THE CANCER FAGS
PERFORMING AT SOMEDAY
Friday, September 15th / 9pm-2am — $5
ST VITUS DANCE CLUB:late-night show
featuring The Cancer Fags, DJ M’Chateau, Try My Cabbage, and streetwise synchronized 80s dance team Fan Kick.
STREAMING LIVE SEPTEMBER 15!
About the artist
As a great man once reminded us: "It’s not easy having a good time these days."
But there are those who would do what is necessary, toiling endlessly in the pleasure mines till the grey times are through.
Such are The Cancer Fags - aka Julian Tulip and Corban Lester - the most eligible bachelors in the post-romantic underground of Portland, OR.
Both gentlemen had established their reputations in this city of endless rain when their paths first crossed – Mssr. Tulip as the distingue diva of freeform lounge adepts Licorice; and Mssr. Lester as a celebrated producer, music journalist, and promotional warlord.
What started off as an ironic self-indulgence – Julian walking miles in the snow with notebooks in hand, to lay down spoken vocals over Corban’s vinyl discoveries – got serious quick when the Fags took the stage for their first performance at the charmingly divey Cheers. A capacity crowd of jaded electro girls and hardened nightclub boys, enrapt to the sinuous swagger of Tulip’s confessional, swaying to the DJ’s subversive beats. There is a sense of near-disbelief. We are witnessing something that seems to live in a past that never was, and then we are a part of it, the frontman drops down from his stage and writhes amongst us, crooning mythic cycles of love and alienation in the big bad city. His city. Lonesome Town. And they take us home with them every night.
Maybe it’s their pasts – Corban seething behind a desk at Microsoft till he finally gave notice and spent his last paycheck on two turntables and a microphone, Julian slinging pleasure in a porn shop and escorting the disillusionees of the upper crust. There is a common ground in these paths that is not apparent, until one hears the music. It’s appropriate that they evoke equally the misty-eyed sanguine of Serge Gainsbourg and the synthetic tragedy of Soft Cell. They too have danced too far to return.
And so they have continued, forsaking other projects to pursue those mysteries concealed in the core of the nightlife.
Corban brings home the music, and Julian draws from his headfull of urban fairytales to complete new pieces in the moment of performance, at least half improvisational, while the pretty kids dance and stare. Only the venues have changed, as our heroes have progressed to larger clubs, tours, and festivals. Sharing the stage with peers from The Prids to Felix da Housecat and back again, The Cancer Fags have never faltered on their evangelical mission of suavity.
Who wants to be next to see the light?
Performer links
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