SHE KNOWS ALL ABOUT YOU
Great Britain’s Ebony Bones brooks no party poopers at the Echo
By Bliss 02/04/2010
With her statement-making dance-pop and over-the-top live sets, Britain’s Ebony Bones comes across like nothing so much as the splendiferous love child of Lady Gaga and Parliament Funkadelic’s George Clinton; her flamboyant costumes appear to have been plundered from Jumbo the Clown’s closet. Miss Bones has repeatedly voiced her opinion that there’s a void in pop music — too much crap, not enough independent thinking and certainly not enough women pushing the envelope — and she aims to fill it.
With everything but the kitchen sink, musically speaking. Funk, pop, disco, punk — they’re all there in her electro-giddy mix, although the former child actor and self-taught musician claims to draw inspiration from everyday sounds like washing machines and rushing traffic in her native London. She’s often slapped with the “post-punk” tag, which is somewhat misleading. There is an agro punk energy in her live sets, but her inner punk grrl really emerges in her DIY aesthetic; she writes, plays and produces her music, savvily promotes it with conviction, and seemingly designs cartoonish costumes not just for herself but for her game band- mates as well.
Her songs may be calculated to get listeners bouncing up and down on the dance floor in time with her own onstage antics, but between the beats she addresses power divisions — between rich and poor, the governing and the governed. “Don’t Fart on My Heart” is just a fun romp, but her deliriously Orwellian “We Know All About You” (“We know all about you, yes we do”) was something of a sensation in London, and got picked up by the BBC’s Radio 1.
Her “The Muzik” video (YouTube it) was purportedly conceived as a way of including everyone — namely MySpace friends and fans — who had contributed to the enthusiastic word of mouth that has tipped Bones as a Gaga in the wings worth watching. Supporters across the globe were asked to submit videos; the finished product, which shows them cavorting about a variety of humorous settings, cobbles together bits from 30 homemade videos. Musically, it’s infectious. As guerrilla-style viral marketing, it’s close to brilliant.
Her “Bone of My Bones” album is finally due to be released stateside in May. Between now and then she’ll be barnstorming US club stages, including the Echo this Friday. You might want to queue up early.
Club Underground presents Ebony Bones and Little Red Radio at the Echo, 1822 Sunset Blvd., Echo Park, 8:30 p.m. Friday; $8 in advance/$10 day of show. Info: (213) 413-8200. missebonybones.com, myspace.com/ebonybones.
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT