Culture Queer

"It was our seventh show before we had one that didn't feature at least the threat of the band breaking up!" The room laughs as Sam Womelsdorf chronicles the volatile history of his three-piece multimedia collaborative, Culture Queer. The group has existed since early '99 as a side project for the busiest Girl in Fairmount, Dana Hamblin; ex-Throneberry co-founder and current Loveland magistrate, Womelsdorf; and Scott Fredette, a photographer/film conceptualist. CQ saturates the visual aspect of their performances, projecting an unpredictable array of video images onto a screen behind them, while their bassless attack allows for a sonic sparseness where the three distinct voices cohabit their groovy electric lounge. The blend will be further enhanced by a narrative storyline, a musical play in two acts, when the band appears Oct. 20 at the Contemporary Art Center.
They will be the first "normal Rock band" to appear as part of the CAC's Friday series, when they unveil their two-act play on Oct. 20. "The first act is called 'The Rehearsal,' " jokes Womelsdorf, when asked if the band wanted to tip its hand concerning the storyline of the newest endeavor, so it seems to be a work in progress. But the conception stage is relished here.

"What makes this band different from any I've been in, or am in, is the way we collaborate," says Womelsdorf. "Everyone's just so fertile with ideas that if we had to, I think we could write a record in a week. Since there is no bass, it changes the musical dynamic dramatically and for the better. We take that aesthetic plunge, and we do feel naked without the bass sometimes, but the payoff is that you can really hook-up the guitar with the drums, and getting that done creates a ton of space for everyone's singing."

Their name originated from bygone Lakota High School social labeling, where kids who looked strange and didn't play sports were designated Culture Queers.
Fredette feels that the promises of the conveniently-named smoking cessation aid, Nicoderm CQ, are also apropos for the band -- "The power to fight, the power to comfort, the power to MAKE YOU QUIT."

With the band's highest profile engagement approaching, here's hoping nobody quits. ©
- Citybeat

One of the city's best, most criminally underrated Indie Pop bands, Culture Queer, returns with a new CD this Friday. The band will play Northside's Gypsy Hut to celebrate the new Kid Friendly Dinner Party, CQ's third album. Also on the bill is Wussy (fresh off of an East Coast tour).

In these times of over-stuffed CDs, nothing makes me happier than getting an old-school "album," with just nine songs and clocking in under 23 minutes. CQ's sparkly-to-rugged brand of Pop might just have the power to suspend time. The opening "Needy Wannabe" reintroduces CQ in 61-seconds, but it feels like a fully formed song and not just an incomplete snippet. The whole album follows suit, fully satisfying despite having only one track over the three-minute mark.

While CQ's last album featured a few tracks of experimental mirth, the experimentation is more subtly interwoven within the saccharine-sweet harmonies, inescapable melodies, wavy keys and adventurous guitar quirks. The band can even get a little Prog-y within the Pop infrastructure -- call "Sunshine" the world's shortest Prog song, with a hovering intro and keyboard/organ that adds a little Deep Purple-meets-Imperial Teen grooviness to the proceedings. Elsewhere, the band is more consistently rollicking. The toothy, raving "Nervous Wreck" gets agro-ish with attacking guitar, swirling, scraping sound effects, Scott Fredette's mordant snarl and maniacal backing hoots. Singer/drummer Dana Hamblen is predictably awesome, singing the New Wave-ish "Save It For the Night" with her spine-tingly vocal sweetness.

Culture Queer creates a beautiful sound with a Rainbow Brite color scheme, but there are many emotional shades to Kid Friendly Dinner Party, from sincere and amorous to sarcastic and surreal. Come for the untouchable Pop, stay for the fabulous interior decorating. (myspace.com/culturequeer) - citybeat

Cincinnati's an interesting place. You don't find this kind of thing in Canada's Cincinnati; Sarnia. Tim Willig, Cincinnati's man-about-town, is the Queen City's source of many late-night laugh-riots, and Culture Queer's video for "U Bummin' Mr. Drummond" is impeccable in it's timing today. I think I'm going to find myself a Nudie Suit, a 6-pack of Hudepohl, and a boom box... time to dance - Ion Magazine

I would have loved to hang around for more of Kansas Bible Company, but I really wanted to see Culture Queer at the Cincinnati Club, seeing as how I’ll be interviewing them next week for an upcoming feature to advance the album release show for their excellent new disc, Nightmare Band. Assorted detours got me to the show about mid-set, and CQ was well into a scorching Electro-Pop dance groove at that point. It wasn’t the full-bore dancing girls-and-a-transvestite slut bride chorus line from last year’s roof-raising blow up at Artworks, but it was an astonishingly talented four piece (and their man-behind-the-curtain wizard controlling the screen projections behind the amps) cranking out a sonic blurt that suggested the B-52s with the campy novelty excised in favor of incendiary Indie Rock and New Order without the subtext of severe depression.

CQ's Scott Fredette entertained up front (“So what do you want to do? I’ve got a doobie in my glove compartment...”), Sam Womelsdorf peeled off guitar runs that walked the line between Indie Rock power and Dance Rock slink, Jeremy Lesniak split his time between guitar and keyboard in the same pursuit, and Dana Hamblen pounded out the beat with the sadistic joy of an interrogator working over a Guantanamo detainee for information while harmonizing or singing lead.

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It was stripped down but it was standard Culture Queer weird brilliance or brilliant weirdness or both.
- Citybeat

“It’s a great home base to be able to travel and shoot the stuff I do.”

He has created promo spots for MTV2 and countless music videos for everyone from Bad Religion to Atmosphere, [which includes clips of CNN stock footage from Cincinnati’s 2001 riots]; concepted, produced and directed whimsical story-based commercials for Danish shoe company ECCO; and directed the visual projections that played behind Jay Z for his 2010 Home and Home Tour.
Hamblen and Fredette also form half of “fruit pop” band, “Culture Queer.” They work together on their own music videos, another sign that creative teamwork is part of his natural repertoire.

In 2006 Fredette came full circle when he got the opportunity to work with Jarmusch on a video for The Raconteurs. He understands the need for directors to be open to creative opportunities. - Soapbox Media

One thing you should know about this band...the members are not gay unless you're using to word to refer to folks who are happy-go-lucky. And that three word string is certainly an apt way of describing the cool melodic uplifting tunes on Nightmare Band. Culture Queer is the quartet comprised of Sam Womelsdorf, Scott Fredette, Dana Hamblen, and Jeremy Lesniak. These folks emit positive vibrations with their music. No bad attitudes here...and the emphasis is on music rather than technology. Listening to these cool tracks it becomes immediately obvious that these musicians are making music for all the right reasons. These folks love making music...and their passion for what they're doing shines through crystal clear on every single track. Pure playful energy. Our favorite cuts include "Wasted Garden," "Never Look Back," "Better Get Used To It," and "Trial By Fire." Sometimes goofy, sometimes pensive...and sometimes rather thought provoking. Top pick. - BabySue

Culture Queer, a staple of the Cincinnati electro-pop scene for years, are back and ready to hit you with an all new set of songs. The quartet, known for their energetic live shows and loyalty to their hometown Cincinnati, might have their best recorded work to date waiting in the wings right now. Today, we unveil one of those new songs for you, dubbed “Wasted Garden” which you can stream or download below.

Let us know what you think of the new song and get ready for a brand new Culture Queer album, called Nightmare Band. - Each Note Secure

Nightmare Band is clearly the best studio work that Culture Queer has produced to date. On CQ’s ReverbNation page, they identify themselves as “Fruitpie Pop for God” and “Bubblegum from underneath the school desk”; Nightmare Band gives credence to those descriptions. There’s a goofy ’60s sugar Pop swagger that hints at the B-52’s and Devo, while a Glam Rock undercurrent suggests Mott the Hoople if they’d been steered by Eno instead of Bowie.
CQ has maintained a sonic profile that includes melodic Indie Rock, Synth Pop and an avant garde sense of experimentalism combined with a fascinating visual/video component — Fredette alludes to Queen, while Hamblen references Sparks. Culture Queer blends in with that company well; they’re all stylistically diverse and appreciate humor in their music, remaining completely serious in the pursuit of excellence while never taking themselves seriously.

- Citybeat

Cracked, crack-like-addictive Art Pop quartet Culture Queer recently had its incredibly entertaining new music video for “U Bummin’ Mr. Drummond” debut on the hugely popular music website Consequence of Sound, which should help bring the group’s recent album, Nightmare Band, more of the widespread attention it so richly deserves. (Check it below). CQ presents a free, all-ages release party for the amazing new full-length at 8 p.m. Saturday at Hoffner Lodge (4122 Hamilton Ave., Northside). The multimedia event will feature lots of surprises (from video art to photo displays to cake!), as well as openers April Combs and Fists of Love. Read CityBeat's recent profile of CQ here. - Citybeat

Pop-quartet Culture Queer use sweet and melodic guy/girl harmonies over weird flowing electronic soundscapes. All members are multi-instrumentalists and the band has been a constant in the Cincinnati, OH music scene for several years now. They might have finally found their stride in their latest effort, Nightmare Band, that is slated for release on October 16th. We have a fun little cut titled “U Bummin’ Mr. Drummond” from said album for your listening pleasure. - My Old Kentucky Blog

Video: Culture Queer – “U Bummin’ Mr. Drummond” (CoS Premiere)

By Chris Coplan on October 30th, 2012 in CoS Premieres, Music Videos

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What: Cincinnati pop-quartet Culture Queer’s brand of wub-heavy alt-funk gives a burst of life and urgency to a small town in the video for ”U Bummin’ Mr. Drummond”. Here’s hoping this is the start of a beautiful and groovy renaissance of Pogo-assisted dance parties across the nation.

The band’s latest album, Nightmare Band, is available now.

Directed by: Vocalist/guitarist Scott Fredette
- Consequence of Sound

Experimental Indie Pop quartet Culture Queer makes music for the art and joy of it
Interview By Mike Breen
Good and good for you: Culture Queer members (from bottom) Jeremy Lesniak, Scott Fredette, Sam Womelsdorf and Dana Hamblen.
"There's dog shit over here too!" yells Scott Fredette, the currently perturbed founder of Cincinnati's experimental, multimedia-happy Indie Pop foursome Culture Queer.

He and his bandmates are gathered in their fourth-floor rehearsal space in a dingy warehouse located in South Fairmount, the working-class neighborhood wedged in the valley between the West side, Clifton, Northside and Downtown. The low-lit room is huge, an open area big enough for several bands, their equipment, funky old furniture, racks of vintage clothing ... and shadowy hiding corners where visiting pets can do their dirty work without being found out until later.

When a doody-free zone fit for conversing is finally found, Fredette (who sings and plays keyboards and guitar) is joined by drummer/singer Dana Hamblen (also a guiding light of the Fairmount Girls, who use this space for rehearsals as well), guitarist/singer Sam Womelsdorf (ex-Throneberry) and the newest member, Jeremy Lesniak, an experimental music artist who became CQ's first official bassist within the past six months. The band is getting ready for their appearance at this weekend's MidPoint Music Festival and the Pop Montreal festival a week later.

The group started modestly in late 1998, when longtime acquaintances Fredette and Womelsdorf got together to "fuck around" with some music. Hamblen owned the Northside second-hand store Daughter Judy and met Fredette one day while he was scouting locations for a Will Oldham video. Fredette is a video artist who does commercial and music video work at Lightborne Inc., where Hamblen also works.

"When we started out, it was not to make a band at all," Womelsdorf remembers. "We played a long time and wrote a lot of songs before we really did anything as a 'band.' "

To make the group more multi-dimensional, the idea right from the start was to incorporate video projections filmed and edited by Fredette into their live show.

"We were all bored with playing music," Fredette says. "Well, not playing music, but watching plain music. We set out to do something different, having video behind us and seeing what sort of serendipity happens between that and playing. There was no point to it at all except to just do something a little bit different and not be bored out of our asses, being in the Midwest where their isn't an ocean or mountains ... except the brown goddamn river."

Fredette compiles the quirky, mostly random footage for each performance and, while audiences admire the multimedia gesture, the other band members never get to see how the film works with their performance. They never practice with the visuals and, well, it would just be bad Rock posture to turn your back to the crowd.

Fredette says he usually doesn't make an effort to match the set to the sights.

"It's pretty random," he says. "It's all just sort of guesswork."

But, like the old stoner myth that Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon matches up perfectly to The Wizard of Oz, Lesniak believes the audience can be psyched into seeing connections with the performance and the projections even if they're unintended.

"I think your mind almost plays tricks on you when you're watching the band and the video," he says. "People are like, 'That's brilliant, what do you guys mean?' "

As we talk, the ethereal, layered squall of train-breaks wafts through the open windows from the railroad yard about 30 feet away from the building, as if the interview needed a shrill theramin soundtrack. The sound can also be heard on the band's debut full-length album, Supersize It Under Pontius Pilate, a luscious display of fuzzy, neon Indie Pop imaginatively layered with pulsating electronic and keyboard quirks, creative Rock guitar, a three-pronged vocal attack and fluorescent melodies with an addictive quality usually reserved for illegal drugs.

Incorporating the train-squeal field recordings into the music is representative of their resourceful approach -- take from your surroundings, always experiment with new ideas and use everything at your disposal.

Culture Queer's music is less about proficiency and more about spontaneity. The group's process is less "composition" as it is an artsy science experiment.

Womelsdorf suggests that the open-endedness in their writing process -- which they suggest now is veering into even more experimental and Noise realms -- has something to do with Culture Queer forming at a time when anyone could be in a band, just to have a good time and not to conquer the world.

"It was more like a scene that popped up around a second-hand store than a group of people who could play," Womelsdorf says. "There were a lot of bands who - Citybeat sept-2004

Culture Queer: Supersize It Under Pontius Pilate
This album features perfectly skewed Pop nuggets as well as less expected tracks that skewer their sound with the edge of mind-swirling experimentalism. It stands as an invigorating, eccentric experiment in a field of music that usually has no room for blatant adventurousness. An amazing accomplishment, an amazing album . - CityBeat 2004

The kings and queen of "Fruit Pop," Culture Queer, unveil their latest release Saturday at the Northside Tavern. The free show also features The Thirteens and The Woos, and CQ's Jeremy Lesniak spins "bastard Pop mash-ups" between bands.


A CQ EP is 10 tracks showcasing the less linear, somewhat more adventurous side the band has been exploring more deeply since the release of their highly addictive, nearly flawless debut, last year's Super Size It Under Pontius Pilate. The move is ideologically similar to Radiohead's brash shift from OK Computer to Kid A, giving the band a chance to revel in their mutual overflow of creativity. With Lesniak -- who as a solo performer has always tended toward more experimental sounds -- as a full-time member for the first time on EP, it would be easy to suggest that his membership was the sole catalyst for the more exploratory tendencies. But there are many parallels between Pilate and the new release, suggesting a more natural full-band evolution.

The EP still contains a high dosage of colorful melodies, which crash and collide with each other for an almost dizzying effect (see: "fade the line.aif" and "birthday song for sam.aif," both of which have an endearingly strange World Folk vibe anchored by plaintive acoustic guitar picking). The electronic and sampling adornment is prevalent throughout, alternately creating lysergic atmospherics and cage-rattling turbulence. When the electro musings become more than just decoration, the results are ecstatically unusual: "popcorn penis.aif" is a scratchy collage of percolating noise, while snippets like "a hot evening.aif" and "no nanner no.aif" are what I imagine schizophrenics might hear in their heads all day long.

Culture Queer's ambition isn't to be on the cover of some magazine or to get ass-raped by a major label; they seem to exist purely for the love of playing mad scientist with the aural arts. Their insistence on growing and avoiding expectations other than their own isn't just admirable -- it makes for some intriguing listening. - Citybeat

Culture explodes with Pontius Pilate

Cincinnati's Culture Queer will go down as the first band to send me explosives through the mail. Before you get all Ashcroft-ian, you should know these incendiary devices were merely some smoke bombs and a pack of "Pop-Its," made all the more harmless by their inclusion in one of the more imaginative press packets you'll ever see, colorful, hand-decorated cereal box and all. The occasion for such a craftily superfluous promotional blitz is the release of Culture Queer's remarkable new album, Super-Size-It Under Pontius Pilate, which gets released Friday in conjunction with a show at the Southgate House. The release party also features performances by Chalk, Burning Star Core, Roesing Ape, Nikol Soluski, the Rachel Cook Puppets and others.

While on the surface Culture Queer might resemble some sort of art project gone wonderfully wrong, Pontius Pilate -- released on local Tokyo Rose Records -- shows the band to be a slanted, blissfully dynamic Indie Pop band. The songs on Pilate are a Technicolor exultation of radiant Pop melodies with a sly, sarcastic bent and a musical audacity and adventurousness that most in the genre steer clear of. Each member of CQ has an extensive arts résumé: Dana Hamblen plays with local faves The Fairmount Girls (among innumerable other musical ventures), Sam Womelsdorf is an actor and former member of '90s local music juggernaut Throneberry and Scott Fredette is an accomplished video artist. Those varied backgrounds combine to create a distinctively diverse album that stands as one of the best local releases so far this year.

Hamblen's flawless voice -- perhaps the most recognizable in local music -- gives the album as much cohesion as it could have, while the others chime in with their own unique vocals, eccentric keyboard quirks and other atmospherics, making Pilate less tangential than the "Pop" tag might suggest. The brisk, slippery "Born Again" (a stunningly good video of which is included on the disc) is a great example of the members' powers converging to create something brilliant within the span of a two-minute Pop song. Fuzzed-out bass, breakneck breakbeats, spacey noises, gnarly guitar and the almost disorienting effect that Fredette's staggered vocal and Hamblen's more saccharine voice create make for an exhilarating listen.

The rest of the album features perfectly skewed Pop nuggets ("Huckleberry," "Baby," "Corpus Christi"), as well as less expected tracks like the melodramatically psychedelic "Hindu Love Song," which sounds like Led Zeppelin, The Frogs and The Breeders jamming while looped on hash; the trippy, ethereal "Perfect Scenerio;" and "Dulli," a sinuous, strangely soulful ballad named (presumably) after the former Afghan Whigs singer. Super-Size-It Under Pontius Pilate stands as an invigorating, eccentric experiment in a field of music that usually has no room for experimentalism. An amazing accomplishment and an amazing album. (culturequeer.com) - spill it

Culture Queer (creators of the best local album of the year so far, Supersize It Under Pontius Pilate)
But it sparked Dan McCabe to create the Lite Brite Indie Pop and Film Test, a massive, three-day movie-'n-music event, to celebrate and encourage Newport as "Cincinnati's Brooklyn." The Southgate House will be alive with sonics and visuals Friday, Saturday and Sunday, showcasing up-and-coming indie rockers from our area and beyond, plus locally-produced short films (courtesy of Underneath Cincinnati), animation and a "musical space western" feature by the NYC-based band The Billy Nayer Show. The cinematic eye-candy won't be limited to inside the Southgate -- Newport on the Levee has nobly given the fest permission to project film work onto the IMAX theater wall facing the Southgate House. - CityBeat

Experimental-pop combo Culture Queer's profile is largely based upon multimedia live performances with sensory-overloading video accompaniment and a tag-team approach as to who plays which instrument from song to song.

A band with such strong visual sensibilities runs the risk of overshadowing its own music to an extent, so for those who have been transfixed by the video screen, it should be known that Culture Queer has also been writing some of the catchiest songs in town, as proven by the band's debut Super-Size-It Under Pontius Pilate.

Culture Queer, which began in 1999, hosts its first CD-release show Friday, inviting an assembly of local fringe musicians and performance artists along for the fun. Festivities take place in the ballroom of the Southgate House (24 E. 3rd, Newport; 859-431-2201).

Although Super Size It's 10 songs are awash in varying degrees of beeping and crackling electronic noises - some of which are supplied by newest band member Jeremy Lesniak - the overall mode is streamlined, singalong and accessible indie-pop, with Dana Hamblen (Fairmount Girls), Scott Fredette and Sam Womelsdorf's vocals stamping the proceedings with a sugar-sweet sound. Guitarist/keyboardist Womelsdorf (ex-Throneberry) singles out the singing as the band's trademark.

"Dana's voice and Scott's voice are central to the soundscape of the band. I don't think there's anything more important to the sound, except maybe the combination of their voices. They're two of the best singers in town," he says.

Lesniak, a laptop computer artist and bassist, joined about four months ago. "We didn't think we'd be able to find someone who can fit in. It's a tall order personality-wise and instrumentally. We're built on a minimalistic sound, eschewing bass for years before recently starting to use it. Jeremy helps fill out the sound without losing our uniqueness," Womelsdorf says.

The $10 admission to the show includes the album. Supporting acts include local experimental-noise bands Chalk, Burning Star Core and Roesing Ape and a pair of performance artists - puppeteer Rachel Cook and sculptor Nikol Soluski (9 p.m. show; ages 21-up). - Cincinnati Enquirer

If the Cartoon Network ever launched a Bush war against the conservative establishment of Cincinnati, the result would be a post-modern, multi-media morass performed by local band Culture Queer. Like Cartoon Network favorites Samurai Jack and the Power Puff Girls, the three-member Culture Queer—Sam Womelsdorf, Scott Fredette and Dana Hamblen—are colorful, stylized and larger than life. Besides that, they just might have secret super powers to boot.
As a weapons inspector for ArtSpike, I was permitted to enter the lair of Culture Queer in advance of their up-coming engagement in the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park alteractive series. The show promises live and prerecorded music in concert with a montage of video and stage performance. It sounds like ADHD-TV mixed with madness, but after meeting the band, I was quite convinced that it should be fun. Besides that, it seems guaranteed to drive your parents crazy. While I wasn’t permitted to see their planning meeting, or even hear any music, we did have a candid discussion that just might tip their hand at possible strategies they might use to "queer" local culture.

The secret headquarters of Culture Queer is located in the shadow of the Harrison Viaduct, in an unassuming gray warehouse with vaguely Dickensian airs. As I pull up to the curb, Womelsdorf is waiting for me. A veteran of the local hit band Throneberry, he is the token rock star of the group. He sports the most unruly Gene Wilder, salt-and-pepper ‘fro. His blue eyes gleam as though he can’t wait to tell you a secret. As he ushers me through a door next to a faded stenciled sign reading: "Midwest Textiles Office 2450," I get the impression that I am in the hands of Willy Wonka, and that I am about to become privy to the revolution: "Socialized chocolates for everyone!"
As I am led through the corridors of the warehouse, the darkness becomes a bulwark against the intrusion of reality. Sam neither turns on the lights, nor seems concerned about the clutter that might trip up his next step. He begins to explain the various barely visible artifacts, completely taking for granted that I can see them in the dark. We step into the freight elevator that is industrial in the crudeness of its mechanism. Womelsdorf adeptly manipulates the gate, cables and stops that make the square platform rise, and he narrates the ride.

"They cultivate alfalfa in the basement," he says. "A really creepy family has moved into a makeshift apartment at the far end of this floor . . . This floor has (or it used to have) all the machines from a tofu factory." Nevertheless, the space is cheap, it’s big enough for a band and the neighborhood seems deserted enough to forgive loud, unruly music.
We stop at the third floor. I can hear voices coming from behind a door in an unfinished plywood wall. I come to discover that the voices belong to Fredette and Hamblen. They are discussing recipes from some cookbooks Hamblen found "while thrifting." She collects cookbooks, and has more than 300. In this latest batch, she has found a couple of recipes she calls "Betty Crocker thrifty." They include "Tuna Dunk" and "Peanut butter dip for corn chips." It is an assault against Betty Crocker sensibilities, and the recipes might have been better left consigned to used bookstore hell. But Hamblen has resurrected them.
"It was so gross," she says about the quick and easy recipe for tuna, and there was a picture of "this awful looking stroganoff."
A sort of conglomeration of Betty Rubble and Bam-Bam, Hamblen wears her black hair in a Betty-bob (Rubble, not Crocker) and her eyebrows are dyed crimson. She is the drummer for the band and "a high level dealer in kitsch," Womelsdorf confides. "She’d be the lead singer," he continues, "if we had one." She also plays drums and sings for the band The Fairmount Girls, compatriots of Culture Queer. That makes her "the reigning diva of the local original pop underground," Fredette says Fredette? He and Womelsdorf both play guitar and keyboard. Fredette peers at the world through thick, black framed glasses that are simultaneously nerdy and vogue. He is also colorblind, and Hamblen’s blue scarf looks green to him. He has a sort of Dan-Ackroyd-as-a-young-cynic expression. He pulls his pale blue cardigan around him tightly to ward off the cold as he perches on a stool. He invites me to make myself comfortable.
"Sit there, there’s light." Finally, I can see.
The cavernous room is splashed in shadows and light from bare bulbs. I get the impression of red lighting gels and carnival clutter. Posters from various big-name alternative bands are tacked to the plywood boards that hang over the windows on hinges. A couple of mix and match sofas and chairs make up th - ArtSpike magazine

Culture Queer's new album, Kid-Friendly Dinner Party, is a lean serving of raw electro-pop, or an explosion of sonic happiness.

The Queer plays tonight with Wussy at Gypsy Hut (bring a dish). Scott Fredette answered some questions about his band's 23-minute recording.

Q: Do you prefer to write shorter, punchy ...

Sometimes it happens that way. Our first album was pretty normal. But this album we would hit certain things and go, "All right that's enough."
As a band, we're super prolific. We're probably two albums ahead of where we are now. Even when we're practicing for this show (Friday), we want to play these new songs ...

Plus, we have four or five songs that are ready to go and in the midst of evolving. We don't have a problem with that. As long as we can get together and (practice), we find stuff and discover it, which is cool.

Q: What would you serve at a kid-friendly dinner party?
Ah, sh--. You're never going to be able to print that. We're all in our 30s, so we have to keep the kids involved somehow. It would definitely have a vegetarian element to it, but it would be a lot of 1950s recipes, like something straight out from The Cleavers or Ozzie and Harriet - some weird sort of cottage cheese and peach on top of a Triscuit.

We have to keep things as lively as possible, at least in my group of friends. Especially with kids around ... we don't want them growing up the way we did. If you look in our liner notes, there's a whole list of things we do for a kid friendly dinner party.

Q: Did children influence you and the album?
One of our guitarists (Sam Womelsdorf) has a kid, and (the band) is dictated by his schedule. I don't think anyone is settling. In fact, I think we're busting out of that "all right we're not going to fade away. We're going to keep going." So there wasn't a big children influence. We're pretty goofy ourselves. - Cin Weekly