Some scenes from inside last week’s Dangerous Minds-hosted SXSW party in Los Angeles held at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery’s Masonic Lodge. On the big screen were live performances simulcast from the Sub Pop Records SXSW Showcase in Austin featuring Spoek Mathambo, THEESatiscation and Niki + The Dove. The event was produced by Natalie Montgomery and curated by Tara McGinley (ME!), and executive produced by Largetail.
Seen in the crowd were Radiohead, Elizabeth Olsen, members of OK Go, artist Tim Biskup, Amber Tamblyn, Jeff Garland, Aziz Ansari and more. The event was catered by Cool Haus, Grill ‘Em All and Mandoline Grill.
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Inside Masonic Lodge as event is beginning
America’s Funnyman, Neil Hamburger was the event’s MC. His act went over the heads of most attendees—say 80%—but for those more familiar with his unique comedic stylings, the obvious audience discomfort made his shtick even more hilarious that night.
It’s always tempting to call a younger, up and coming artist with an astonishing talent the “new” someone or another. Usually when it’s a female performer with an acoustic guitar, the facile comparison—indeed the _default_ comparison—is Joni Mitchell, but that’s not what I’m feeling with Madi Diaz, a 25-year-old Nashville-based singer-songwriter who is considered one of that musical mecca’s best kept secrets.
Within a sort of thoroughly modern “Americana” context, Diaz and creative partner Kyle Ryan write songs which spring from a pure pop idiom. Hear them once, you’ll never forget them. Diaz’s lyrics are not about abstract subjects, they’re very specific feminine observations of life and relationships. She’s singing about herself—or at least she often writes in the first person—and it can be very powerful, plaintive and heartbreaking. If you married Carly Simon’s knack for the catchy, confessional, pop hit with the DNA of the legendary Anthology of American Folk Music box set, the result of that union would be Madi DIaz’s music.
Madi Diaz, it’s also worth noting, was a student at the School of Rock (both her father and brother are part of the school’s faculty) and first achieved notice as one of the lead teenage protagonists of Don Argott’s 2005 documentary Rock School. As Madi admits, “It’s embarrassing enough to have pictures of you when you’re 15 or 16 years
old; I have an entire doc.”
My Dangerous Minds colleague, Niall O’Conghaile conducted this rather fab interview with the one and only Christeene, the legendary “drag terrorist” and “sexually infused sewer of live rap and vile shamelessness”, who is more than “capable of adapting amazingly well to all styles of music”. Very little is known about Christeene, who has famously seduced and outraged in equal measure an unforgettable career across the U.S.A., leaving broken hearts, devoted followers, and used bodies behind her. Now in an exclusive interview with Dangerous Minds, Christeene tells us all we need to know.
Who is Christeene and where does she come from / how did you meet her?
I met CHRISTEENE in the dirty backyard of a shit shack coffee shop here in Austin called Bouldin Creek during a queer gathering called camp camp. CHRISTEENE was wearing, only, a very messy black rabbit fur coat and a pair of pink junked out high heeled boots. It was love at first sight.
What would you say are the main differences between Paul and Christeene?
I’ll say that the differences are fewer and fewer these days, but the raunch and stank sexuality of CHRISTEENE is something that shifts when it comes back to me. There is a more gentle southern fella on the inside that carries a knife I’d say.
Does Christeene get on with Rebecca Havemeyer?
Only via snail mail, internet, and very brief encounters. They don’t do tea together or anything, but I’m sure it would be a helluva conversation if they did.
Christeene provokes some very strong reactions, good and bad, in both the LGBT press and the mainstream. How do you feel about those reactions? Is there anyone who gets it very well and anyone who gets it completely wrong?
I think that the reactions that come from this work are so very important and need to be heard. All of them. When it all first started with PJ Raval and myself releasing the video for ‘Fix My Dick’, there were a ton of negative comments…especially from this one person who I think of as a kind of internet comment bully….this lone typist who throws verbal missiles from the safety of their stank couch, ya know? This person was so very upset on so many levels…I was called racist, homophobic, transphobic, classist, and the next Shirley Q Liquor. Wowee! This is rough..I’m thinking. I’ve never experienced this kind of an attack before and it’s personal. It’s angry. It’s throwing labels at me. But at the same time it’s fuckin gorgeous and necessary. The stew has been stirred and hot sauce has been thrown in. Good. Very good.
The work being done here is an uncontrollable expression of something very heavy inside of me…it’s not created to merely shock, to splash dick and ass in your face for a laugh. It’s made to make you fuckin think about the state of things…the state of our interwoven communities in the LGBTQIA world and beyond.
CHRISTEENE is an electrically charged dangerous product of our times with a heart of gold, and is used as a very striking yet approachable communicator to the masses. Many fuckin amazing people understand this and attach themselves to the explosion that is taking place onstage with all they’ve got. Those people are wonderful. They offer solid criticism and conversation on what’s being delivered. But the attackers are just as important, and the conversations that come from them, if they have the brains to discuss their anger, are even more wonderful and exciting. Overall, though, the best is the smiling faces from people having the time of their lives with this shit…as we are.
Who are Christeene’s main inspirations? In terms of drag/performance and also musically?
CHRISTEENE is really nspired by the lineage of Drag in performance. The superstars of our day that keep the Drag street in good repair. I have to say that if there is one lady out there that blows my mind, it’s Lady Bunny. Complete adaptation to the times and an impressive hold on the social network. I admire that a lot. But what mostly inspires this work to come out of me is when I think of how I can contribute to all of the amazing forms of Artistic Drag that are out there now and have come before me. It is a beautiful and very historic art form, and I want to explore it and take it to a new level.
It feels like Christeene is an all-round multimedia experience, not just a singer, but a performer/video artist. How do you think she integrates into the performance, video and high art worlds?
I’ll have to say that because of the brilliance of PJ Raval, the work of CHRISTEENE has had the privilege of being put into video and showcased around the world. PJ and I started working together about 3 years ago and our relationship takes the same direction of exploring this new and dangerous creature that is CHRISTEENE with excitement and no restraint. Our videos have been granted access to film fests and art galleries around the world, causing so many people to experience our work who wouldn’t necessarily find themselves in the same room with such stank shit. And in terms of the live shows…they are raw, angry, intimate and real…real as you can get. It’s new, and it burns.
So what exactly is “African Mayonnaise”?
All I can say about African Mayonnaise is that it is a very strange state of mind/experience that we found ourselves in when we were performing at Folsom Street Fair in San Fran back in 2009 I think it was? A very gooood state of mind/experience.
And what exactly is this “new celebrity” and “new America” that Christeene epitomises?
CHRISTEENE isn’t necessarily epitomizing celebrity or America…CHRISTEENE is serving the new breed and brand of it. If this is what these people have become (the current state of things)...if this current state of things is what people have allowed into their living rooms and their states of mind, then this is what these people are going to fuckin get now. Eat it up and hold it in, fuckers.
The video for “African Mayonnaise” is, em, interesting - are there any out takes that didn’t make it in? And who was scarier, the Church of Scientology people who forcibly ejected you form their offices, or the Christians who harassed you on the street at the end?
PJ Raval had sooooo much footage in the end, and our god sent editor, Victoria Chalk was amazingly able to put it all together. She’s the absolute SHIT. There is so much fuckin material that didn’t make it into the video we could make a film out of it. Outtakes? Oh yeah. And by far, the Church of Scientology what the most dangerous place I’ve ever set foot in.
How is Austin at this time of year?
Weather is wonderful, and people are smiling because the devil summer hasn’t hit yet.
Tell us a bit about the Christeene shows coming up at SXSW…
We just performed a show called ‘Get off the Internet” which was created by Alyx Vesey, an amazing writer who gets our shit in all the best ways, and by Homoground and it was fuckin gorgeous. So many amazing bands and people up in the yard of a bar called Cheer Up Charlies here in Austin. And our Showcase was a stank hit as well.
The last thing we’ll kick in the puss is gaybigaygay..and if you are in Austin on Sunday the 18th, you’d be a damned fool to miss this event.
What does the near future hold for Christeene?
A ton of travel with my Boyz, T Gravel, C Baby, JJ Booya and PJ Raval I hope.
And now just a question from me - any plans to come to the UK??
The minute we find a plane that can hold our stank azzesssssssss…we therrrrr. Hold your breath, Hawt Man.
Bruce Springsteen and Eric Burdon performing “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place” in Austin. 3/15.
Bruce Springsteen’s keynote address at SXSW 2012.
Springsteen spoke passionately about the music that had had a profound impact on his own writing. The Boss rhapsodized about Elvis, James Brown, the Animals, and the Beatles, and the anecdotes he told about his encounters with each were revealing, mesmerizing, and sometimes hilarious. But it was the story of his awakening to Woody Guthrie’s work that tells the most about how Springsteen’s writing has changed over the last twenty years, and where he’s likely to going next.
Whether you’re a fan or not, this speech by Springsteen is full of heart and truth. And having just come home from his phenomenal performance at SXSW, I am fully prepared to take on all comers. This cat still rocks and rocks hard!
When Springsteen introduced special guest Eric Burdon at the show he did so by commenting on The Animals hit We Gotta Get Out Of This Place, “That’s every song I’ve ever written. I’m not kidding, that’s all of ‘em.” Burdon proceeded to prove him right. A lovely rock and roll moment.
As pretty much anyone within the reach of the Internet can tell you, this is the week of the big SXSW music, film and interactive festival/convention here in Austin, TX.
The big names are starting to arrive in town. Jay-Z’s in Austin, there are rumors of a super secret Bruce Springsteen show and the whole city is abuzz with movie stars, rock and rollers, rappers, folkies and even a fair selection of computer geeks. [Lots of ironic facial here in Austin, too, but that’s for another discussion.]
Suffice to say, if a nuclear bomb got dropped on Austin this week, the music industry as we currently know it would pretty much cease to exist.
But if you can’t make it to Austin yourself (or if I just scared you away with my irresponsible nuclear bomb talk) and if you are lucky enough to live in Los Angeles (I love saying that), fear not because the fine people at MasterCard PayPass® and Google Wallet have teamed up with Cool Hunting and Dangerous Minds to bring a little of what’s cooking in Austin to you, the Dangeorus Minds reader. And they’re going to feed you and treat you to an open bar.
The Los Angeles event will be MC’d by “America’s Funnyman” Neil Hamburger and DJs that evening will include Chris Holmes, Elijah Wood, Brie Larson and TURQUOISE WISDOM.
Food will be served by Grill Em All and Mandoline Grill with sweet deserts from Coolhaus.
For over a decade, Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard have pumped new life into the sci-fi and horror genres by upending traditional approaches to well-worn tropes and re-imagining them in a post-modern, psychedelically surreal style. As the creators, individually and together, of Lost, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Alias, Firefly and Angel, Whedon and Goddard have conjured up alternate realities of suburban vampires, gigantic lumbering monsters, time-traveling lost souls, sci-fi psychonauts and Modesty Blaisenesque secret agents that have turned the gaze of a generation up from their shoes to the pulsing ray of the TV screen. Rod Serling would be proud of this prolific pair.
With The Cabin in the Woods— which had its world premiere before a packed house a few nights ago at the Paramount Theatre in Austin, TX— director Goddard and his co-writer Whedon start with an homage to Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy and end up mashing up several decades worth of horror movies into 105 minutes of mind bending insanity that no plot summary can do justice to without spoiling the fun. The ingenuity of the movie is in its inspired combination of the familiar and the utterly strange. Just when you think you know where things are headed, the movie takes a turn for the wildly unexpected. The monsters may be old school, true, but The Cabin In the Woods moves with the speed and agility of a young and very hungry Velociraptor.
See the movie premiere photos and read more about The Cabin in the Woods at Tap into Austin 2012.
Greetings from sunny Austin, TX. Well at least it’s supposed to be sunny today and tomorrow, but never mind that persistant pouring rain, Dangerous Minds will be covering the SXSW music festival all this week. I got in last Thursday and Marc Campbell and I have been roaming around Austin trying to take it all in and report back about a little of what’s going on here. It’s a loud, colorful food truck-strewn chaos of a city right now, that’s for sure. Every single square inch of Austin seems to have some sort of corporate branding.
I’ve eaten some great food, seen some amazing films and soon enough the music part of the festival wil start. In the coming days, we’ll be bringing you movie premieres (Small Apartments with Matt Lucas and Johnny Knoxville, the epic new Bob Marley documentary, the charming Grandma Low-Fi, the Bad Brains doc and many more), interviews with Indian Rope, Cloud Nothings, Daytrotter’s Sean Moeller and some “unplugged sessions” that have been scheduled with Jonathan Wilson,Father John Misty, Jenny O, Bee vs. Moth, Madi Diaz, Chelsea Wolfe, Poor Moon and the premiere of a new music video from Bay Area druid spacerockers Lumerians.
Click here to see Mirgun Akyavas’ photo gallery of Austin street art.
Meet Christeene Vale, one of the hottest drag artists in the US right now, and the weirdest thing to come out of Austin this week. If you think the Odd Future gang are shocking, then get a load of this chick. Sure, Tyler and Earl may feature blood and puke in their videos, but would they ever actually set a video inside somebody’s asshole? And as much as I like their beats, I don’t think they could make a dubstep track as downright nasty as “Slowly/Easy”. Still, they’re only teenagers and they’ve got a lot to learn about sex and sexuality. Maybe Christeene is the MC to teach them?
Christeene is the alter-ego of the artist Paul Soileau (who also performs as Rebecca Havemeyer) and since her debut in 2009 with the “Fix My Dick” clip, she has been making waves on both the gay and straight performance scenes. Although Soileau refuses to define Christeene or her “message”, others, like Skip The Make Up, have this to say:
[Even] though Soileau is of Cajun background, the way Chrsteene speaks/sings is clearly supposed to sound non-white. Therefore… the act is really him portraying a trans hooker of color who is massively fucked up and screwing to survive. You may now laugh.
While commenter TheWarholEffect defends her in the comments to the same post:
The patois you speak of is found in a variety of representations of impoverished ethnicities (incl those at least nominally labeled as white - but as you know in Louisianna whiteness ain’t monolithic, Cajuns being perhaps the best example) ... more productive, I think, would be to put Christeene alongside a performer such as Vaginal Creme Davis, whose brand of drag cultural critic Jose Esteban Munoz has branded “terrorist” drag.
Well, despite what you may think of her, you can’t deny that she’s pretty damn talented, with a lyrical flow that puts her beyond the realm of being a mere novelty act. Next weekend she will make her live debut as a showcase artist at the SXSW festival, where her video “Bustin’ Brown” will be shown as part of the Midnight Shorts schedule. Yes, “Bustin Brown” is the butt-set video. The director PJ Raval has this to say about itr:
In “Bustin’ Brown”, the fourth installment of the CHRISTEENE Video Collection, CHRISTEENE confronts the ever-present bastardization of anal sex from mainstream bourgeois heterosexuals by returning “da buh-hole” to its rightful owners.
Just when you thought drag was becoming safe and respectable! Christeene has been known to wear a butt-plug attached to helium balloons in her performance, and to set it free to sail up into the sky at the end of her shows. If you’re lucky, she might do that at SXSW. Now THAT"S something I would like to see on Jimmy Fallon!
Christeene - Bustin’ Brown (TOTALLY NSFW - duh)
“Fix My Dick and “Slowly/Easy” after the jump…
There’s more info on Christeene at her website: www.christeene.org
You can buy her EP Soldiers Of Pleasurehere.
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