Gay Beast - making noise in NY this week -- 2009 tour dates

In their disheveled attic studio, the members of Gay Beast don’t talk mathematics. Early on, they don’t talk much at all. Today, singer and keyboardist Dan Luedtke is busy screen-printing the inserts for the vinyl version of the band’s latest spazz-rock collection, Second Wave. The process, it seems, is nearly as painstaking as creating an actual Gay Beast tune, minus the eyeballs-on-fire jitters their adrenal scores provoke…

City Pages: How did you become involved with your label, Skin Graft?

Luedtke: Our friends in AIDS Wolf are on the label. We were looking for a label, putting together demo packages, trying to do it differently this time, trying to be more proactive. They were going to sign two bands for ’09. The label owner lives in Vienna, so there was a bit of a courting period, talking to each other on the phone.

Explain the new record’s title, Second Wave.

Luedtke: Second Wave relates to second-wave feminism, and the songs include portraits of different feminists. Before this record, we did a split 7-inch about Donna Harroway. There’s a song about Andrea Dworkin. For me there’s an interest because I feel it intersects with queer politics a lot. We can look at what feminists worked on as a way to talk about personal politics and strategies for changing things. There is a lot of interest with the second-wave feminist era because there was a lot of idea creation happening. Modern, radical ideas, some of which were far-fetched and impractical. People wanted something so badly they’d make up new means for accomplishing it.

The noisy Minneapolis band kicks off a three night stay in in NYC, tonight (6/3), with a show at the Silent Barn featuring Satanized, Joe Lentini and Hot Guts. They’ll be at Bruar Falls June 4th with Talk Normal and Body Type[s], and at the Market Hotel on June 5th with Titan, Child Abuse, NYMPH and Liturgy.

Gay Beast’s Second Wave LP came out a few weeks ago, at the end of May on Skin Graft Records. Check them out for yourself. There’s a video of Gay Beast at NYC’s Cake Shop in 2006, with all tour dates, below…

Gay Beast | NYC @ Cake Shop | Nov 22 2006

Gay Beast – 2009 Tour Dates
Jun 03 SILENT BARN – w/ SATANIZED Queens, New York
Jun 04 Bruar Falls w/ Body Type[s] (members of Sightings and Metalux), and Talk Normal NYC, New York
Jun 05 Market Hotel w/ CHILD ABUSE!! NYC, New York
Jun 06 Midway Café w/ NEPTUNE Boston, Massachusetts
Jun 07 Dark Lady w/ Satanized & Holy Sheet Providence, Rhode Island
Jun 08 TBA day off?
Jun 09 LEAKY PIPES w/ TBA OTTAWA, Ontario
Jun 10 FRIENDSHIP COVE w/ AIDS WOLF Montreal, Quebec
Jun 11 BUY THE POUND… w/ BRIDES + DEAD WIFE Frree Drawings Zine Launch Toronto, Ontario
Jun 12 Dreamland Theater Ypsilanti, Michigan
Jun 13 Automatic Collective w/ CACAW Chicago, Illinois
Jun 14 HIGH NOON SALOON w/ Screamin Cyn Cyn and the Pons Madison, Wisconsin