility issues. The piano wanted me to learn how to play music in 3/8, and my decidedly non-mathematical brain said, “No fucking chance. Not gonna happen.” The notes promised me I’d know them by reciting things like “All Cars Eat Gas” and “Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge,” but my heart said “All Cars, Who Cares?, and Every Good Boy Sort Of Has Cooties, But Is Also Sort Of Kind Of Cute.” Songbooks tried to win me over with remedial versions of timely pop hits like “Wind Beneath My Wings,” and “Take My Breath Away (Love Theme from Top Gun!),” but my advanced eight-year-old cultural meter proclaimed, “Bah! I am already over you, songs that will function only as nostalgia and punchline material in the future. To the television!” And so my prolific music career ended before it started, leaving me more time to memorize words to Mariah Carey (pop songs with longevity!), and fantasize about Zack Morris while watching him stop Jesse from ruining her life with caffeine pills.

Of course, in my adulthood, nothing has been as disappointing to me as my inability to play and read music. And as someone who has written pretty regularly about the subject, I often wonder if a deeper understanding of the technical components of music would lead to more pointed and poignant expression of my ideas. Is it really the minor key that makes this song to sound so morose? What is a minor key exactly? What makes up a key, period?

Since I’ve never been able to concentrate much on non-fiction or un-aided instructional readings, I decided to pursue my musical enlightenment in the only way the academic, structurally-inclined Jewish girl in me knew how – by signing up for a class at the Y.

My first attempt at the 92nd Street Y’s Beginner Music Theory class was short-lived. I made it to two classes – just long enough to review the bass and treble clefs using a set of meticulously constructed note-bearing flashcards - before I had to call it quits to take a job in the infamous Dub Room (a job that, in it’s earliest incarnation, occupied me from the awkwardly scheduled hours of 11am-8pm).

Nothing much stood out about the makeup of that first class, except that I remember hoping for it to be populated by hot Jewish guys with a fetish for evening hour extra-curriculars, and ended up swimming in a sea of old people. But since I have always enjoyed excelling in an academic environment, I consoled myself with the thought that even though I wouldn’t be making out with my classmates, I’d probably be kicking their wrinkled asses in class participation. (Mind you, there are no grades or tests and not even a modicum of encouraged competitive energy in this classroom setting, aside from the assertion to “challenge yourself.”)

When I walked into the classroom on the first day of my second attempt at Music Theory two weeks ago, the class element struck me as basically the same, if not a bit more fragrant with comedic possibility.

There are about fifteen students total, five of which are women in their late forties to mid sixties. This is the repetitive-question-asking contingent of the class. One woman in particular, who is taking piano lessons concurrently with the theory class, asks questions between every other breath, which explains why her instrument of choice is not the clarinet. At the end of the first class she addressed us all, asking, “Does anyone live near 55th and Lex? We could be study partners!” Much to her dismay, the entire class had decided, just that moment, to move to Brooklyn.

There is also a decent collection of early-to-late 20’s males, many of whom are trapped in the dorkiest of classical music clamshells (I love me some nerds, but I need a popoccultcha man. Or at least a sci-fi dweeb.). As the only class representation of the mid-twenties female, I get these sexy Beethovens AAAAALLL to myself.

But the classmates who are really going to make this class worth the rush hour trip on the green line, revealed themselves quite gloriously.

First was Elliot, who is roughly 200 years old. When our instructor asked Elliot if he had an email address for the class contact sheet, Elliott responded saying, “Yes, after four months I finally learned how to use it. It’s Elliot at yahoo dot com. Yahoo, like the drink.”

Yes, Elliot, like the drink! I am now working on an Elliot version of the Teddy Ruxpin doll in which a motorized, talking old man explains the origins of his email address over and over again.

In the getting to know you segment of the class, Elliot also revealed that he has been playing the harmonica for 70 years (!!!), the guitar for 50 years (!!), and the banjo for 5 (!). He’s a little winded, and his fingers are damned tired, but for the last two hundred years, he has found that an artificial chocolate drink both gives him the pick up he needs, while unlocking the key to new technology.

The other gem of the class was revealed immediately after Elliot in roll call. The name Karen was called, and a muffled, pubescent voice from the back of the room corrected, “That’s my mom. I’m Dylan.”

As we went around the room answering the questions, “What do you do?” and “Why are you here?” - answers that prompted others to say things like, “I’m in risk management and I’d like to read music,” or “I’m an actor and I want to play the piano” - Dylan responded in hilarious deadpan, “I’m in the ninth grade,” and then revealed that he plays guitar and is in a band, the name of which I’m dying to know. His expression throughout class suggested that the real answer to the question “Why are you here?” was “My mom made me come,” which makes me all the more desperate to co-opt young Dylan as my study buddy and facts-of-life advisee. I can only pray he lives in Brooklyn.

Thus, the promise of wisdom pearls from the class bookends of Elliot and Dylan may finally make it worth it for me to break out of my 4/4 shell. We’ll see how it goes.

A Black Dress Away From a Goth Girl

An artists' representation of a hypothetical, 15-year old, comic-book loving Miss Stacia

Around page 9 of “Brief Lives,” otherwise known as Volume 7 of Neil Gaiman’s epic Sandman series, I came upon a panel that first haunted me, and then changed my perception of my adolescence, forever.

In the panel, the character know as Delirium, one of the seven anthropomorphized, intangible forces known as the Endless, enters a nightclub on her search for her departed older brother Destruction. The nightclub is raunchy and replete with fishnet and leather clad club kids; a song pervading the background in wisps overhead with the words:

“All the word just stopped now. So you say you don’t wanna stay together anymore. Let me take a deep breath babe.”

I am waiting for my dinner date in a Japanese restaurant when I read this, and a soft rock soundtrack stunts my ability to place the familiar lyrics.

“Shit. I know this.”

…

“Oh my god, it’s Tori!”

The existence of a friendship/working relationship between Tori Amos and Neil Gaiman had been brought to my attention a few weeks earlier, when, in my desperation at not being able to find Sandman Volumes 3 and 4 in any Manhattan book or comic store (disaster!), I started reading Gaiman short stories to keep myself in the dream zone. In Fragile Things, Gaiman’s most recent story collection, I came upon reprinted program notes for Tori’s Strange Little Girls tour, written by the fantasy master at the request of the fiery songstress.

I happened to attend a show on the Strange Little Girls tour when I lived in Boston and I remember those glossy programs vividly. The concept of the album, which marked the point where my Tori fandom actually began to wither, involved Tori embodying a different female personality on each track, dressing in costumey garb for a series of comic (as in laughable) portraits and repurposing songs like Eminem’s "Bonnie and Clyde" to disastrous effect. Gaiman’s job was to craft short poems to complement each song/lady package, and the results were disjointed, strangely voiced, and lacking resonance, especially compared to his portrayal of females in his comic (as in book) work.

But discovering my latest dark obsession and my teen angst obsession had at one point converged, was at once electric and satisfying.

So I’m still sitting in the Japanese restaurant, eyes glued to the corner of a page in Volume 7, written eleven years before Fragile Things and six before the release of Strange Little Girls, and I'm still processing that by the time Gaiman had come to the tail end of his epic about Morpheus, Lord of Dreams, Tori had already crawled her way into his creative headspace. But I haven't yet answered the question of where the hell those lyrics are from, exactly.

I plug my ears with my fingers and the humming commences, while in my head I access:

All the world just stopped now
So you say you don’t wanna stay to-
gether anymore
Let me take a deep breath babe

...

If you need me and NEIL’LL BE…

(inner “HOLY SHIT!”)

HANGING OUT WITH THE DREAM KING

Now, I am not a lyrics person, generally speaking. I have gone many years only half-knowing the lyrics to my very favorite songs, and occasionally something will come out and clarify a particularly nonsensical Stacia translation and my world of references will be forced to adjust for accuracy. In the case of these particular Tori lines, for example, I have always ignored the fact that I had no idea who Neil was, and had translated the remainder of the lyrics as follows:

If you need me
Me and Neil’ll be
Hanging out with the Dream Team

For over a decade, as far as I knew, Tori could have been singing about the 1986 New York Mets.

Needless to say, when I discovered this Sandman reference, embedded in track 10 of my beloved Little Earthquakes, it triggered a moment of elation. It was like recognizing you and your boyfriend were at the same concert, sitting three seats away from each other, ten years before you ever met. My mouth hung open for the first minute and a half after I made the connection, and then I sat squealing, wanting to scream out to the heavens like a love crazed fool. I felt a desperate need to call someone and explain how I just discovered this beautiful overlap of two cultural loves of my life, but when I tried to think of someone who would appreciate the intersection, I came up blank. Finding people who simultaneously appreciate sci-fi and fantasy graphic novels and feministic piano-driven singer songwriters is a tough assignment, unless you’re smoking cigarettes on the middle school handball courts in 1995.

Suddenly, I thought of a girl named Jane, with whom I shared a relationship slightly above the acquaintance level in middle and high school. Jackie had a propensity for wearing black, brandishing smudgy eyeliner and spitting dark, sarcastic comebacks. She also had a sister who introduced her to The Cure and whose overall grumpiness found solace in the lyrically potent females acts of the early nineties. I was still inhabiting the land of bubblegum pop radio when Jane and I knew each other, but had picked up a Tori cassette tape on a cross country trip one summer, so the two of us occasionally talked about Tori or PJ Harvey or Fiona Apple, who may have been even a little too sensitive for Jane’s sensibilities.

Ten years later, it occurs to me Jane probably would have loved Sandman and may have even experienced it in its comic form. Did Jane experience the concurrent growth of Tori and Gaiman’s careers? Did she read the line from “Tear In Your Hand,” on page 9 in 1995 and let off a sarcastic smirk of knowing? And if Jane and my relationship had blossomed beyond Mrs. Chang’s history class, would I be long past (or deeper into?) the world of Gaiman right now?

When I first started reading Sandman, my awesome friend Comic Guy Mike informed me it was a book that, when released, was particularly embraced by goth kids. As someone with a pretty morbid sense of humor, a realistic-bordering-on-pessimistic view of the world, and hair that, if any darker, would take on a Betty and Veronica blue-black sheen, it's apparent I was probably an influential friend and a black dress away from life as a teenage goth girl. Which perhaps explains my newfound inclination to wear tons of deep blue eyeliner, the color of which can be found otherwise only on salesgirls at Hot Topic, and in the Dreamworld.

My New Theme Song

"Hot Dog (Watch Me Eat)"



(Song by The Detroit Cobras)

Postercrastination!: And the Awareness that Awesome Band Names Do Exist

The Darryl Strawberries? Really??? Why does this name make me want to give people high fives? Usually I'm into strawberries, but not strawberry flavored things. Why does this hit that sweet, fruity spot?

Perhaps because 'Darryl' serves as the flavor in this case, lending heartbreaking memories of glory turned to ruination to the band's identification. Maybe because this forename, so often chanted from the stands in the drawn and yawning, "Daaaaar-ryyyyyyyl," contrasts so nicely with the sweet sound of pluralized fruit. Perhaps because even though it's easy to love Darryl Strawberry in the same way people seem to love David Hasselhoff these days (ironically), I love the Strawb as my friend Sarah loves Baywatch's leading man -- wholeheartedly and a little more when he's shirtless. I could fill an-about-to-be-knocked down-stadium with genuine affection for the first baseball player I - the daughter of a lifelong Met fan - ever recognized by name.

I haven't been able to find much info on The Darryl Strawberries, but I did come across their Jersey-based doppelgängers. For some reason Darryl and the Strawberries doesn't work quite as well. (Though I do like their poster.) I don't want just one Darryl and some fruit. I want a band of fruity Darryls.



***UPDATE: The best part about being in a fantasy baseball league is that your fellow managers will send you pictures like this one (The Awareness that Awesome Photographs Do Exist) and have conversations like the one that follows, when you tell them you posted something about Darryl Strawberry to your blog:

C: I have two questions for you, unrelated
K: shoot
C: did Hassellhoff ever make a Simpsons cameo
K: not to my knowledge
K: unless it was post season 10 or something
C: and from Stacey, do people love Darryl Strawberry ironically
C: or do they just love him
K: oh
K: that's tough
C: ie, do they love him the same way people love David Hassellhoff
C: I say no
K: if you can call it love it's certainly not ironic. absolutely not
K: i love straw for the reason i don't love doc
K: straw overcame himself, at least as far as baseball
K: rather, he never stopped trying to beat his demons
C: I'm with you
C: hadn't made the Doc leap, but I like it
K: doc just never gave a fuck
K: both unfairly talented who did whatever they could to waste that talent--it just strikes me that doc was into it and straw was not
K: does she love straw ironically?
C: do you mind if I copy/paste this to stacey
C: I just don't want to retype it
K: no please do
C: she claims to love Straw wholeheartedly
C: and was saying most people love him ironically
C: I said no
K: ahh
K: i think straw proved himself w/ the 99 yankees

So people don't love Strawberry ironically. Everyone's just full of Berry nostalgia. It should be noted that though I'm in a fantasy baseball league and have been privileged to have a father with season's tickets to Shea since '88, I haven't really been measuring the way males in particular have felt about Darryl over the past fifteen years -- so I apologize for being one of the many to throw up her hands and claim irony at the first sign of complex cultural affection. Still, both Hoff and Sir Strawberry will end up on hipster t-shirts, if they haven't already.

Postercrastination!: Seek and Find

Though concert posters with illegible text usually get under my skin (why bother making a poster only to obscure the information it's promoting?), I couldn't help but take to this poster by Fast Friends Inc. with its technicolor muppet doodles, perfected in high school detention. This is one of those hand drawn numbers that reveals its wonders both at a distance, like a magic eye, and up under the magnifying glass where you can take notice of its tiny, kindergarten-culled artifacts. While pulling mini treasures from my first grade teacher's rewards drawer and the toy chest at the dentists office, these guys still managed to spray the whole image in large-cocked ludicrousness. A stick(er)y recipe for success!





See if you can find all of the surprises:

1. elephant
2. hamburger
3. sunglasses
4. 2 kiddie pool tubes
5. Hello Kitty
6. the name Alice
7. Superman
8. blue crab
9. 5 magic mushrooms
10. large multicolor penis (spewing a band-name-explosion)

Le Groupe Cinématographique

The following article recently appeared in the Williamsburg Greenpoint News + Arts, a paper I know exists because I swiped a few copies the day they landed on the stoop of Pharmacy Neapolitano (on the corner of Graham and Metropolitan), but who's inexplicable lack of online presence serves as a serious inhibitor to proof of print for anyone living outside of my immediate neighborhood. The piece was written for the paper's LOVE issue, and I'm posting it here so you can share in it. (The LOVE , that is.)

Love of Cinema Powers Rock from Williamsburg's La Laque


credit: Sean McCabe

La Laque’s sole collective asset as a band is a DVD of Tenacious D’s "The Pick of Destiny" that lead singer Devery Doleman picked up before band practice one day at the FYE on 6th Avenue for $9.99. This may appear to be an odd investment for a band whose elegant style and sexy, menacing sound seems derived more from classic noir movies of the thirties than overlooked stoner comedies of 2007, but it’s astounding how many films this Williamsburg quintet has effectively combed for inspiration.

“We’re all HUGE, HUGE movie fans,” says drummer Ben Shapiro. “It’s kind of all we talk about, and all we think about all the time.”

Though the band initially formed in late 2003, La Laque has been together in it’s current incarnation since 2004, weaving songs initially born as straight surf rock and 60’s pop pastiche, into darker, sexier compositions, fraught with dirty surf guitar and swathed in Doleman’s textured, breathy vocals. The band’s evolution into, as guitarist and main songwriter Michael Leviton describes it, “a dark indie rock band with French, surfy elements,” has pushed them far beyond the borders of kitch and gimmick. Their songs, lustful and tragic, paint pictures of smoke filled dives, intimate rendezvous, and haughty femme fatales.

Doleman is partially responsible for guiding the band down this storyteller’s path. Since the band’s inception, she has penned La Laque’s lyrics completely in French, both to take advantage of her incredible talent for manipulating the language’s vocabulary and diction, and because she simply finds her voice to be a suppler instrument en Français. This presents her bandmates with the unique challenge of creating music sympathetic to lyrics in a foreign language.

“Most of us don’t know what the lyrics mean,” says Leviton. “Leah (Hayes) and Devery do – but the rest of us are responding to a kind of story or visual feeling of what they evoke. What it sounds like it’s expressing, as opposed to what it’s expressing in words. We may react to something that seems scary, or intensely romantic, just as you'd write music for a movie, I think.”

Luckily, the band’s organ player and backup singer (Hayes) is a horror movie fanatic, their main songwriter and guitarist (Leviton) also writes screenplays, and their bassist (Brad Banks) and drummer (Shapiro) have been known to seek out screenings of Otto Preminger noir films on the weekends. The band's recently released, self-titles EP suggests There may not be a band better equipped to spin French-led songs into luscious, compelling, cinema-style narrative.


credit: Sasha Rudensky

Though the dramatic interplay of Doleman’s cool, delicate delivery with the dark, lush waves of sound summoned by the rest of the band is clearly articulated on record, on stage the vocals can at times be sacrificed to the energy of the band’s live show. But even if her voice can’t push through the raucousness of the rhythm section, Doleman serves as a guide through La Laque’s live landscape with her sleek stage mannerisms, punctuating Hayes’ organ chords with perfectly timed bats of her eyelashes and dancing to Leviton's guitar.

“Devery, as a focus for the band, channels all of that smoldering energy on stage out to the audience,” says Banks. “Kind of like a lens that we all focus thorough, all that heat kind of comes through her to the crowd.”

Thus, even in a live show that rocks hard, something classic and cinematic is transmitted – a reflection of old glamour, and the sexual potency and mystery of the films the band collectively adores.

La Laque’s self-titled debut EP is now available on iTunes.