LIQUID NONSENSE: AMIABLE NITRATE
January 17-19, 2014 | The Club at La MaMa
Photo by Jeremy Sailing
Sam Alper interviews Shane Shane about queer performance, driving a giant teapot and using poppers as a metaphor.
You’ve had this transition from informal, or social, performance spaces to more formal theatrical venues, like La MaMa. What has that been like?
The background that I normally come from is do-it-yourself live music: basement shows and DIY touring and stuff. So this was new territory for me to have it formalized, people sitting down, and to have a theatre space for it. So with that I’ve developed a more reigned in script - and just scripting it in the first place is new to me, because usually I’ve written the songs, but I just talk off the top of my head between them. So this is the 2nd run of it. The first one I did, for the Queer New York International Festival, I sort of slapped together quickly, I had about four weeks to get it ready. For this performance I’ve had a little bit more time, not a whole lot, but a little bit more, so the speaking part is more structured. I’ve also called in Heather Litteer and Nicole Gruter, who are two amazing performers, as a supporting cast - so it’s not just me this time around.
Does planning what you’re going to say change the nature of what you’re doing?
I think it does. It’s been an interesting challenge trying to formalize what I want to say and the tone that I want. Interestingly, the first time around, I was adopting a kind of an honest, or earnest, persona on stage, where I was basically speaking as myself, and this time around it’s a lot more tongue in cheek and a lot more stylized. It’s been interesting finding what persona works best to tell the story I’m trying to tell.
Do you have consistent collaborators over time? When you rehearse is there someone there to watch and give feedback? What’s that side of it like for you?
Really, I’m just bouncing ideas off of my boyfriend and myself.
But - so you do have someone else to bounce things off.
Absolutely. And Dan Fishback, who was the person who got me in touch with La MaMa in the first place, has been super helpful - hashing out logistical things and things about the way these shows work that I didn’t know, and also he’s been really helpful with artistic decisions and choices about what to include or get rid of.
I was wondering about - since I didn’t get to see the last run -
You son of a bitch.
I know, frankly, you shouldn’t even be doing this interview right now. But how would you describe Liquid Nonsense to a newbie, like me?
The whole structure of it is kind of like a demented variety show. It loosely takes place over the course of a day, from sunrise to sundown, but it’s pretty non-linear. The themes that we’re touching on are the anxieties of what my role is as a queer performer in New York in 2014 and the performance art community in general. But that sort of makes it sound drier than it is. It’s mostly just a series of jokes and sketches and videos that I’ve created. So there’s a lot of stuff about what it means to be a gay man, and particularly what it means to be a weird gay man and a fat gay man. And there are underlying themes, like body positivity and queer inclusion and identity politics and all those other things that we’re sort of preoccupied with in our community.
Recently, with the launch of the Helix Queer Performance Network and the Queer New York International Festival, there’s been a lot of attention on, and forums for, queer performance, or however we’re categorizing it. Do you ever feel a push back against being categorized that way?
For right now, I don’t feel any push-back or any boxing in. Part of the reason that I came to New York in the first place was because I was explicitly wanting to be around people who were making queer art for queer people in a queer community. I spent most of my twenties being a queer musician working in a DIY punk community, which was awesome, and there’s a lot to be said for not boxing yourself in and really working with the world as a queer person. You learn a lot about yourself and the way the world works that way. At this point in my life, I wanted to get to a point where I wasn’t the only person, doing what I was doing in a room. And being in Wisconsin was part of it, but also working within the context of DIY music, more often than not I would be the queerest performer on a bill. And at least for the time being I’m really interested in and excited about being around queer people who are specifically speaking to each other and engaging in that conversation. That said, it’s an insular community, and wherever something is insular there are always problems to go along with it. So, you know, ask me in two years how I feel about it… But right now It’s stimulating and… nutritious for me to mesh into a chiefly queer artistic world.
To me it seems like one of the least insular times for queer work - with Helix and the Queer Festival and so many people taking on the label of ‘queer performer’ and then really presenting themselves to everyone and trying to share what they do.
I think it’s insular insofar as there’s a shared vocabulary that you get - if you go to Hot Fruit there are certain in-jokes and ideas that you don’t really have to explain. That’s all I mean by insular. What I don’t mean - I think the work I’m seeing is constantly diverse and challenging and interesting. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we’re moving towards a place right now where ‘queer performer’ isn’t so much about being gay or what your sex life is like anymore. I think it’s a lot more about how you see yourself in relationship to society at large, and what your gender representation is, and what your style of experimentation is. And considering that that’s such a huge topic, there’s still a lot of really interesting work that can come out of it. We’re luckily beyond the point where it’s just a question of getting onstage and being like, ‘I’m gay.’ It’s more about seeing yourself in a larger context and opening yourself up to a more experimental view of identity in general.
In general, I think opening up your sense of identity is step one to becoming a really good performer.
Hey hey.
Hey hey. Where does the title of your show, Liquid Nonsense: Amiable Nitrate, come from?
Liquid Incense is the euphemism that they wrote on poppers, because you can’t legally sell inhalants in a store. If you sell it as liquid incense you’re just supposed to open the bottle and it makes the room smell terrible because poppers smell terrible. So that’s where liquid nonsense came from. It’s also a silly but pertinent metaphor for what I’m talking about, what I want a queer identity to be which is sort of - poppers are a handy metaphor for it. You have to look to find them, you won’t just find them at WalMart, you have to go to a sex store, you have to off the beaten path and they’re certainly not for everyone. I like the metaphor of poppers that if you expose them to sunlight they sort of lose their power. There’s power in keeping things hidden and secret, keeping things word of mouth. Which is ironic considering how much I’ve been trying to promote this show. So that’s where the poppers metaphor came from. As far as Amiable Nitrate goes, I think I’m unshakably midwestern. If you come to one of my shows you’re not going to have someone screaming at you or confronting you. I’m sort of compulsively friendly.
So the show is like this off the beaten path intoxicant that’s actually very nice-
Yeah. It’s a pretty friendly environment.
What’s up for you next, after the show?
I’m going to be putting out my first proper album as Shane Shane in the next few months. I’m recording that with Lucas Carey, who is appearing as a special guest on Friday night. This also opened up a door in my mind to doing more writing, so I think 2014 is a time to get more narrative things committed to film and on paper.
I’ve been prompting a lot. Anything else you want to get out there?
I’m very excited for people in New York to see my friend Nicole, who’s coming up from New Orleans to do this. She’s a really phenomenal performance artist and we have a long history of performing together. In 2009 we toured the country in my van, which she had retrofitted to look like a giant tea pot. We toured for two months, having tea parties at tourist venues like the Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore and the Space Needle. We would set up tea parties and have people sit with us just to get people to slow down and spend time with each other rather than buy things. So that was fun… I’ve been really happy with how helpful I’ve found people to be. The show is technically written by me, but there’s just so much help that I’ve gotten from everyone. La MaMa specifically has been really a dream to work with. A really nice blend of freedom and resources.
I love the way Nicky Paraiso, the Director of The Club at La MaMa, creates relationships with younger people and how he keeps bridging the divide and meeting people, because that’s one of the hardest things to do in an institution.
Nicky is one of those guys who, when I first met him, I was sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because he’s so easy to work with and so nice that I kept waiting for when the demands or difficulty or blowback would be. It’s rare to work with someone who’s that laid-back and supportive and interested in finding new work.
Ooh! Inspirations? Any cultural things you’re consuming that are helpful for the show?
There’s a lot of parody, a lot of commercial parodies, so watching TV has a lot to do with it. There’s a whole segment that’s like a morning news show. Other than that, a lot of the show is a digestion of trends and things that I’ve seen among queer performers in New York over the past two years. So if you’re looking for inspirations, it’s really the awesome performers in the community I’ve been a part of.
What’s the most recent thing you’ve seen that you were inspired by?
The first thing that comes to mind is My Endless Love, the Miguel Gutierrez piece. He just closed it at the American Realness Festival but I saw it at Abrons previously. My favorite is when things are sort of funny and sad. My Endless Love was sort of a perfect example of that. It’s a meditation on desire and ego and promiscuity, and the joys and pitfalls of trying to find love through anonymous sex - or not even anonymous - but through promiscuity. Another piece that I saw that was one of the best things I’ve seen in a long, long time was Drella at The Invisible Dog Arts Center. Coincidentally, it was done by my neighbor, Raja Feather Kelly. It’s a dance piece inspired by Andy Warhol. It’s kind of indescribable. One of the best things I’ve seen in a really long time.
To close it out - in the spirt of largesse and community - if you had to recommend an upcoming show to people that’s not your show, what would you recommend?
Let me look at my calendar, see what I’m going to go to… I’m really excited about the The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black on February 13th - Kembra Pfahler is, like, a legend and I’ve loved her since i was a teenager.
![An Interview with NATH ANN CARRERA by Katherine Cooper for
La MaMa’s QUEER NEW MUSIC SERIES:
What does queer mean to you right now?
I had my queer coming of age through gender and sexually variant, non-essentialist, amoral, radical lesbian separatism. I made a poster for class that said, “Abort Male Fetuses!” and wrote a short play about throwing men into bonfires when they were misogynistic and homophobic. My position is now “Abort Cisgender Male Fetuses!”
Can you tell me a formative moment from childhood?
Seeing my grandmother on stage snorting poppers in a Carmen Miranda outfit as the Mother Superior.
Who are your musical and theatrical heroes?
A musical contender would be Bobbie Gentry who wrote and produced psychological Southern Gothic character studies, sang about cruising female strippers, go-go danced on cellophane water, railed against sexual and moralistic double standards, and performed with genderfuck dancers in matching dresses in her self-conceptualized Las Vegas show, before arranging a successful self-disappearance. Theatrically, Barbara Stanwyck who played a card shark, a dancer hiding out supplying research studies for encyclopedia entries on “sex” and “slang,” a bank robber in a lesbianic women’s prison, broke bottles over men’s heads before taking a drink, and indifferently watched her father burn to death in a whiskey still fire before hitting the big city.
You are a poet, musician, DJ and performer. Did you start performing in one specific genre or have you always been a hybrid artist?
I started singing with my mother down at the local bowling alley, around age 10, between her stints with bands like “Uncle Bubba and the Charred Remains.” My interest in writing, playing guitar, piano, and drums, and performing came together around the same time a few years later by bedroom, band, and stage. I started DJing a few years ago doing WOAHMONE with Savannah Knoop and Nica Ross where, through era and genre spanning vinyl and monthly collage, and without a cultural reference after 1980, I have thematic overlap.
Please tell me about your hairpieces. They are amazing.
Thanks! I used to borrow my white feather hat from my friend James Caperton when I played toms toms and tambourine in his band THE JUDY EXPERIENCE in San Francisco. It hung above his dresser altar between a rattlesnake skin and a Jayne Mansfield photo. I wore it in Joshua Tree when we shot the “HIGH BI GIRLS” Super 8 video and he gave it to me before I moved back to New York.
[Photo by Evan William Smith]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_v8gmjtcXT4kUSyHLr2o-B9ax6WDlMaX2Cp3Q84UgIpD4b78w95B4bTQj3NLuUr2KmkD0x1dRQk0szs4C9zntkKUJWitmdWGneMWacyWEo9LMIh6MBSg7M5L6ooIiwV2f-ZBLaT6rEvkKjWbCqbFasYeHsvgpXSE5dZCG69Zn9IJpA=s0-d)
![An Interview with ENID ELLEN by Katherine Cooper for
La MaMa’s QUEER NEW MUSIC SERIES:
You’ve said that you began writing from a feminine perspective in your songs. What did that feel like? What did it open up for you?
It felt very natural. Growing up in rural Ohio there weren’t many gay men to identify with. I therefore identified mainly with straight women. I think it was the mutual attraction to men. For the longest time I thought I would become a woman when I reached a certain age bc I thought that was the only way it could work but as I have grown and met more gay men I have seen other ways it can work. But when I started writing these lyrics I really was trying to go back to that other voice. I saw myself in the 50s writing love songs. It felt right to be female. Strong male energy is something I have never completely understood. It feels so fake to me and I wanted the words to be sincere. And I wanted an excuse to wear a dress.
What does queer mean to you right now?
Queer means thinking outside the box. To tell you the truth I never really identified or saw sex or gender until others put it onto me. When and where I am comfortable, people call queer and I’ll take it. That label is me.
Can you tell me a formative moment from childhood?
I remember being told by my Sunday school teacher that Jesus wouldn’t want me to be this way, referring to my queerness. I remember thinking she was wrong. I knew deep down I was living my truth and that Jesus would be very happy for me.
Who are your musical and theatrical heroes?
Jessica Lange, Marilyn Manson, Betty Davis, Bette Midler and Tori Amos are some of my heroes. I’m a huge fan of Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte.
[Photo by Evan William Smith]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uqFJWQIUBUVTuR3mAzFstPldU25rq4wD1u3TEGMnjyA8y1wSWTMWFZfehZqenXBiBlrqiCCSyATURaBLZvHv672M6E43T63kW2Kq5UYWjP2hH7dUlNnbuE2WKutwsibfB5SRJGz9zwkBv10seOVWwhYKHwIZEXo57Rwd9dUw85RZA=s0-d)
![An Interview with SHANE SHANE by Katherine Cooper for
La MaMa’s QUEER NEW MUSIC SERIES:
What does queer mean to you right now?
We’re at a crossroads within the gay community where we need to think deeply about whether or not our queer identities run deeper than how we want to arrange our sex lives. I, for one, am seeing a heartening movement of people who want to live their lives free of petty gender constraints and dominant discourse surrounding relationships. To me, right now, queer isn’t so much about sexual orientation as it is about freedom, questioning, and genderplay.
Can you tell me a formative moment from childhood?
Seeing Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit was one of the most important things that happened to me as a kid. I was obsessed immediately—she was mysterious, hyperfeminine, threatening, and ridiculous all at once. I didn’t know if I wanted to date her, be her, or hang out with her, but I knew I wanted her in my life.
Who are your musical and theatrical heroes?
Bjork is the gold standard by which I measure all other artists in any medium. I’ve also been heavily influenced by a Minneapolis cabaret band called Tulip Sweet and Her Trail of Tears and my dear friends in the now-defunct band Mathematicians.
Your music has been called “novel, irritating, and pretty damn thrilling.” Does annoyance play a role in your performance aesthetic?
It does in so far as it plays a role in my personality. Like many performers I have a vast thirst for attention, and I’ve learned over the years to channel that need into my performance. I don’t set out to irritate or confront my audience, but I just think that it happens because of the pent up energy I tend to let out when I perform. I think it’s better to be annoying onstage to an audience than off to your friends.
[Photo by Evan William Smith]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uSYSRpWr9iR3z8kl-CCHbERbP1oH4nXk3S2bRMC90e9sHvjKThS1Q8t4Ro7HEB1RiJRNGqPGK0DwXsGeFtCLrzRLe-PaACaUoiQGJNFuYDTpdqfh28_gynpe7TOLAstMKDadj8O8NiW1sQlaQT_bzjs7xEBF9eKaE3vYk6-7SJ1Q=s0-d)
