Friday Night is Fancy (and Bitchy)

Gracious Chickens! We had a very long Friday night!  Like most people we were at the Bitch Flowers event at the Varsity Theater.  It was a glamourous if disjointed event (rather like the lady in question herself); the drag show was fabulous (thanks to Miss Flowers, the always entertaining Camille Collins – who was one of the best MCs The Gay 90s ever had, and the naughty songs of Kystal Kleer) if oddly lit (well it was lit well but there was no front lighting, which is essential in any drag show), the fashion show was all right (with gorgeous clothes by Lollycopter, Emma Berg, Ivan Idland, and Raul Osorio), but the real surprise of the night (no, not members of the Varsity staff in full drag) was the strong performance by Wrecked Wheelhouse; yes it was mostly covers and more than one clever mash-up but cheers to lead singer Harley Wood and his crew for delivering said covers with conviction.  When one of our intrepid girl reporters snuck upstairs for a drink, she saw PR maven Rachel Thompson and cultural doyennes Robyne Robinson and Kate Iverson holding court upstairs with such luminaries as Jahna Peloquin, Danielle Morris, Maritza Ramirez, Chris Larson, Jackie Bateman, and more.

Following the show, several of the girl reporters went around the corner to the Kitty Cat Klub for the Kill The Vultures / Longshot / Bight Club show and saw the debut of Body Slam, the new side project of Grant Cutler featuring Matt Scharenbroich and Ryan Harris. It will be interesting to see where they take this project, if anywhere.  As for the other performers, it was refreshing to see a Bight Club set that had more focus to it than usual (which is somewhat understandable since Jeremy Nutzman has been dividing his focus between this and Spyder Babyie Raw Dog) though it still leaves us cold at times.  Meanwhile MC Longshot has been getting a lot of attention since his big splash at this year’s vita.mn “Are You Local?” showcase.  Not only is he a stylish MC with a deceptive ease to his flow, he sounds like nothing else on the scene (you will recall that he is originally from Chicago and not beholden to the Rhymesayers/Doomtree axis that influences much of this city’s hip-hop).

As we were ramping up to watch the Kill The Vultures set (which was on point, as usual), we received communiqués from our intrepid guhrl reporters (a.k.a. our gays) who had decamped for Jetset and wandered into the un-official Bitch Flowers afterparty.  It was a sea of men who had been there, along with the usual hot boys and what-not.  All in all a fun party.