SCENE + HEARD: Our Correspondent Gets (Almost) Naked for Naked Heroes at QxBxRx

(Hey Willpower's Will Schwartz at Cake Shop. Photo by Andrew Martini)

The first thing you should know about Saturday's edition of the monthly QxBxRx party is that, as the lights went down after his band's set, Caves drummer Luis Illades (also of Pansy Division) unzipped his fly and peed on a guitar. From what I heard afterward, this wasn’t so much an act of punk-rock theatrics as a genuine musical experiment: Illades couldn’t seem to get over the sound it made.
 
Actually, maybe the first thing you need to know about the party was that—full disclosure time—I was pulling double duty as a go-go boy and Nexus correspondent.
 
On the bill that night was the aforementioned Caves, Hey Willpower (with Will Schwartz of Imperial Teen) and dynamic Brooklyn duo Naked Heroes. The basement of Cake Shop was packed (and sweltering) as usual, with faces both familiar and new There were the QxBxRx regulars—zine mogul Tommy Pico, Body High’s Daniel Portland and Max Steele, and former Dead Betties front man Joshua Ackley—and the boys behind Queers Bears and Rears itself, DJs Sir Loins, A.Martini and Go Karff. And there were also people who’d come just to see one of the bands perform. (You can usually tell who’s who by the way they react to the go-gos.)
 
Caves’ opening set was something of a QxBxRx first: they brought their own lighting and an actual fog machine to add ambiance to their heavily atmospheric brand of psychedelic garage rock: big, heart-pounding drums, eerie guitar effects.
 
Hey Willpower’s set was decidedly lighter, though if there was an unofficial headliner for the night it was definitely this dance-pop duo, who drew the likes of. Justin Bond and John Cameron Mitchell for their set. Schwartz’s songs are bouncy, frisky and fun, and his dance moves were a-freakin-dorable! At one point, he danced his way into the audience, and one of the newer  go-gos tried (unsuccessfully) to drag him onto the go-go platform. Later, over a handful of jellybeans and a vodka Red Bull, I asked Schwartz if that had freaked him out or made him forget his lyrics. “No,” he replied, “That kind of stuff happens to me all the time!” And what about Imperial Teen? If we’re to believe Wikipedia, the band is currently recording a new album. “Yeah, I think it’ll probably come out in early 2011,” Schwartz said.
 
Rounding out the night was Naked Heroes, a husband-and-wife garage-rock duo who reminded us of the White Stripes—only without the whole faux-incest thing. Of course, by the time they hit the stage the crowd was thinning faster than Nicholas Cage's hairline. Certain go-gos were still trying to milk a few bucks out of the audience, but most everyone was outside smoking. See, despite the stellar performances downstairs, the sidewalk outside Cake Shop is where the real magic happens: the first of many good-night snogs; the I-really-liked-your-band flirtation; the who’s-sharing-a-cab-with-whom-to-Metropolitan conversation. Just another kick-ass night at QxBxRx. —John Russell