Q-Seattle Events: Tacky Tourist Clubs

Seattle Men's Chorus and Seattle Women's Chorus are now selling season tickets to their 2007-2008 seasons that are kicked off with the traditional Holiday concerts by each group.

The much-traveled choruses celebrate their love of excursions to places and moods near and far with this season's concert series, collectively entitled Wanderlust.

Singer/songwriter Judy Collins and another so-far unnamed "special guest" will join the Men's Chorus at Benaroya Hall [get directions] for their first concert called Home for the Holidays. There will be six performances starting December 1 and concluding December 22.

PBS travel host Rick Steves is special guest of the Men's Chorus for its spring concert on March 29 and 30 as create A Foreign Affaire at McCaw Hall [get directions]. The concert will take its audience "across Europe with folk songs, classical music, and cultural postcards."

The men of Flying House promise to offer songs, skits, and surprises during their Pride Week shows on June 27 and 28, also at McCaw Hall. Called Comedy Tonight!, the concert will feature material from Shakespeare, Gilbert & Sullivan, Sondheim, Mel Brooks, and more. Leslie Jordon, who played Beverley Leslie on Will & Grace will join the chorus for the rollicking show.

Season tickets for the Men's Chorus concerts range in price from $179 for prime seats to $69 for "Seating Plan D".

For its holiday concert, Celestial Greetings, Seattle Women's Chorus welcomes glass-harmonica virtuoso Dennis James. With tongue firmly in cheek, the chorus warns that "resistance is futile" as they offer "carols from galaxies far, far away and carols from terra firma." The three shows at Meany Theater [get directions] will be staged December 14-16.

Vixen Fiction/Siren Song is the alluring double theme of the Women's Chorus's springtime concert held April 12 and 13 at Meany Theater. The women of the chorus will take a fond and hilarious look at the "spicy novels that captured the attention of the underground lesbian community in the 50s and 60s." Chris Williamson will join the Chorus for an exploration of the early women's music scene.

Season tickets for the Women's Chorus concerts range in price from $100 to $35.

Labels: Gay events, gay organization, Gay Seattle, music, Seattle

After what seems like a bizarre delay from its February UK release, Mika's hit pop album Life In Cartoon Motion goes on sale in the US tomorrow.

If you're asking, "Who?" then you haven't been paying attention as a YouTube video of his song Grace Kelly along with heavy rotation on MTV gave his infection pop sound considerable virtual airplay starting late last year. You can hear several of his songs on his official MySpace site. (Find a collection of Mika's YouTube videos here.)

As his US publicity tour for the album picks up, we've seen another explosion of the web-search questions, "mika gay?" on our logs. It's a question his fans are still asking, but one that Mika is still declining to answer.

Andy Towle gave a guest blogger spot on Towleroad the other day to ArjanWrites, a blogger who's been on top of the Mika online phenom from the start, for an interesting interview with the pop singer/songwriter. Most of the interview is about something Mika clearly loves to talk about -- his music, and his attitude toward today's pop music, but Arjan also asks the question explicitly and gets what has become Mika's standard answer.

Rumors have been circulating about your own sexuality. Are you gay?

I don?t' really discuss that. I don?t feel I really need to. My music speaks for itself. I have total freedom with what I do musically and the way that I live my life. And I feel really comfortable with that.

Bizarre as this seems, Mika reports that some fans or would-be fans are so upset by his silence on the question that he's received email death threats. [link, again, via Towleroad]

Chart-topping singer Mika has revealed that he is getting death threats from fans - because he won't admit whether he is gay or not.

The 23-year-old singer, real name Mica Penniman, has told how he receives messages from people threatening to kill him over his sexuality.

Our reaction, translated into Gallactica-speak: What the frack? This is even more bizarre than the unaccountable popularity of the Idol shows that Mika tries to overcome or the incessant cable "news" coverage of the death of a fat one-time pinup model. Come on, now. How can any of this possibly matter that much?

Really, now. He's a pop phenom who displays a queer sensibility about his performance and his music. Isn't that enough. We can see and hear the sensibility. Does it matter all that much who he does or doesn't have sex with. Isn't that queer sensibility enough? Well... apparently not for some folks. He told the Telegraph,

"In order to survive I've shut up different parts of my life, and that's one of them, especially this early in my career, I don't really feel that it's necessary to know in terms of my music.

"Some people make records that are defined by their sexuality, but mine really are not. It does play a lot with campness. It has a theatricality to it. Why not? It's pop music.

"If you're 14-years-old and you're gay, well, just do whatever you want. I'm not confused and I don't have any barriers about the way I live my life. That's why I don't want to put it under the microscope."

And, really now. Isn't that enough? Sure, if he actually is gay, then it would probably be easier for him to just say so, like the Idol kid in Australia who finally ended long speculation down under to proclaim, "Yes, I am gay.... I'm looking forward to living a life with no barriers and not having to worry about saying the right thing."

That comes from Anthony Callea, 24, who has parlayed his appearances on Australian Idol into a best-selling pop career singing what appears to be typically Idol-like pop pablum.

And, so, fine... That's great for that guy that he doesn't have to play a silly role hiding who he is.

But why does it matter so much who a pop star has sex with. If Mika were to show up tomorrow with a female fiance on his arm, would that make his music any less of a relief from the usual pop drivel? It shouldn't matter. But, somehow, it does seem to matter too much to too many of us.

Labels: celebrities, coming out, Mika, music

We both curse and bless Michael Goff, Andy Towle's new co-writer on Towleroad, for blogging about a service called Musicovery on Friday.



Goff also mentions a number of other web music services in the post. Some of the others might get you closer to hearing only the music that you already know and want to hear, but it's Musicovery that's had us transfixed for the weekend. (But then, as you might have noted, we who write this don't have a life.)

What we like about Musicovery is something that interface designers call "discoverability." Basically that term means something like this: You shouldn't have to explain how something works, it should just work.

Musicovery just works as highly customizable web radio. And that's high praise.

Labels: link bites, music

The young Krakow Dominican monks just wanna have fun. Church officials weren't laughing.


(YouTube Link) [via Slog]

Labels: music, video, youtube

And, you've gotta admit, this is about the only interpretation of Paula Abdul's track that works these days:

(YouTube Link)

And while we're at it, did you catch Robbie's co-favorite diva, Jennifer Holliday, doing a stunning outside-the-Oscars performance last night? (via Towleroad)

(YouTube link)

Labels: music, video, WonderRobbie, youtube

[Update, 1/27: Since this post has been extensively linked, we should point out that there's more about "the question" here, including this response to The Sun: "I never talk about anything to do with my sexuality."]

Lacking comments and/or emails [sniffle], we often look to incoming search strings to get a notion about what folks are looking for here. So it is, that we were a bit taken aback to see several question-form queries of the form, "Is Mika gay?" Our first response was to say, "Well, duh!" but that would be mean, so we looked to more sources than what we linked to over the weekend.

AfterElton is usually a good resource for such questions, but (so far, at least), they have only this to say:

If I'm not mistaken, Mika is openly gay (though his MySpace page doesn't mention that). Mika is not only adorable, but to me sounds like a weird amalgamation of Elton John, Scissor Sisters, and Queen. Whoever he reminds you of, his music is damned catchy.

That's not exactly dispositive, as they say.

Back in November, Londonist (yes, it's one of their sister blogs) introduced Mika this way:

Last week we went out to watch a man from Beirut with colourful trousers and big hair, sing songs about fat girls, gay affairs, and lollipops. Tonight, we think you should do the same.

But still, they don't directly answer the question, although really... with those hip-swinging, leg-kicking moves in concert and those colorful trousers, do they need to?

UK.Gay.com comes closer with this:

In what promises to be the gay indie night of the year, new pop sensation Mika is set to perform live at Popstarz on Friday 26th January, 2007.

What seems to be happening here, is that the question just isn't at issue. He's hit #1 on UK pop charts without anyone much caring about the question, at least not after the singer/songwriter has been compared to every other queer pop star who's ever lived. (And how about some comparisons of Relax with Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Where's the love).

A US press release stoking interest in next week's release of his album says this:

Mika's first single 'Grace Kelly' has topped the UK music charts on digital sales alone, despite the fact that the physical single won't be available in stores until January 29th. 'Grace Kelly' ascended to the coveted #1 spot after unseating Leona Lewis who had held the position for four weeks. With this honor Mika joins Gnarls Barkley as the only artists to reach the #1 position before their singles were released in stores. In addition, 'Grace Kelly' has now secured the top spot as the most played video on MTV.

Being gay is not an issue in this long radio interview, or in these pop-star interviews posted to YouTube.

So then... the answer to the question seems to be "Yes," but another follows: "Why does it matter?" Enjoy:

Labels: Gay, Mika, music, video, youtube

...or Elton or Jake Shears or even Marc [T. Rex]. Fortunately for us all, however, he is Mika. Defiantly so. Behold:


[YouTube link]

ArjanWrites explains the genesis of the song:

Mika wrote "Grace Kelly" after he felt frustrated with record label executives that wanted him to change his sound to fit to the common pop mold. Mika refused and went his own way to write this song and a bunch of others. However, the label honchos came around and decided to sign Mika anyway after hearing the fabulous "Grace Kelly." How ironic.

And then, being record executives, they decided to market his unwillingness to be Idolized.

But, or so we would hope, you'll want to hear it again. So here's a piano version:

QueerBeacon has much more well-deserved fan fever with links.

Labels: Gay, Mika, music, video, youtube