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Facebook. " /> Mark Snyder's play Lila Cante was produced by At Hand Theatre in October 2009. His other plays include As Wide As I Can See, A Decent Stretch, Wipe Away, and The Beanbag Game. From 2006-2008, he hosted and performed in Red Light Nights at New York's The Slipper Room for Firecracker Productions. His essays have appeared in ThePeeq and at Maud Newton.com, and he has read new writing at Petes Candy Store (courtesy of the 2ndHand.com) and throughout downtown NYC. Mark was born in Warren, Ohio and can be found on Facebook. " /> Mark Snyder's play Lila Cante was produced by At Hand Theatre in October 2009. His other plays include As Wide As I Can See, A Decent Stretch, Wipe Away, and The Beanbag Game. From 2006-2008, he hosted and performed in Red Light Nights at New York's The Slipper Room for Firecracker Productions. His essays have appeared in ThePeeq and at Maud Newton.com, and he has read new writing at Petes Candy Store (courtesy of the 2ndHand.com) and throughout downtown NYC. Mark was born in Warren, Ohio and can be found on Facebook. ">
“Academia has made me a smarter songwriter,” says Goldberg, “I mean, smarter than I was before. Half of it is just learning how to pay attention. Grad school stirs up a lot of thoughts and feelings and music is a good way to process and fantasize.” He continues, “There was a lot more editing, in terms of song structure, themes, arrangements, etcetera. [We] tried to be more conscious of how the songs worked together, going back and changing things in older songs as new songs were written. I like albums with songs that feel diverse in a particular way, like different angles on the same set of concerns.”
The album ends on a note of cautious optimism, in the song “Expectations,” with the line, “I’m gonna meet somebody tonight” backed by a haunting clarinet solo. It’s a moment of guarded sweetness, reminiscent of The Magnetic Fields, an influence on the band. “I probably picked up the thematic thread of disco/dancing from Stephin Merritt,” Goldberg said. “It’s also a queer thing… so much happens at the disco. And I have two left feet, which only makes them more fascinating to me.”
As the band takes the stage at Don Hill’s Mondo Friday night dance party in New York, I was struck by their propensity towards resurrecting flannel shirts and the Partridge Family-like glee with which they performed their new songs. Their air of casualness and approachability belies the talent and the quality of their songwriting. And after the set, they manned the merch table as a diverse set of fans walked up to check out their new release.
Goldberg said, “There’s too much judgement in the queer world … Twinks, bears, cubs, wolves, otters… muscle men, trannies, butchies, queens, daddies and mamas, hipsters, lipsticks, chapsticks, whatever… everyone’s welcome at the Ballet bar, feminist bookstore, and vegetarian café!”
Although both of their albums are now available on iTunes, they only pressed one thousand copies of Bear Life. Barrow contributed additional artwork to its packaging and the band lovingly refers to it as an “objet d’art,” proof of the care with which they present their music as a self-made, DIY product. In an era where so much of queer culture is being commodified by a desperate economy, The Ballet keeps the business side of their band simple in order to concentrate on the music.
According to Goldberg, this is part of their ethos as a band: “I think we value the relationship we create with people who come to our shows and buy our albums, which we release ourselves, even if we could sell more albums by working with a label … It’s problematic that validation—financial or otherwise—for the arts is so caught up in institutions of taste-making and gatekeeping… so purposefully avoiding those institutions can constitute a kind of politics… I want to make CDs that I would be excited to buy. Especially since nobody buys CDs anymore.”
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Eric
Thanks for this. Just bought the album and I’m really digging it.
starfish
Adam never ‘in closet’. Before American Idol he’s already out and got a career at stages; some of it he even do a drag.
Probably you shouldn’t randomly pick name to put as a comparison if you don’t really know about the person…
Love the band anyway.
EdWoody
Wildly inaccurate about Adam Lambert. He is hardly “established” just by coming second place on AI. He has a lot more work to do before he’s “established,” and he’s doing it all openly gay.
Not only that, but he does have same-sex lyrics – the Gaga-written song “Fever” includes the opening line “There he goes, my baby.”