Javelin With Big Freedia May 26, 2011

Javelin

In performance, Javelin will use colorfully painted boomboxes that form large speaker totems (“boombaatas”) which can hang from the ceiling or stack up on the floor like pyramids. The signal from the show is broadcast via FM transmitter, thereby fostering audience participation (B.Y.O.Boombox) or fueling battery-powered, mobile parties.

The duo has played venues as diverse as the children’s branch of the Olneyville Public Library (RI), to the Museum of Modern Art (NY), both of which happened in the same week. When not performing, Javelin is busy producing. Together they have amassed a vast catalogue of music, varying in its aesthetic range. Songs resemble the record collection from whence they spring, if not literally as when sampling, then figuratively as when past forms are cited and recontextualized.

Big Freedia

Big Freedia (pronounced "Free-da") is the undisputed "Queen Diva" of Bounce Music, and performs six or more times a week in various venues throughout her home town of New Orleans.

Bounce Music is an original urban music rising up from the intimate and fun-loving nature of the New Orleans housing projects which dominate the city's street culture, and Freedia performs a derivative of Bounce reserved for self-proclaimed "Sissies" (a locally used name for biological men with varied and ambiguous sexual identities) that has risen to prominence in recent years and features explicitly gay and cross-dressing musicians and themes. Big Freedia, like other "Sissy" artists, has achieved mainstream success with several New Orleans hit singles such as "Gin in My System" and "Azz Everywhere!" from her albums "An Ha, Oh Yeah" (1999) and "Queen Diva" (2003). Freedia began her musical career almost 15 years ago at the Walter L. Cohen High School in New Orleans, where she was enlisted as choir director from her Sophomore to Senior years. She sees her performance as a Bounce artist as an extension of this work, often interacting in a call and response/teacher and student, fashion with her audiences.

http://www.mercuryloungenyc.com/event/6243

Official Website: http://www.songkick.com/concerts/8577216-javelin-at-mercury-lounge?utm_source=1126&utm_medium=partner