Justin Bond, singer songwriter and performance artist, now named Mx. Justin Vivian Bond, and “V” instead of he/she or him/her is returning to San Francisco April 9 to the Castro Theater to celebrate the release of Dendrophile, V’s first full length solo album. The past couple of years have been a whirlwind of new creative endeavors, international touring, varied theatrical productions and many live performances mostly at Joe’s Pub in New York. These continually sold out shows earned a seemingly endless array of positive reviews, most notably in The New Yorker who named Bond “the greatest cabaret performer of his generation.” Dendrophile showcases many of Bond’s original songs, written while straddling a moss-covered log fallen across a ravine in the Tennessee mountains, hence the title, which refers to a person who loves trees or gets an erotic charge from nature. In a recent feature from Next Magazine, Bond eloquently added some insight to the title explaining, “I feel like for people like me, the hardest thing that we have to learn to do in our lives is to honor our own nature, because when I was raised I was taught to fight my own nature, and it wasn’t until I was an adult that I was able to accept and honor and love my own nature, and Dendrophile is about loving people who honor that.” Always revolutionary, ever glamorous and in a world where the truth can be dangerous, Justin Vivian Bond wields it fearlessly as always, but with grace, beauty and aplomb. Dendrophile is testament of an evolving, uncompromised and heroic talent.
The record opens with “American Wedding” lyrics by the late activist and poet Essex Hemphill put to music and sung as an invocation. In some ways this is my favorite song on the album because it is pure Justin through and through. It hits the ground running with the topic that’s on everyone’s mind these days, Gay Marriage, yet the imagery is far from the average ideal. This American Wedding isn’t the assimilation of the heterosexual institution that has proven itself a failure. These words describe a union that is free from the confines of a society unaccepting and intolerant. This wedding is taken, not granted and its revolutionary. The abstract jazz stylings and vocalizations conjure Nina Simone, and ages of heart-wrenching protest songs. Not bad for the first cut and for clocking in at just over two minutes. This is moving beyond belief and it is also the first video from the record which you can view below.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X14a3G0SuLs&fs=1&hl=en_US]
The next cut is a gem that many of us have waited a long time to have a copy of on any CD. Written by the legendary San Francisco transsexual Bambi Lake, “The Golden Age Of Hustlers” has long been a staple in all of Bond’s performances and is one of V’s favorite songs to sing. Theres no wonder why this is true. It evokes a period of time that is long gone and is rendered so beautifully in the words of an individual who was there. It’s a magnificent song and it’s finally honored properly with this loving rendition.
“Equipoise” is an interesting transgender coming of age song apparently inspired by a YouTube video of an elephant painting self portraits with it’s tail for money, a creature forced to do something against it’s nature and it all comes together sounding very much like a folk-y anthem with the instrumentation being banjo prominent, a definite ode to the Tennessee mountains where Bond spends time at the Faerie retreat. The banjo struck me as an odd presence at first but the more i listened the more sense it made and the more this song carried me away, conjuring Woody Guthrie and Dolly Parton and building on an already strengthening theme of honoring ones true self.
“The New Economy” is a hard hitting song, and i believe one of the first Bond wrote. It’s about the crumbling of the worlds economy and it’s got a dark foreboding jazzy feel and again the presence of a banjo which makes for an odd juxtaposition next to an occasional screeching saxophone, like a bluegrass/jazz fusion if you will and again i’m very impressed. This music is going places, even uncharted territory.
“Salome” is a song from Bond’s recent theatrical production Re: Galli Blonde, a work inspired by The Order of Galli, a group of gender variant priests and priestesses from ancient times. This is one of Bond’s most beautiful and sensitive vocal deliveries on the album, though the rendition/mash-up of “Superstar/Diamonds and Rust” is also pretty magnificent. You can really tell these songs are very meaningful to Bond, important to V’s own inspiration and respectfully lovingly rendered.
Two songs on the album keep haunting me or urging me to play them again and again and I love them more each time and they are “The Genet Song” with its smooth lilt reminiscent of Van Morrisson’s “Moon Dance” only it dances around more eventful things than just a pretty night full of stars and lyrically has some of the best imagery and clever wordplay on the record. The other song is “Crowley ala Lee” which imagines a meeting between Aleister Crowley and Peggy Lee and bears a smooth jazzy similarity to it’s namesake.
“Twenty Second Century” is an intense political rant and it is powerful and emotional, recounting events of the past few decades and supposed events of the future and Bond really cuts loose on this one, exploring some extreme or non-traditional vocal techniques, where emotion actually over-rides technique and I have a very distinct feeling that this one will bring the house to its feet unanimously when performed live. It gives me chills and even tears when i listen to it.
Also included is “In The End” from the film Shortbus by John Cameron Mitchell and a somber and beautiful version of Joni Mitchell’s “Court and Spark,” not exactly an easy song choice to cover.
Overall, Dendrophile is an impressive work that adequately captures a unique artist in a way that one could only hope possible. It conveys the scope and magic of an unforgettable uncompromised and unstoppable performer who has hit their stride and shows no sign of slowing down. From here anything can happen, and will. Go to The Castro Theater April 9th and you will see what I mean.
What a frankly incredible read…