The Hidden Cameras Made 2 Albums About Raunchy Gay Sex. Then It Stopped
Gibb loves it most when fans offer to take part in their shows. In the past, their concerts have featured ninja-masked go-go boys doing interpretive stripping, graveyard zombies banging their bones in an instrumental interlude, and energetic dancers handing out lollipops to the audience. The band also used to perform in porn theaters, art galleries, and abandoned churches in North America and Europe. Though they’ve moved to more upscale digs, they still play the occasional soccer field and always try to utilize local creative resources. As a result, each show becomes a unique celebration—Gibb says, “the things that make live music worthwhile.” So it seems a natural extension of this collaborative impulse that’s compelled Gibb to start developing Origin:Orphan’s music into a Berlin theatrical music production. It’ll provide a community of artists and art lovers with the opportunity to explore the theme of “the universal orphan” alongside Gibb in an international context.
But no matter how sunny and inviting Gibb’s revolution seems, as with any revolution, a white hot undercurrent of discontent runs through it. His second album concludes with the title track “Mississauga Goddam,” a nod to Nina Simone’s 1964 protest song “Mississippi Goddam.” Though Simone’s song sounds like a show tune, she wrote in response to the assassination of civil rights leader Medgar Evers and in opposition to those who said civil rights activists should work more slowly. In it she sings, “Picket lines, school boycotts/ they try to say it’s a Communist plot / all I want is equality for my sister my brother my people and me… Do things gradually… bring more tragedy.”
Gibbs’ song (named after the Toronto suburb where he grew up) is one of The Hidden Cameras’ angriest yet most melancholy tracks of all time. For him, the real tragedy isn’t murder, but that his community values sameness as a way of life. Gibb sings, “Mississauga people carry the weight of common evil / and go about their lives / with a whisper and a whine… I’ll be wearing my disguise / Until I lead my life from Mississauga goddam.”
Gibb returned to his hometown to play Toronto Pride in 2008. When interviewed beforehand about his pointed gay content, Gibb said, “It’s just a matter of being who you are and just being natural about these things. If you’re a songwriter of course you have to have politics. Your identity that can be political, just representing that.”
Gibb used his sexuality as a defiant identity in his first two albums. After a childhood being told we’re different, it’s no wonder that some of us want to rip that system apart and force itself to look at its orphans. But his multimedia collaborations reveal the multitude of ways we can challenge that system, not just sexually, but with every inch of our creative being.
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.
On: Sep 22, 2009
Tagged: Daniel Villarreal, Joel Gibb, Music, Sex, the hidden cameras
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….