Justin Vivian Bond - "Dendrophile"
Justin Bond exists in a cabaret. Either as a perfectly transgendered performer (beautiful and statuesque both as a man and a woman) or in the up-until-recently more familiar trappings of the character Kiki DuRane of Kiki and Herb (for whom Butt Trumpet's ‘You're Ugly’ is a defiant self-declaration). Justin Vivian Bond's work has been about performance and context. Bond has mastered the telling of stories both true and fantastical into introductions to a collection of the most unexpectedly theatrical songs (Marc Almond's ‘A Lover Spurned’ became a Shirley Bassey-style showstopper as the conclusion to the tale of Kiki attacking her husband with a steak knife). So, as exciting as news of a solo studio album from the newly christened Justin Vivian Bond was, I met the prospect with trepidation. How could a series of individual songs in the vacuum of an LP represent the Justin Bond experience absent of the catharsis of social commentary or anecdotes about old friends being arrested for a baby-punching spree? (I don't really have the space in this review to explain that last statement.)
The thing is, an album really isn't a vacuum and while I never had the privilege of seeing Nina Simone perform, she also lived in the cabaret, and yet she left a rich collection of transcendent studio recordings behind. And here is Justin Vivian Bond, barreling through ‘22nd Century’ as if channeling those times on stage where Nina claimed the music would take the lead and take over her body: "A liberation of music, poetry, love and life. Sex: changing, changing, changing... Woman is man, man is woman. Even your brain is not your brain!" as guitar and drums (courtesy of Nathan Carraro) pound the background. And you might ask "Do we need this recording when we have Nina's version?" And I'll ask you back "How many people do you know who know Nina's version? How many people, for that matter, do you know who have heard Exuma's original version?" If the answer is few, or none, than I argue we need as many versions as possible (and I'll also say I'm very grateful for Justin Bond).
Justin Bond is a great interpreter of songs, not only as a singer, but as someone who can take beloved songs as found objects and re-present them to audiences as something living, breathing and relevant. When Bond started to branch away from the Kiki persona, V (Mx. Bond's personal pronoun of choice rather than he or she... by the way V also prefers Mx.) did so in a complex atmosphere: one a little dazed and frightened by the aftershock of poor decisions made by those trusted in taking care of the finances and safety of the American public.
Simultaneously, it's a time when the U.S. may just possibly, may be finally mature enough to grow up about gender issues but still unable to quiet petulant children who would prefer their status quo to other's pursuit of happiness. In response, Bond offers up a voice of both of tenderness and angry opposition to the small-minded.
Dendrophile starts with Essex Hemphill's poem ‘American Wedding’. In V's words, it's an invocation, one that is supercharged with beat woodwinds, evocatively beginning with "In America, I put my ring on your cock where it belongs" and ultimately becoming a statement of pure love. "They're too busy looting" to notice the pure love of two people providing for each other. It's a perfect lead-in to the second track on the album, which is, well, a perfect recording: Bambi Lake's ‘The Golden Age of Hustlers’. Lake, a friend of Bond's, is one of the best songwriters I've ever encountered and yet I only know the songs of Bambi Lake through Justin Bond.* ‘Hustlers’ is a song about the memories of a transgendered hooker in San Francisco "long ago":
My eye was always looking
For some dumb man to pay my rent
And some young man to love me
With so many heaven sent,
I thank the stars above me.
And along the way, we find that people died and wasted away... "it's hard to find someone you can trust, amidst the rhinestones and the rust." But, importantly, "the queens and the hustlers of the red light zone never did desert me." This can be a golden age because someone has your back and someone is there to break your fall. It's an amazing, haunting song and V belts it out, here, on record, as well or better than in some of the astounding live renditions I've heard. The two songs also set the tone for the entire record... one of acceptance, community and love but with backbone. It’s a tenderness and strength that also defines the Justin Vivian Bond original compositions represented here, particularly the next two: ‘Equipoise’, a lovely parable of self-discovery amidst self-guilt set to a country tune and ‘The New Economy’, an anthem, at times hilarious, contrasting the shock of the "new depression" against the economic state of the typical artist living hand-to-mouth:
They say it's the new depression. So why am I filled with glee? Everyone coming down quickly. Now they can all join me.
But joining means finding the unknown joys of having nothing but the ability to evoke fancy and fantasy while loving "the sound of thunder of your world crashing down." The new golden rule is "take what you need and give a little back." Just marvelous, and it's a song I've loved from the first time I heard it but I was a little surprised by the arrangement on the record. It's down and dirty, soaked with the sounds of brass in the night, straight out of a Raymond Chandler alleyway (thanks to Doug Wieselman on clarinet) and flanked with, astonishingly, banjo. The players on most of the album are, in fact, many of the same people who played on what was my favorite album at this time last year: Sam Amidon's collection of folk artifacts, I See The Sign: Sam Amidon himself (playing that banjo on this track), Shahzad Ismaily (as in "everything is better with a little Shahzad Ismaily"), and Thomas Bartlett (who also produced the album) appear throughout. It's a risky marriage of the NY cultures of Joe's Pub and The Stone (or if you're nostalgic, Fez and Tonic) and it works very well for a very good reason: it's a collaboration of risk takers and, as a result, it's an exchange of ideas.
Dendrophile is an album “chock-filled” with ideas; enough to make one's head spin. ‘Crowley á la Lee’ as a song title means Aleister Crowley (famed occultist) channeled through Peggy Lee. It's a hoot, one that's really, really, REALLY sung in the vein of Ms. Lee marrying the mystery of the moon with the wish to dance and make love with witchcraft thrown in through lyrics casually mentioning "old crones singing with a goat child" and invoking both of the title allusions through Amidon's crazy-ass insane violin and Bartlett's jazzy piano.
Bond plays with ballads and disco beats while invoking Shaw, Genet and Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays. (The fabulous ‘Genet Song’ is a candidate for my favorite song in fact, featuring Ismaily's drums laying the carpet for dance while Weiselman blows the sax.) The title track ‘Dendrophile’ in and of itself, is a provocative idea. The word means an erotic attraction to nature, and themes of witchcraft and higher human purpose shape the entire work.
And Bond always starts with the assumption that we're as smart as V is - that we'll put the threads together. The threading pays off well when he ingeniously marries The Carpenter's ‘Superstar’ to Joan Baez's bitter letter to a moved-on Bob Dylan, ‘Diamonds and Rust’. (I want to be a DJ so I can play Cat Power's ‘Song to Bobby’ after this track.) Just having the songs in a medley is more than enough, but Justin puts on a splendid performance in both pieces - a lovely piece of acting. And the ‘Superstar’ portion of the song is highlighted by two performers actually channeling Karen: Beth Orton haunting the song with harmony vocals and Shahzad Ismaily capturing her drum part impeccably.
At the risk of making this already-too-long review longer, I'll just say the revival of Bond's hit ‘In the End’ from the movie Shortbus is welcome and his cover of Joni Mitchell's ‘Court and Spark’ highlighted by Bartlett's fingertips is a very pretty end note to a very thoughtful, sensual journey.
Witty and whip-smart, a consummate performer, Justin Vivian Bond is my kind of performer - one with an encyclopedic knowledge of popular song and how it functions, and the wisdom and integrity to turn that understanding into art.
