Ever had a hot, golden shower of raw charisma? No? Then bow, right now, and kiss the heels, thighs and indeterminate genitalia of killer queen Joey Arias, a singer so fierce she gargles Courtney Love for breakfast!
Still, shockingly, Joey’s a helpless victim of gay, artistic amnesia for younger twinks, so pardon me while I lusciously inflict a mass, cultural enema bubbling with context!
Always riding the hurricane hotspots of twisted gender agendas, Joey first dropped collective jaws on a legendary, 3-song, coast-to-coast TV spot with Bowie in ’79. But why stop there? Hitching his multimedia star to a fabulous, trans-genre mast along with Lady Bunny and RuPaul, Joey furiously assaulted heteronormative complacency with Wigstock, a parodic orgy of the senses!
Featuring every shade and social grade of trans life and spectacularly queer, Wigstock was the furthest fantasies of the Marquis de Sade made concrete on a chemsex cocktail! From she-males with perky, predatory cocks and super-plush, silicon butts, to train-wreck, truck driver trannies with killer, gorilla stubble, every in-betweenie possible strutted their gloriously perverted psyches!
So, maybe it’s a fitting, if unearthly coincidence that both Joey and Lady Bunny briefly trod the boards in different, London town joints this month. Oh sure, in recent years, London’s tried to ape NY’s unmatchable drag cachet, but why even attempt a clueless epidemic of bearded cocks in frocks? It’s a beyond-sad, pantomime dame abortion that got jettisoned in San Francisco by 1972, tops!
Still, we try, hardly surprising in a nation with an unimpeachable, poxy drag tradition ranging from Les Dawson and Danny La Rue to Peter Kay. So, what sheer, divine ecstasy to completely escape tit-to-toe tackiness – ironic or otherwise – and bask in the flawless hauteur and glamour of Madame Arias at his witchy best.
Fittingly, he’s showcased in the stunning, Pan-European glory of Crazy Coqs, arguably London’s finest ever cabaret space. Entering, you’re immediately seduced by a grand, Art Deco intimacy and refinement of culture and cuisine that effortlessly outclasses London’s signature, petty provincialism. Unsurprisingly, Joey’s sleek aplomb complements the space more strikingly than the sheerest, embryo-leather lingerie on a particularly severe, coldly beautiful dominatrix.
And – as always in his continuing, intoxicated love-affair with channeling the spirit, muse and music of Billie Holiday – Joey’s dressed to kill. But the gown – possibly a boa-constrictor-tight, Herve Legér bandage dress – is insignificant compared to the transgressive attitudes clothing Joey. Simultaneously, he embodies multiple, bigoted strait-jackets – racial, social and sexual – that he flaunts, unbuckles and discards like a transgender Houdini, in a stunning, unspoken critique of intolerance.
And that’s before Joey’s even sung one note – already, the audience is emotionally supportive putty in his hands! Like always, Joey’s instantly bewitching, apparently biologically incapable of giving an indifferent performance. His voice, appropriately, is completely otherworldly and unique, best, if inadequately described, as forced incest between the most tender, adolescent castrato and Kelis in heat!
Sure, admittedly, Holiday’s trademark, domestically bruised songs of betrayal and heartache – often croaked high on smack – might repel obsessive show-tune queens, but filtered through Joey, they’re sublimely seductive. You want song titles? Oh, they’re probably meaningless except to devotees, but All of Me, God Bless the Child, You’ve Changed and Love Bites delivered unspeakable, aural bliss to wet and eager ears!
Much more audaciously, however, Joey went way outside the dumb, knackered comfort zone of the usual show tune ragbag. Taking chances Brit cabaret clones would never even imagine, Joey ravished White Room, Cream’s 1967, psychedelic anthem, and Dylan’s Lay Lady Lay, still triumphantly in killer Billie mode!
It’s a brilliantly unpredictable, thrillingly dangerous theatricality that Joey, most notably, shares with Justin Bond. Both artists, eagerly, explore maverick, bohemian songwriting far beyond queer clichés, reinterpreting everything they sing with a gay, Midas touch. Is this the future of music itself? Oh please God, yes!
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