Southern Gents

The Southern Gents. Scott Turner Schofield and Athens Boys Choir. Ground Zero Coffee House. USC. 11/6/06.

The show went really, really well. I can't really review it, since I was involved in making it happen. Suffice to say, these boys are rock stars and they were playing in front of what could be considered a sold out crowd estimated to be 150-200 people.

Schofield performed his one-tranny-show, Debutante Balls, a hilarious and personal introduction to race, class, region, gender and sexuality through his experiences growing up in the South. I've discussed this piece before, and though it changes each time (especially since I first saw it before he began taking hormones and now he definitely looks and sounds more like a boy), it is still the same piece with which I fell in love several years ago.

Debutante Balls was interspersed with performances by Katz, the spoken word artist known as Athens Boys Choir. Though Katz is arguably the more famous of the Southern Gents (he's opened for Ani DiFranco), I'd never seen him perform before or heard his work, and I was pleasantly suprised. He's a fun performer with a lot of charisma onstage, a solid political sensibility, and a memorable way with words. He really broke out with the pieces he performed with backup video and music, including an adorable tribute to the Waffle House and his raucous closing number "Tranny Got Pack," which included fabulous images of dancing dildos. After listining to his CD, which I totally recommend, I can't get the song "Mighty Sodomitey" out of my head, and I look forward to hearing/seeing him perform it some day. Rumour has it that he's releasing a new album soon and will be back in LA in March; I sincerely hope that that's the case and look forward to another show.

Anyway, these boys both put on fabulous shows and I highly recommend that you bring one or both of them to a performance venue or college campus near you. Keep your eye out for when they're in your town, and for goodness sake, let's make sure they get back to LA sooner rather than later!