Rock garden - rock bands in New York City

Interview, May, 1999

Interview digs deep into the heart of New York's rock micro-cosmos to find the bands that prove there's a whole rockin' wilderness outside music's corporate compound. Here are some of the bands that are rocking hardest, growing fastest, and busting out

Honky Toast

Led by flailing goofball Eric J. Toast, Honky Toast burst onto the East Village club scene two years ago, offering a Caucasian low-income answer to boyz in the 'hood - only their 'hood is Dogpatch. The trailer park anthems on the band's debut, What'cha Gonna Do, Honky? (Epic), released in March, include "Alcoholic Mama," "I Wanna Be on Welfare," and "Hair in My Teeth Again." "Honky Toast is sort of a description of me - this character who's a burn-out," says Toast. The Urbana, Illinois, native moved to New York City in 1995 thinking he'd play folk music. "Then I saw all these groups that weren't any better than me filling up clubs. So I said, 'Well, all right, I'll play some rock 'n' roll."'

JAMES HANNAHAM

Inger Lorre

Once upon a time, in a land called L.A., a beautiful woman named Inger Lorre wailed songs of magic and loss for a band called the Nymphs. Their 1991 self-titled hard-rock tour de force should have made Lorre the female Perry Farrell, the pre-Courtney Courtney. Only Lorre pissed her career away - literally, urinating on a record exec's desk, then disappearing amid rumors of breakdowns, addictions, institutionalizations, et cetera. So there's a reason Lorre's just-released return to recording is called Transcendental Medication (Triple X). The twenty-nine-year-old back-home-in-Jersey girl says loud guitars are the only thing she doses on these days. "I just want to make music I can be really proud of for kids who are angry and have nowhere to go. I think that comes from having a terrible childhood. And the one thing that makes you not off yourself is a really great Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin album. Iggy records are what saved me."

EVELYN McDONNELL

Bijou Phillips

Onetime enfant terrible of the modeling world Bijou Phillips has grown up and recorded a surprisingly mature and poetic debut, I'd Rather Eat Glass (Almo). The lyrics are unapologetically revealing, the songcraft airtight, and the sounds remarkably diverse. "It's a guitar-driven rock record," says the nineteen-year-old Connecticut native. "There are moments when it can be a little bit pop or country or punk. I think of it as a potluck." The daughter of John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, and half sister of Mackenzie (who sings backup on Glass) and Chynna of Wilson Phillips, Bijou has found her footing in the family business. "Music is real; it's something you can touch and feel. It moves you - the bass literally shakes you and rocks you from the inside. Music makes your soul feel amazing while you're performing it. It's not air, it's not wind, it's not anything like that. It's solid. It's thick. It's like summertime in New York."

RAY ROGERS

Candy Ass

Candy Ass is what you call an instant band: Add juice, then rock. They made their debut less than a year ago at the St. Marks punk mecca Coney Island High. Five appearances on The Howard Stern Show later, the barely settled lineup of three babes and a guy (singer Galadriel, guitarist Michelle, bassist Sian, and drummer Eric) has already been approached by a record label. Galadriel describes the punk-pop band's look as "tough sluts, like, Are we going to fuck you or fuck you up?" and their sound as "a harder, meaner version of the Go-Go's." But instead of singing about vacations, Candy Ass have a song about beating up a girl called "Two Hits": "That's us hitting her and her hitting the floor." "Two hits" is also all Candy Ass crave from the fickle world of pop music. "We want to be a two-hit wonder," Galadriel says, "then disappear and go be acupuncturists."

CATHAY CHE

The Toilet Boys

Miss Guy and the Toilet Boys are the darlings of the punk-glam scene centered around the Friday-night party. Squeezebox, where they got their start three years ago. Guy has the platinum coif and alpine cheekbones of his idol Deborah Harry, but this drag queen sounds like Kiss, not RuPaul. "The music is aggressive," the androgyne in a leather thong explains, "and it makes me feel hard as a rock." In a town that's already given the world the New York Dolls and Jayne County, rocking out in makeup and heels isn't new - but it still has trouble getting peddled to Peoria. "I've had so many talks with record-company people who say, 'You're too feminine, you need to wear less makeup,'" Miss Guy, says. But he's sticking to his glitter. "Our image is right on for the year 2000. If anything, it needs to be more intense, not less."

C.C.

Bam Bam

Sibyl Buck describes her band Bam Bam as "Led Zeppelin mixed with the Bad Brains and some girl singer you've never heard before." You may not have heard Buck, but you've probably seen her. For the past five years she's been a top model, pushing beauty standards with her flame-red hair, facial piercings, and unshaved armpits. "That's how I was expressing myself at the time," she says. "But now I need something a lot more challenging." In May 1998, Buck hooked up with two been-through-it-all musicians, Izzy Zaidman and Roach. The bluesy hardcore trio is ready to leave day jobs behind. "Roach is a bartender and Izzy has his own man-with-a-van service," says the twenty-six-year-old Buck. "They don't want to do that anymore. And I'm so sick of being a model."