For the past four years, buxom beauty GiGi La Femme has been stripping, teasing, and making waves in the burlesque scene.  Now, she welcomes the beginning of spring at her popular monthly performance Revealed, featuring Peekaboo Pionte, Harvest Moon, Amber Ray, and more, Wednesday, April 15.  Before she takes it all off, GiGi shared a little about what she feels about the show, her burlesque performers, and what she likes to do when not hanging out in her new apartment or professionally taking her clothes off.

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Here I was, backstage with Calvin Harris and his band at the Bowery Ballroom after climbing up to the tippity-top of the steep winding staircase where, in spite of the the humidity, he was chilling with his bandmates sipping a brewski in the dressing room before the show. Hmmm. No, there was no party back here.  No posse of arm candy, no illicit substances, no dancing or none of the wild merry-making the 24-year-old Scotsman sings about.

Harris cultivates the persona of a "playah," a heartbreaker and a hipster, getting all the girls, and even creating disco. During his interview he claims it's all part of his act. "I'm not like that at all," he told me, though I wasn't totally convinced. In one of his most popular hits, "Vegas," Harris proclaims, "I've got my car, and my ride, and my wheels (when I go to Vegas), I've got my drugs, and my stuff, and my pills (when I go to Vegas), I've got my girls, and my boys, and my girls (when I go to Vegas)."

Still, they seemed like just regular blokes, a bit shy and polite, standing around in the bright lighting, Harris wearing a goofy pink Fruit Loops T-shirt, another band member in a bright green T-shirt with cartoons of some primeval wolf man and the third sporting a glitzy Ramones shirt, all of them with adorably raffish mops of hair. Harris addresses me with a tentative grin. "Hallo! Right, New York Press.  We spoke on the telephone," he said, recalling his recent interview with me from his hometown, Dumfries, Scotland. "Sorry, my battery went dead," referring to our being cut off. 

"Yes, guys always use that excuse," I joked. Did I mention Harris is 6-foot-5 and, according to his MySpace page, wears a size 12 shoe? Then there's his self-deprecating style flavored by his British accent. Sigh!

Harris, 24 years old, is the newest success story on the electro-dance music scene. Harris and his band had just flown in after a couple of gigs on the West Coast, including the triumphant set prior to Prince's at Coachella. His eponymous CD came out in 2007, and he has another in the works that will be released later this year. The press has labeled him a MySpace sensation, with more than 4 million plays and 2.5 million page views.

"It's not true, I'm not a MySpace sensation – it was just a stroke of luck," he told me. So far, his colorful YouTube videos are approaching 400,000 views, among the top 50 in the UK. Back in 2005, while he was out of work, he put up a few songs on MySpace. Unable to get anyone to listen to the demos he'd sent out, he began staying up all night "friending" everyone in sight, including (luckily) an EMI Publishing executive, who loved his tunes and signed him up, allowing him to quit his job. That was the happiest day of his life.

One of Calvin Harris's most appealing traits is he makes it all look so easy. He claims to have no special talent as a singer nor as a musician and only used his own voice because he couldn't find anyone else at the time. As a teenager, and recuperating from a year-long illness, he spent many hours messing around on his brother's low-tech Amiga music sequencer, creating the sounds which have since made him famous. He considers himself more of a producer and has collaborated and remixed songs with the likes of Kylie Minogue, The Mitchell Brothers, Dizzee Rascal and Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

Harris is proud he's acquired a huge following among pre-teen girls, tweens and teenyboppers.  "They have just as much right to like music as a banker or anyone else," he says, loyal to his fans. Only a few years ago, he himself was stocking shelves in a department store and when he was 17, he actually packed fish into tin cans for a while. "My hands smelled awful," he confided.

Harris is the model for gawky youth everywhere with a dream, a synthesizer and a video camera. Did he create disco? No, but he has created a danceable blend of electro-funk with simple lyrics his fans chant in the "mosh pit," jumping up and down and singing along with Calvin for the entire two-hour show. Alongside the glammed up girls were many teenaged and early-20-something boys. And there I was, twice their age and mouthing the words to "I Created Disco," as I leapt into the air in my Frye boots.

The kids love him because he's unpretentious, and he's one of THEM, a loser who makes good. He mentions his girlfriend and how he enjoys knocking about at home, but in one of his most popular songs, especially with his female audience, "The Girls," he confesses how he can't help playing around and gets all the girls, but whether it's true or not, there's something very appealing about his all-inclusive taste in women:  "I like them black girls, I like them white girls, I like them Asian girls, I like them mixed-raced girls, I like them Spanish girls, I like them Italian girls, I like the French girls, And I like Scandanavian girls, I like them tall girls, I like them short girls, I like them brown-haired girls, I like them blond-haired girls, I like them big girls, I like them skinny girls, I like them carrying a little bit of weight girls."

In his video, he's shown with a bevy of beauties, all of whom are slender and Caucasian. "Calvin, what's up with that?  I thought you liked all the girls," I asked. "And what about the older girls." Characteristically diplomatic, he replies, "Well, you're white, and you're blonde, so I've included you, too." Was he also thinking I was one of those "carrying a little bit of weight" girls? I didn't ask, but said goodbye since they needed to start the show.

After a brief stop in Glasgow, Harris & Co. are off to Berlin where the band opens for Hot Chip on May  8th.


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Billy Elliot just wanted to dance. Rudy dreamed of playing college football. Jess Bhamra worked night and day to “Bend it Like Beckham” and Tatiata Kozhevnikova wanted to have the world’s strongest vagina.

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Y'all remember back in 1997, when Wyclef was still cool and he had all the kiddies boppin' to his hit song, "We Trying to Stay Alive," a rap-inspired cover of the Bee Gee's disco hit of (almost) the same name? Well if you do, you may also recall that one of the rappers featured on that set was John Forté, a real smooth-looking brotha with dreads and a devilish grin who was a major creative force behind the Score, that must-have Fugees album that introducedmost of the world to Lauryn"Only black people shouldboogie to my music" Hill.

So back in 2000 he was busted at the Newark Airport (tear) for intent to distribute liquid cocaine and subsequently sentenced to the mandatory minimum of 14 years. Thanks in no small part to his friend Carly Simon, who has advocated strongly on his behalf that he did not receive a fair trial, it looks like Forté's prison time has just been cut short.

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Hole frontwoman and grunge widow Courtney Love has been very busy—raising her stunning daughter Frances Bean, making brilliant records like America's Sweetheart and the much-anticipated How Dirty Girls Get Clean (we're guessing C-Lo hires a cleaning lady), as well as taking various plunges "behind the waterfall." 

So busy was La Love that she only recently noticed that the Cobain estate was missing about $500 million dollars, pilfered by identity thieves who used social security numbers to launder money through real estate ventures. That's right, Love was unwittingly responsible for the sub-prime housing crisis.

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When Greg Burgett, one of my music writers, mentioned he wanted to write about the song of summer, I immediately told him it had to belong to Hercules and Love Affair. The group's debut LP is one single after another, strange enough with Antony's vocals and upbeat enough to get me dancing anytime I put it on (which is a lot, and I've had interns and other editors wonder aloud when I'd tire of listening to the tracks). Of course, I'm a sucker for "Blind" and think "Raise Me Up" is amazing. But I seem to find something different to love about every track (for example, Athene reminds me of 80s Spanish pop star Alaska and tracks that appeared in old Amoldovar films). Greg made a strong case that Gnarls Barkley changed the summer song landscape with 2006's "Crazy", and now Hercules and Love Affair is set to open for Gnarls in August (unfortunately in D.C.)

Thing is, I also know that disco is a little too much for most music fans to stomach: too gay, too black and too much fun. But hopefully a few more will find their way to some of the most danceable music of the summer. Also, if you're looking for a more authentic read concerning Andy Butler, the guy behind Hercules, beyond the mainstream press, check out the latest issue of Butt magazine. In it, he strips down and tells (nearly) all, including his fun NYC club days, the tons of K he took while out clubbing and that he was never interested in Michael Alig and the whole Disco 2000/Limelight crowd. As well as posing for this triptych...



But it all seems to come down to the music for him. As he explains in the interview, "As much as drugs or glitz or sex has driven me to places, nothing has ever driven me like music." And that folks, is what should drive you to listen to this, not if it's been anointed by the fashionable set as cool enough to listen to. Just follow the beat.



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George Carlin famously explained that "Their stuff is shit, and your shit is stuff." When you're Michael Jackson, the shit you have lying around the house is worth a couple thousand a piece. Pounds sterling of course, as reported by the Daily Mail.

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The Olympic Games are the time to sit back, relax and admire other people's physiques. NBC seems to have finally picked up on the penchant for more exposed flesh on network television and has even devised a guessing game on its website. It sorta resembles some sort of boy-next-door gay porn site, with headless, objectified men's abs shown before exposing their identities. It's at least worth a little safe for office fun (can you guess who's tummy and nips are pictured above? hint: think gold)... (Something tells me they wouldn't dare do the same thing for some female track-and-field stars.)



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Twenty-four years ago Michael Jackson teamed up with Lionel Ritchie and, under the U.S.A. for Africa name, recorded the hit single “We are the World.” The profits of this venture were aimed at stopping disease and famine in Africa, specifically to stop 1984-85 famine in Ethiopia. Now,  E! Online is reporting that Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers are creating their own version of the, uh, classic song. E! cited an inside source saying it’s "Disney's version of 'We Are the World.' It's about kindness and passing it on."

Supposedly the three didn’t want to get involved with accidentally facilitating any hostile governments or militias with deadly weapons and ammunition serving to increase violence and destabilize some African nations as the original song has been criticized for doing. That would just be sooooo Miley. So instead, they decided to pass along some kindness to the world.

World problems? Considered yourselves solved. Thanks kids! Now get back inside, you little rascals, you’ve got homework to do.

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In their heyday, The Butthole Surfers were the craziest band on the planet. Under the influence of heavy drugs and insanity, their concerts were legendary events of unpredictable madness.

In 1986, they first met Lynch (a.k.a. Kathleen, a.k.a. Ta-Da the Shit Lady), who was then working at a strip club called Sex World in New York City. Though never an official member, she became the Surfers' famous "naked dancer," performing intermittently with them through 1989. One show in Washington D.C. with G.W.A.R. saw Kathleen take the stage to dance in nothing but gold body paint and antique wooden snow shoes. And at another particularly wild concert in 1986, Haynes and Lynch reportedly engaged in sexual intercourse while on stage, as Leary used a screwdriver to vandalize the club's speakers. This came after only five songs, during which time Haynes had started a small fire. —Wikipedia

With all of their core and most consistent members along for the ride, Webster Hall's Butthole Surfers reunion concert last night promised to be an entertaining one. It was the last night of the tour, and Paul Green's School of Rock All Stars were also contributing to the Butthole Surfers lineup.

I arrived late, missing all but one song of The School Of Rock's set. MC Trachiotomy & Th' Terribleness  followed The School Of Rock All Stars. The were so terrible that when MC Trachiotomy announced "this will be our last song," the crowd roared with applause.

The Butthole Surfers took the stage around 10:15, and for the first 60 minutes, they were really pretty tame. Then, late into the set, Haynes' frustration with the stage-side sound engineer turned into spectacle. He persistently motioned to turn the monitors up. Pissed off, Gibby gave him the middle finger, walked over to him multiple times and according to fans threw a bottle at him, and/or punched him in the face. From my angle from the balcony, I could see none of this action, and when security came on stage mid-song to remove Haynes, we were all left pretty dumbfounded. The inebriated Haynes made a comical gesture and made his early exit. The rest of the band managed one more song with guitarist Paul Leary handling the vocals.

Leary and the remaining members left the stage, never to return, after handing out some hi-fives. The house music was turned on and the band was obviously not returning for an encore, especially with Gibby having been kicked out of the venue.

The crowd then became angry, chanting for "Gibby," then chants of bullshit!" and finally chants of "refund!" followed. Upset fans hurled whatever they could at the stage and at the security staff, who tried to settle them down. The infamous Genesis P-Orridge walked out onto the littered stage, and after attempts to speak into the dead mics, and to silence the crowd, she was pulled from the stage by security as well.

One fan was mauled by a security guard after jumping onto the stage to receive a set list, but despite a room filled with disappointed, angry, drunken Butthole Surfers fans, riotous hysteria was avoided.

The sound mix was far from perfect, but it was still a good show, and it's questionable if Gibby was justified in whatever actions he took (punching, bottle throwing...etc). It would have been nice to see the band finish the set, but what would a Butthole Surfers show be without at least a little unhinged bedlam?




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