Anna Oxygen / Dynasty / Willpower
Hemlock Tavern
December 16, 2003

Sweatin' to the Newbies
Review by Shannon Coulter

In the 1980's, women scared me a little when they seemed to take to aerobics like a bunch of jackals to jackrabbits, grapevining and hop stepping their way into sweaty psychosis.  Twenty years later, there are a bunch of musicians who apparently find the phenomenon hysterically funny, which of course--it is.   A new species of arty indie electroclash popster is recognizable by their preference for singing solo over prerecorded synth tracks ('karoke" Chris called it disparagingly) and for moving around a whole lot.  Some bounce up and down like Tigger on Tina, while others do simple little synchronized dance moves, like..well, like an exercise video.   At the Hemlock on Wednesday, three acts explored a strange land where athletic and the ironic get along so cheerfully, it's chilling. 

A travel sized version of the rock trio Dynasty, Dynasty's Handbag gets my vote for best performance of the night.   Jibz Cameron (The Roofies) was fantastically unwholesome and almost completely demented, dressed a lot like the bride of Frankenstein might if she were going to Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas.   Aside from venturing outside of her vocal range a few times, she was pure entertainment--doing a brilliant parody of lame, between-song banter and generally getting her freak on.  If it sounds schticky, it wasn't.  While she lurched around the stage in tiny white shorts she was also busting with out some impeccably asymmetrical lyrics like "Flying through a city of light, turning down the same corner again and again."   She also had some neat-o things to say about fear.  Tasty.

Then came Olympia, Washington's Anna Oxygen, who has great potential for something I've always wanted more of:  electronic dance music with surreal lyrics.  But though I admired her lovely alto and scientific themes--an overabundance of campy cardio and deliberately incoherent narration seemed affected. An attempt to climb aboard the multimedia bandwagon didn't really work either and when she did a whole song's worth of actual aerobics in an actual leotard, I could distinctly hear my boyfriend muttering Rammstein lyrics under his breath. Still, while the emporor seemed a bit scantily clad at times, there were a lot of people there who were loving her stuff, and whatever problems it had--they weren't due to lack of talent.  I liked the song Red Horse Cafe, which is about the awkwardness of wanting to hang out in the same place as your ex. 

One of my favorite Onion headlines of all time is "Ironic Porn Purchase Leads to Unironic Ejaculation."  And while two of the most unlikely stage dancers you'll ever see make it clear that Will Schwartz of willpower is somewhat kidding around when he says he wants to take your clothes off on the dance floor or shag you on an exercise mat , it was also clear that more than a few art-school seniors at the Hemlock wouldn't have needed much of an excuse to shed their little mod tops for the Imperial Teen.  With Will it's fun to try to figure out where sincerity begins and ends, and I was fascinated by a woman in front of me who was clutching her head and yelling, "You're so hot!  You're so hot!" A guy named Tomo put a thick wash of slick synth behind the cheesy lyrics while at least half the educated ladies went into ecstasies of irony for the Bay Area's nerdy Nelly, aka "Slim Timberlake."


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