If Dylan Rice is the Beaver Cleaver of musical gay dysfunction, Tom Yore is his Wally. But where Rice is just getting started, Yore has been around awhile ( he rarely plays a full concert of his material if he plays at all ) . His relatively new CD, Museum, is a compilation of old songs and a failed theatrical piece called "Sam Hill." The new CD is both a dazzling cornerstone to Yore musically and emotionally, but also infuriating as hell.
Infuriating because of "Sam Hill." Yore's notes don't offer a libretto and though the songs stand on their own, you're never really sure what's going on. On "Gold American Heart" when he sings about Rumania I'm like uh ... hunh? "The Story of You and I" and "Faster Me Freely" are no less complicated but without the intended context there's a whiff of incompletion. But if Yore's writing and vocals weren't so on it you wouldn't care...you DO want more.
As the author of "Real Me Happens"...probably the best personal gay liberation song ever...Yore has set his standards exceptionally high. Museum, for all its disparate parts, dovetails into a lovely document of biography with its specific viewpoint on the world. Its personal all right, and scary as shit because he openly deals with what's going on in his head and heart.
Someone like Melissa Ferrick can hit you over the head with all that raw emotion, but Yore gets under your skin by letting you under his. "Love in the Body" and "Faster Me Freely" ( libretto or not ) are disarmingly naked. "L.A. from the Air," and "The Mistake I Make" are elegant, distant, and haunting. My favorite, "Drugs Way," with its chugging guitar lines and layered chorus, works on several levels because the lyrics aren't obvious. On the chorus Yore, tight-lipped and sweaty, pleads, "Please don't take my dreams/drugs away," with fevered desperation and what comes across is the fear. The scenario is irrelevant, the beauty is in the emotion.
The album, though it is a compilation, feels immediate, as if it was created just before and after a lot of letting go ( particularly of dreams ) . Yore is either biting his lip or breathing with a sigh of release.
But before Museum has a chance to turn into a downer, "Uncle Tony on LaGonave" fucks up all that Zinfandel-stained melancholy. A jolly island slice of life, it's as fizzy as Sir Elton's "Jamaica Jerk-Off" or Lena Horne's "Push the Button," and the backbeat sounds like an over-inflated beach ball bouncing in the breeze.
But if Museum is a time capsule of Yore's history, his performance at the August Nevin's Live/WCT Music Series was something else all together. He may look like Wally Cleaver, but the gig was up on his first song; an acoustic take on Lou Reed's "I'm Waiting for the Man." But where Reed was anxiously seeking out a drug pusher, Yore was seeking a pusher of another sort. By including the chorus of U2's "I Will Follow" that drug ( horse in Reed's case, sex in Yore's ) became all important, omnipotent. It was a smashing opening, not only because of Yore's wit in bending familiar music to his own ends, but in his comment on the sexual hunger that permeates the gay community. If you don't know what I'm talking about, walk down Elaine Place at 4 a.m.
It got better. "Real Me Happens" turned up early in the set ( ! ) but "First We Take Manhattan" got a demented street fool's twist. With Yore it was a hearty spin on urban madness worthy of The Punishment. Where Leonard Cohen sounded revolutionary and bracing, Yore made it sound like the yammering of a crazed street person. On "Faster Me Freely" Yore revisited an open wound...his divorce...and what was stinging wasn't the separation but the self-knowledge that he couldn't help but hurt someone he loved. With Doug Brush on percussion, Yore's set was dramatic if not a little creepy. Brazen and cantankerous, this is hardly pristine rainbow flag gay fare, but it is truthful. Yore rarely gets the chance to play a full concert, as he did Aug. 30 ( he claims it's his last gig of this year ) . If and when he plays again, you are wrong for not going.
Sad news; The passing of LaWanda Page ( Aunt Esther of Sanford and Son, '30s era Harlem "blue" comedienne, and more recently gal pal of RuPaul ) , at age 81.
COUNTRY STARS
New York record producer/songwriter Larry Dvoskin announced last week his nationwide search for an openly gay male country music star [ has he heard of Y'all? ] . Interested candidates between the ages of 18 and 26 can arrange an audition by calling ( 615 ) 361-6714 or Todayisthefuture@aol.com . Dvoskin feels the time is right for his project, "There are already major male country stars that are gay, but none dare to come out due to fear of the reaction," Dvoskin says. Noting female artists like k.d. Lang and Sophie B. Hawkins, he adds, "In our Howard Stern culture, lesbians are cool, but a gay male isn't."
