Gay indie rock band The Hidden Cameras released their new album Origin:Orphan today. It gave Daniel Villarreal the perfect opportunity to revisit their old records — and see whether they're still as hardcore.
There's an expression that goes, "If you're not a punk at 20, there's something wrong with you but if you're still a punk at 30, there's something wrong with you." At 20, Joel Gibb of The Hidden Cameras composed some of the most uplifting pop songs about being peed on and sniffing cum that you've ever heard.
Their first two albums, The Smell of Our Own and Mississauga Goddam, used masturbation, anal douching, and gagging on cock not as throwaway shock humor, but as analogies for immaturity, body obsession, and growing up too fast. It was beautifully confessional music with brutal symbols that any alienated gay guy could relate to. The albums are still pretty revolutionary, considering all these songs had organ and guitar arrangements straight out of church — and that most indie rockers would rather gaze at their shoes than ever discuss sex, least of all gay sex.
Then suddenly, on their third album Awoo, almost all the Cameras' attention to raunchy gay sex disappeared.
Sure, Awoo had some innuendo about being bent over, sucking on "lollipops," and maybe even one song about auto-erotic asphyxiation, but the next gayest tracks were about swooning over kneecaps and talking to your dad. It also had a song called "She's Gone."
She?!
You had to wonder whether Joel Gibb had traded in the piss play and leather sex that helped make his band famous just to end up crafting innocuous pop songs that straight people would enjoy.
But Gibb is 32 now, and his band’s latest album Origin:Orphan shows he hasn’t traded gay sex for popular appeal; he’s just stopped focusing on his cock and started refining his craft.
Daniel Villarreal thanks interrobang, The Impatient Penguin, Crying Game, Bootch, and Doctor Who's Manwife for their help on this article. Daniel attended Dallas Pride this weekend with his older brother—that guy kicks ass. Email him at daniel@queerty.com.
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Love The Hidden Cameras!
I'm a huge fan, but let's be realistic. All their CDs sit in the shadow of their first.
"most indie rockers would rather gaze at their shoes than ever discuss sex" The author of this article doesn't know many indie kids, does he?
@j: Indie ROCKERS, j. Find me an indie rock song about jism, penetration, or anal douching, and I'll take it back.
@Daniel Villarreal:
You have a sadly, sickly narrow conception of what sex is about.
LOVE the Hidden Cameras! Hope they play Dublin, Ireland soon!!!! See you there!
@V: So, just to be clear, you agree with me that there aren't many indie rock songs about actual sex?
hidden cameras music is a repetitive (badly repetitive) overproduced drivel using shock value to attract attention. but gays will support practically anything targeted specifically at them. stephen merrit songwriting it ain't and if you can't tell the difference, stop writing about music.
hello I am logged in, can't find any "contact us" link… so am leaving a comment here I hope might find its way to someone who can help spread the word about an
amazing opera with a queer protagonist that is playing at calperformances this weekend at UC Berkeley… forgive me for pasting in a little info, but I hoped / thought you and your readers might want to know more about this pretty startling work that is being mounted "A House in Bali" by Evan Ziporyn based on the book by Colin McPhee:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_McPhee
There are clips from the opera on the calperformances website that are just amazing I think incredibly engaging world fusion modern music with gamelan and this leading NY avant garde ensemble Bang on a Can All Stars and western operatic singers and Balinese singers and dancers. I'm coming up for it. It's really sad that Lou Harrison is not around for this. I could totally see him showering EZ's forehead with kisses and passing some kind of mantle to him…
http://www.calperfs.berkeley.e.....d/ahib.php
evidently the staging is going to be kind of mindblowing for this performance, it having previously been done outdoors in Bali.
I think they are actually having a really hard time selling tickets so there may be some kind of rush/low price deal on it…
hope you and some of your friend might check it out! thanks
Chris Maher
Chris "supermarky" Maher on facebook
Los Angeles
Sorry not a fan but I'm not a fan of your imput. The Hidden Cameras are much less repetitive than most pop acts & when they do it, they do it well (for the most part, everyone has their slip-ups). I have no idea where you get the overproduced bit from because I can hear plenty of dynamics in Hidden Cameras tunes compared to most things on radio. The "shock" is part of the hook and all (good) artists have those which is only a part of what makes the band amazing. I have never thought of The Hidden Cameras to be just aimed at me or some sort of camp because they've always had important things to say but more importantly they do it with style whereas Merrit is often too short and dull even when he's trying to pull interest through being shocking. Give up the ghost & embrace the love.
This is a really well written article… best writing about music that I've read in a while. It's the kind of thing that would make me give these guys a listen….