Music & Concerts
Boy George on new Culture Club album, Wolf Trap concert July 18 and his affinity for astrology
Pop legend prepping new band record for fall release
Boy George plays Wolf Trap July 18. (Photo courtesy of Wolf Trap)
Boy George has never been one to fade away.
Since he first appeared on the music scene as the gender-bending, eccentric Culture Club frontman in 1981, George has commanded attention from his fan base, his peers, like his good friend Cyndi Lauper, and the media.
Now, Culture Club is releasing “Tribes,” their first album in nearly 20 years, this fall. According to George, the long-awaited release is “the best record we’ve ever made.” While fans wait a couple more months for new tunes, they can get their Culture Club fix during the band’s the “Life Tour” stop at Wolf Trap which includes the B-52s and the Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey (show details are here).
George took a break from recording and touring to chat with the Blade about his passion for astrology, the dangers of social media and just why it took Culture Club almost two decades to release a new album.
WASHINGTON BLADE: Culture Club is going to be releasing new music for the first time in nearly 20 years. Was there pressure to release new music?
BOY GEORGE: A lot of it has just been that we weren’t working together. The fact that there was a 20 year gap was just accidental. We’re a funny band because we never really split up. We never hated each other at all. We just drifted apart. I was doing my own thing and they were doing whatever they were doing having kids, getting arrested. It’s just one of those things. It’s so weird the way things pan out. This particular record has been probably about five or six years in preparation and then some more problems came up. Not really insurmountable problems, really, just where the band was going. I was looking for a new manager. We disagreed on who was going to be the manager. Jon [Moss], Roy [Hay] and Mikey [Craig] ended up going off with someone else and I found myself a great manager and that’s really what made it work. If you’d had said to me 20 years ago “There’s going to be a point in history where you’ll have two managers” I would have just laughed at you. But, actually, it really works. It’s just a funny thing because all that stuff gets in the way of the most important thing and that is the creativity. It’s really nice that we’re now mixing the record. Every day we’re getting mixes in and I think it’s the best record we’ve ever made.
BLADE: What aspects of recording with Culture Club do you prefer over recording independently?
BOY GEORGE: It’s a very different process. You have to be much more tolerant. I think recording is always free flowing even when you make your own record. You’re still working with people that you respect and love. You let people do their thing. I’m sure there are other musicians who are very controlling and they know what they want. But whenever I go into the studio I know what the song is but I never really know completely where I want it to go. I let a lot of it happen in the moment. I think that’s what makes recording exciting. I would say the same process applies to Culture Club. This time we worked with two young producers and they definitely brought something unique to what we were doing. I really was excited by what they contributed. I would say they were probably more controlling than we were. Bands are crazy and we have no sense of time. Rock and roll people don’t do time. I’ve never worn a watch in my life. I’ve been given some really expensive watches for free but I’ve never really worn one. I think the producer’s job is to come and just control the whole thing and say “OK, we’re going to go this way.” In my experience, recording sessions have always been very respectful, free flowing. It’s just a very open environment. In fact, probably the most fun thing I do is recording. I think that I would probably spend my life in the studio but that wouldn’t be particularly practical.
BLADE: I don’t know if you’re into astrology at all but you’re a Gemini and your persona appears to have a duality to it. Have you found that to be a blessing or a curse?
BOY GEORGE: First of all, I’m one of those people always talking about star signs. People are like “Shut up!” I’ve always got a lot to say about people’s star signs and how people are so typical of their star signs. I think that’s very true. I think that I’m also very typical of my star sign in the sense that I’m always of two minds about everything. I can come off stage and I could have had a really great show but I’ll also be moany about it. It’s that thing of like the twins and split personality that’s very much a part of who I am. Sometimes people perceive it wrongly. We [Geminis] are called two-faced but we are able to see both sides of every situation. It has nothing to do with being two-faced. We’re very sure about what we feel. But we’re also open to having our minds changed and I think that’s where people get confused about Gemini. So I think that I’m a typical Gemini.
BLADE: Concert culture is very different from when you first started out. Now, people are on their phones recording or taking photos when an act is on stage. How do you feel about that?
BOY GEORGE: I think it’s fascinating. The last couple shows we’ve done I pointed out people in the front row without phones. I actually made a big thing and said, “Look there are people in the front row without phones. Impossible.” I’m one of those people that believe that people having that attitude all the time is pretty unhealthy. So, there are lots of times when I don’t take my phone with me to dinner. I try not to sit on it all the time. I try to go outside into nature, take a walk. There is a sense that people are having a third party experience with everything that they do and it’s a little bit sad. It’s harder to dance when you’ve got an iPhone in your hand. It’s harder to really let go. I think people are just obsessed with these things. But you’ve also got to let people have the show they want to have. You have to let people have fun on their own terms. So, I’m not one of these people who gets annoyed. I’ve absolutely done it. I’ve stopped shows before, a long, long time ago. And then I turned a corner and was like “You can’t control this. This is not important. This is just going to get in the way.” So I just stopped doing it. It worries me sometimes when people around me just all they do is look at their phones. You know, followers and likes are not for money. It doesn’t mean anything. I come from a time when artists made a cultural impact through the things they said and did. That interests me far more than how many people have liked my photo. But I also know it’s a part of life and a modern phenomenon. I love the aspect that I can say “Happy birthday” to someone in Vietnam or Australia and I can talk to fans in a direct way. It’s all about getting it into perspective, I think.
Culture Club is (from left) Mikey Craig, Boy George, Jon Moss and Roy Hay. (Photo by Dean Stockings)
BLADE: You’re such a vet in this industry but what’s the most recent industry lesson you’ve learned?
BOY GEORGE: Nobody knows what they’re doing. That’s what I’ve learned. My life policy is basically we’re all clinging to a rock but some of us have a better grip than others. The more I’m in this business the more I’ve realized that with music, we are one of the most creative industries in the world, and yet some of the people running it are deeply uncreative. And I think that’s why live music has become so important for artists like me because it’s the one place where you’re completely in charge. You’re completely authentic even though I hate that word. It’s such a buzz word. But you are in charge. This is me, this is my music. Nobody’s in the way. I love the spontaneity of live shows because it’s really the last place where nobody can pretend to be you. Nobody really gets in your way. I love that and that’s why I think live shows are the best. It’s so great to be in a situation where you can just be yourself.
Photo of Boy George performing at Wolf Trap with Culture Club on August 10, 2015. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
Music & Concerts
Underdog glorious: a personal remembrance of Jill Sobule
Talented singer, songwriter died in house fire on May 1
I’ve always prided myself on being the kind of music consumer who purchased music on impulse. When I stumbled across “Things Here Are Different,” Jill Sobule’s 1990 MCA Records debut album on vinyl in a favorite Chicago record store, I bought it without knowing anything about her. This was at a time when we didn’t have our phones in our pockets to search for information about the artist on the internet. The LP stayed in my collection until, as vinyl was falling out of fashion, I replaced it with a CD a few years later.
Early in my career as an entertainment journalist, I received a promo copy of Jill’s eponymous 1995 Atlantic Records album. That year, Atlantic Records was one of the labels at the forefront of signing and heavily promoting queer artists, including Melissa Ferrick and Extra Fancy, and its roster included the self-titled album by Jill. It was a smart move, as the single “I Kissed A Girl” became a hit on radio and its accompanying video (featuring Fabio!) was in heavy rotation on MTV (when they still played videos).
Unfortunately for Jill, she was a victim of record label missteps. When 1997’s wonderful “Happy Town” failed to repeat the success, Atlantic dumped her. That was Atlantic’s loss, because her next album, the superb “Pink Pearl” contained “Heroes” and “Mexican Wrestler,” two of her most beloved songs. Sadly, Beyond Music, the label that released that album ceased to exist after just a few years. To her credit, the savvy Jill had also started independently releasing music (2004’s “The Folk Years”). That was a smart move because her next major-label release, the brilliant “Underdog Victorious” on Artemis Records, met a similar fate when that label folded.
With her 2009 album “California Years,” Jill launched her own indie label, Pinko Records, on which she would release two more outstanding full-length discs, 2014’s “Dottie’s Charms” (on which she collaborated with some of her favorite writers, including David Hadju, Rick Moody, Mary Jo Salter, and Jonathan Lethem), and 2018’s stunning “Nostalgia Kills.” Jill’s cover of the late Warren Zevon’s “Don’t Let Us Get Sick” on “Nostalgia Kills” was particularly poignant as she had toured with him as an opening act.
Jill was a road warrior, constantly on tour, and her live shows were something to behold. My first interview with Jill took place at the Double Door in Chicago in early August of 1995, when she was the opening act for legendary punk band X. She had thrown her back out the previous day and was diagnosed with a herniated disc. To be comfortable, she was lying down on a fabulous-‘50s sofa. “I feel like I’m at my shrink’s,” she said to me, “Do you want me to talk about my mother?”
That sense of humor, which permeated and enriched her music, was one of many reasons to love Jill. I was privileged to interview her for seven of her albums. Everything you would want to know about her was right there in her honest lyrics, in which she balanced her distinctive brand of humor with serious subject matter. Drawing on her life experiences in songs such as “Bitter,” “Underachiever,” “One of These Days,” “Freshman,” “Jetpack,” “Nothing To Prove,” “Forbidden Thoughts of Youth,” “Island of Lost Things,” “Where Do I Begin,” “Almost Great,” and “Big Shoes,” made her songs as personal as they were universal, elicited genuine affection and concern from her devoted fans.
While she was a consummate songwriter, Jill also felt equally comfortable covering songs made famous by others, including “Just A Little Lovin’” (on the 2000 Dusty Springfield tribute album “Forever Dusty”) and “Stoned Soul Picnic” (from the 1997 Laura Nyro tribute album “Time and Love”). Jill also didn’t shy away from political subject matter in her music with “Resistance Song,” “Soldiers of Christ,” “Attic,” “Heroes,” “Under the Disco Ball,” and the incredible “America Back” as prime examples.
Here’s something else worth mentioning about Jill. She was known for collaboration skills. As a songwriter, she maintained a multi-year creative partnership with Robin Eaton (“I Kissed A Girl” and many others), as well as Richard Barone, the gay frontman of the renowned band The Bongos. Jill’s history with Barone includes performing together at a queer Octoberfest event in Chicago in 1996. Writer and comedian Julie Sweeney, of “SNL” and “Work in Progress” fame was another Chicago collaborator with Sobule (Sweeney lives in a Chicago suburb), where they frequently performed their delightful “The Jill and Julia Show.” John Doe, of the aforementioned band X, also collaborated with Jill in the studio (“Tomorrow Is Breaking” from “Nostalgia Kills”), as well as in live performances.
On a very personal note, in 2019, when I was in the process of arranging a reading at the fabulous NYC gay bookstore Bureau of General Services – Queer Division, I reached out to Jill and asked her if she would like to be on the bill with me. We alternated performing; I would read a couple of poems, and Jill would sing a couple of songs. She even set one of my poems to music, on the spot.
Jill had an abundance of talent, and when she turned her attention to musical theater, it paid off in a big way. Her stage musical “F*ck 7th Grade,” a theatrical piece that seemed like the next logical step in her career, had its premiere at Pittsburgh’s City Theatre in the fall of 2020, during the height of the pandemic. The unique staging (an outdoor drive-in stage at which audience members watched from their cars) was truly inspired. “F*ck 7th Grade” went on to become a New York Times Critic’s pick, as well as earning a Drama Desk nomination.
In honor of the 30th anniversary of Jill’s eponymous 1995 album, reissue label Rhino Records is re-releasing it on red vinyl. Jill and I had been emailing each other to arrange a time for an interview. We even had a date on the books for the third week of May.
When she died in a house fire in Minnesota on May 1 at age 66, Jill received mentions on network and cable news shows. She was showered with attention from major news outlets, including obits in the New York Times and Rolling Stone (but not Pitchfork, who couldn’t be bothered to review her music when she was alive). Is it wrong to think that if she’d gotten this much attention when she was alive she could have been as big as Taylor Swift? I don’t think so.
Music & Concerts
Tom Goss returns with ‘Bear Friends Furever Tour’
Out singer/songwriter to perform at Red Bear Brewing Co.
Singer Tom Goss will bring his “Bear Friends Furever Tour” to D.C. on Sunday, June 8 at 8 p.m. at Red Bear Brewing Co.
Among the songs he will perform will be “Bear Soup,” the fourth installment in his beloved bear song anthology series. Following fan favorites like “Bears,” “Round in All the Right Places,” and “Nerdy Bear,” this high-energy, bass-thumping banger celebrates body positivity, joyful indulgence, and the vibrant spirit of the bear subculture.
For more details, visit Tom Goss’s website.
Aussie pop icon Kylie Minogue brings her acclaimed “Tension” world tour to D.C. next Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Capital One Arena. Tickets are still available at Ticketmaster.
The show features songs spanning her long career, from 1987 debut single, “The Loco-Motion,” to “Padam, Padam” from her album, “Tension.”
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