New album and tour aside, members of pop act Dragonette appear to have something else on their minds: sex. They sing songs about stealing boyfriends (“Competition”) and random sexual encounters (“I Get Around”). One of their recent music videos even playfully recreates a 1970’s porn shoot (“Take It Like A Man”).
“I enjoy sex, but I don’t think I’m more sexual than say, my parents,” says lead singer Martina Sorbara. (Her father, by the way, is Greg Sorbara, who just quit his job as Ontario’s finance minister)
You may have heard their song “I Get Around” on the radio. “Quietly slide away off the mattress/ Find my clothing on the bed post/ So I tip toe out of this mess/ As I slip back into last nights dress/ I get around,” sings Sorbara. It’s catchy and slutty, all at once.
With their debut album Galore out now, Dragonette has just started a month-long cross-country tour. Three of the four members are from Toronto, and on Oct 25, they performed for their hometown crowd at a sold-out show at the Mod Club.
And what a show it was. Sorbara has fabulous stage presence, as do the three men in the band (including Sobara’s husband Dan Kurtz, who plays bass). They put on a polished show and keep the energy going with a slew of upbeat pop songs.
Amid the throngs of hipsters at the Toronto concert was an attractive tall, blond guy wearing what appeared to be a Halloween costume. From head to toe, he was covered in sparkling silver: platform boots, hot pants too short even by Mariah Carey’s standards, and a vest that showed off his bronze chest. To top it off (literally), he wore a funnel on his head.
During the band’s final song, Sorbara picked the guy in silver out of the crowd and brought him on stage for the band’s closing number, “I Get Around.” It really was an over-the-top finale to a fabulous show.
While none of the members of Dragonette identify as gay or lesbian, they clearly know their target market as a pop act. The group performed at London Pride this summer, and their videos play with gender identity. In “I Get Around,” Sorbara walks through a club and kisses boys and girls. The video ends with Sorbara dressed in a tux, sporting a boyish hairstyle and being groped by women.
One UK radio station slammed the band for playing up their flamboyancy as “pandering to the gays,” says Sorbara.
“They said ‘I find it really off putting that none of them are gay, yet they play the gay card,'” she says.
But she says it’s unfair to put such restrictive labels on bands. “Does that mean we have to be like the Arctic Monkeys — wearing black and thrashing about on guitars — otherwise you’re playing the gay card?”
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