About 12:30 a.m., we visited this place and found approximately 5,000 people, colored and white, men attired in women’s clothes, and vice versa. The affair, we were informed, was a “fag/masquerade ball.” This is an annual affair where the white and colored fairies assemble together with their friends, this being attended also by a certain respectable element who go here to see the sights.

This is an excerpt from a 1928 report filed by investigators with the Committee of Fourteen, a citizens group that fought to crack down on illegal alcohol sales inside New York City hotels. The investigators had stopped by a club in Harlem one night in February, unwittingly dropping in on a gender-bending bacchanal: the Hamilton Lodge drag ball.

Affairs like the Hamilton Lodge ball were a precursor to the modern ballroom scene, a performative, queer and largely African-American counterculture that still thrives in many U.S. cities, including Baltimore. The documentary Paris Is Burning captured the scene at its height in 1980s New York City, and Madonna — riding a wave of house music that soundtracked ballroom performances — got everybody voguing like a ballroom star with her 1990 hit “Vogue.”

Oct. 15, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art celebrates ballroom culture with a half-day event dedicated exclusively to the art form. The featured guest is Keith “Ebony” Holt, a veteran ballroom performer who’s also a youth outreach coordinator for Baltimore’s health department. He represents the Baltimore chapter of the House of Ebony — essentially a clique, or a family, of gay black men who perform in ballroom competitions.

Bandwidth spoke to Holt and the Smithsonian’s Nicole Shivers in advance of Saturday’s soirée. The event promises to borrow a grandiose aesthetic from Nigerian-British artist Yinka Shonibare’s short film, Un Ballo in Maschera, on view now at the museum.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Bandwidth: Keith, can you talk about what ballroom means to young, gay black men? 

Keith “Ebony” Holt: Ballroom, basically, was created for [them]. It was a place that we could call our own [where] we felt safe. [In ballroom,] you could be whatever it is that you wanna be. As we all know, when a lot of young, black gay males or transgenders come out to their families, sometimes their families are not with it. They may out them or they may be like, “We no longer want to communicate with [you].” And for a person that may be 15, 16 years old — or basically whatever age you are — that really hits you hard. So the ballroom scene … gave you another family outside of your biological family.

“With this event, we’re in one of the biggest museums in the world. Now our form of underground art is being welcomed into the mainstream.” —Keith “Ebony” Holt

OK, so the film Paris Is Burning documented the ’80s ballroom scene in New York. When we talk about ballroom now, what are we referring to?

Holt: We’re talking about the whole entire scene. Voguing, of course, gets the most attention because it’s fun to watch and you have people like Madonna that came out with it, or you have Vogue Evolution on America’s Best Dance Crew. However, it’s so many other categories — such as runway, or realness, which is basically how well a transgender person may be able to blend into society. Paris Is Burning … is kinda outdated. The younger generations definitely took it and made it their own. So it has completely, completely changed. It’s not the same underground scene that it once was in Paris Is Burning.

Do you still do a lot of performing?

Holt: I do perform. I still walk. Voguing really isn’t my category. My main category is actually runway. You can kinda look at it like Project Runway mixed with America’s Next Top Model. Runway at the Smithsonian [requires you to take] a piece of African art. It can either be a painting or a sculpture, and you have to make your outfit basically represent whatever art that you chose to create. It really takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of brain energy for you to really sit and really create something such as that. Then… you actually have to walk like a model would.

Nicole, why did the Smithsonian want to do a ballroom event?

Nicole Shivers, National Museum of African Art: As the curator for performing arts, I’m always looking for something new, innovative and engaging to dispel the myths, the clichés of Africa. Being a big fan of Yinka Shonibare and especially this video piece, Un Ballo in Maschera, which looks at the grandness of things, what better fit than to look at the ballroom scene, where they can show off and show out?

Can you talk about the African influence within ballroom?

Shivers: The traditional masquerade, or the traditional theater-in-the-round [are African influences]. Also, it’s a way of conveying a message [and] honoring someone, so I think those are the two main similarities.

Holt: And I think that with just the LGBT community, we wear so many masks on a daily basis, especially when we go out. So many people look down on the LGBT community for various reasons, so we have to put different masks on when we just walk outside our house. With this event, we’re in one of the biggest museums in the world. Now we can finally take our masks off and say that we are finally being accepted. Now our form of underground art is being welcomed into the mainstream. Even if it’s just for one night, it’s still the beginning.

The Voguing Masquerade Ball begins with a panel discussion at 4:30 p.m. at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art. The ball starts at 7:30 p.m. Free and open to the public.

Shown at top: A still from Voguing For a Cause, produced by Great Big Story

Prince Rama:

Dan Deacon Ensemble:

Abdu Ali with the Dan Deacon Ensemble:

FlucT:

Future Islands:

Lexie Mountain Boys:

People of the festival:

Member of the festival security team:

Pool party:

Sun Ra Arkestra:

Stewart Mostofsky saw the same post, and had the same general idea. For about a week, Schmidt and Mostofsky planned their respective events separately, but a mutual friend put them in touch, and they joined forces.

The first Fields, in 2014, was a kind of haven for local weird-cool music kids — the lineup at the Susquehanna State Park event included Baltimore stalwarts like Dan Deacon and Lexie Mountain Boys. It was such a hit — and such a draining experience for its organizers — that there was no festival in 2015.

But this year, it’s back, Friday through Sunday at the same site, which is off Interstate 95 near Darlington, Maryland. If the 2014 gathering was somewhat of a haven, the 2016 version is a full-on sanctuary, with more than 70 musical acts (including Deacon again, along with Future Islands, Juliana Huxtable and many more) performing.

“We’re dreamers and we’re doers and we just can’t do it any other way.”

This isn’t just a music and camping festival, the founders are quick to point out. For Schmidt, bringing in other artistic elements was of the utmost importance. This means visual and sound installations, theater, film, poetry, performance art and dance. And both Schmidt and Mostofsky like to tout the event’s “wellness” activities — including yoga, herb massage, tarot and Reiki-attuned candles.

“The multi-sensory, immersive, integrative aspect of kind of wandering around and there’s just arts everywhere” is the dream, Schmidt says. “Like you’re camping out there and you’re suddenly a part of this new world and it’s just all around you, that was really an inspiration for me and that’s something I really wanted to bring to the table.”

The two founders had somewhat overlapping reasons for wanting to plan a festival. For Schmidt, it was attending similar events and not loving the tunes, but loving the camping and overall atmosphere.

“I remember thinking ‘OMG it’s so amazing, camping out in nature,’” Schmidt says. “It’s like a vacation with a ton of other people with shared interests and you’re all kind of making this new home for yourself for the weekend and I think there’s something really beautiful about the communal aspect of it.”

Mostofsky grew up going to sleepaway camps and credits his astrological sign — Sagittarius — for his love of all things nature. (Schmidt says there’s a lot of Sagittarius in her, too.)

“The sense of community that would form in those situations was very powerful and definitely left a strong impression on me,” Mostofsky says.

Both Schmidt and Mostofsky were deeply entrenched in the Baltimore music and art scenes before planning their first Fields Fest. Schmidt, who works by day as a freelance writer of educational content, co-founded DIY space The Soft House. Mostofsky, a neurologist by trade, has run Ehse Records for over a decade.

When asked if it was hard managing all the aspects a multi-sensory festival, the pair laughs out loud before the question is finished.

“Sorry to laugh out loud — it’s so hard to juggle this,” Schmidt says. “Yeah, it’s crazy.”

No other way

Schmidt and Mostofsky say it helps that they’re totally in sync in one important area.

“We’re dreamers and we’re doers and we just can’t do it any other way, and yes that means sometimes taking on too much and sacrificing in certain ways,” Mostofsky says.

Now that they’re into their third year of running the event, they know exactly what kind of tone they want to set.

“The vibe is one [that is] both celebratory as well as thoughtful, sort of at the same time,” Mostofsky says. All the artists are at the top of their game, he says — it’s basically high art.

Schmidt is a little hesitant to use that phrase, but she basically agrees.

“I think there’s something more humble and gentle and loving,” says Schmidt. “But at the same time very inspiring and transformative.”

The Fields Festival runs Aug. 19-21 at Ramblewood Campgrounds, located in Susquehanna State Park in Darlington, Maryland. Tickets are still available on the event’s website.

It wasn’t always that way for Margus. There was a time that he wouldn’t think twice about wearing a flaming red wig and playing guitar onstage in a Ronald McDonald costume. That outfit — deployed during a medley of TV-commercial music — was one of many he wore when he performed with his band Friends of the Family in the ’70s.

The band Inspiration, in another photo posted on the DC Bands from the 70’s group on Facebook.

The fast-food-clown getup was hardly the most outrageous thing in the band’s wardrobe.

“Spandex and satin were pretty happening at that point. Once we did a Queen medley and a couple of the guys had capes that had hundreds of lights inside,” says Margus, 65.

In an early photo of the band, its seven members are wearing matching white suits, each adorned with colorful floral patterns made by a man who designed costumes for KC and the Sunshine Band. Caught in what appears to be mid-strut, the band is smiling.

“If I put that on today, I’d get arrested,” Margus laughs.

The outfits worn by Friends of the Family are unforgettable. But the band and its community are little remembered. In an era when walloping hardcore punk and hip-shaking funk were the loudest sounds emerging from the nation’s capital, there was a shadow scene of flamboyant and popular cover bands that played at long-forgotten venues in the Washington suburbs.

These were show bands. They were typically all-male, and often racially integrated. The types of variety shows they staged weren’t exclusive to the Washington area, but the scene was particularly vibrant in suburban Maryland, Baltimore and Ocean City. Like many cover bands, show bands included accomplished musicians who dreamed of making a living with original material. But to make ends meet, they played nights full of Top 40 hits at nightclubs and hotel bars. Making it on that circuit required, at a minimum, versatile musicians who could easily satisfy audience requests for Styx and Billy Joel, “Freebird” and “Stairway to Heaven.”

Friends From the Start press image

The bands that stood out had something more to offer, though: Comedy skits. Magic acts. Stunts. Friends From the Start, another of Margus’ bands, brought a gallows on stage for a cover of Alice Cooper’s “Welcome to My Nightmare.” Bandmate Rick Davis was the lucky member who got to hang during the song.

“We went through all kinds of testing with this thing,” Margus remembers. ”We had him hooked up with harnesses and had the noose so when the hatch pulled he actually wouldn’t hang, but we had him hooked up in the back on bungee cords so it would look like he was hanging.”

Tiny Barge and ‘shooter sets’

Some of the history has been collected by Michael Weiland, who was in the bands Confection, Springfield and Redemption. He operates the Facebook group DC Bands from the 70’s, which features colorful promotional photos of groups represented by the Washington Talent Agency and Barry Rick, once prime movers in the scene.

Prominent bands played as many as five sets a night, six days a week. The most successful groups made $6,500 a week, which would be $20,000 today. One of those sets would be a floor show.

Friends From the Start members Rick Davis and Pete Margus perform at Mr Pip’s in Glen Burnie, Maryland, in an undated photo.

“For the most part bands sat on stage and people were on the dance floor,” explains Arthur Leon “Tiny” Barge, a musician and promoter who developed floor shows for bands while he worked for the Washington Talent Agency. “These were a special presentation where the audience would take their seats and the band would be on the dance floor.” Floor shows were an added attraction for patrons out to see live music. A band that played six nights a week might only do floor shows on two of those. On Thursdays, floor shows drew patrons into clubs on a slow night. Saturday nights, they whipped up a party.

The show-band scene owes much of its success to Barge. A composer who could sing and play multiple instruments, he was a founding member of ’60s D.C. soul group the El Corols, the first band signed to the fledgling Washington Talent Agency. The group’s knack for showmanship made it a hot commodity — so much so that while Barge was still a student at the University of Maryland in the early 1970s, the company had him coach other acts in choreography and audience interaction.

“We were prostitutes. We had to play what they heard on the radio. We sold liquor. If they sold more liquor that night, the band would come back.” — Bob Farris, show-band guitarist

Barge helped show bands pace their sets and warned against habits that hampered audience engagement, like drum solos. Mimicking a solo with his voice, he explains how an audience will stop clapping if unaccompanied drumming continues past a reasonable point.

Kent Harris, singer with the show band Springfield, credits Barge with taking a bunch of white guys and teaching them to dance. “We were idiots!” Harris says.

The most successful show bands could perform, in addition to Top 40 hits, a live variety show that kept customers coming back to the nightclubs. And kept them drinking.

“We were prostitutes,” says Bob Farris, who played guitar in a number of show bands. “We had to play what they heard on the radio. We sold liquor. If they sold more liquor that night, the band would come back.”

Friends From the Start even had what it called a “shooter set,” where customers would send the band trays of lemon drop, apple pie and lime shooters. “People wanted to see if they could get the band wasted, and it happened more than a few times,” Margus says.

A newspaper ad from September 1980 featuring Friends From the Start’s multi-day schedule at Chesapeake Crab House & Lounge in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Show bands played venues like the Classics III Supper Club (now the Classics) in Camp Springs, Club Venus in Baltimore, Mr. Pip’s and Bojangles Too in Glen Burnie and Randy’s California Inn, which currently sits abandoned at the intersection of Route 1 and Whiskey Bottom Road in Laurel. (There were occasional gigs in Virginia, too.)

Sometimes a show band had a good idea but not good timing. Harris, who sang in several bands with Margus, recalls a plan he had hatched with his band, MacArthur Park. “We were getting ready to do a disco version of ‘MacArthur Park.’ We had an excellent female singer, a little like Chaka Khan. Then Donna Summer came in and did a version.” That version became Summer’s first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. MacArthur Park never recorded its own version.

Despite that missed opportunity, Harris, who also booked and managed acts for the Washington Talent Agency, had other good ideas.

“I went into the Rockville Ramada, which is now a Comfort Inn off of [Interstate] 270. And there was a piano thing going on, a single act. There were only a few people there, and I thought, there’s no club activity at all around here — there’s no place to go. I got together with the general manager to start a band and I told him we’re gonna blow this place away.”

Because Harris was also a talent agent, he had access to top local musicians. “We started doing entertainment there, and the place went crazy — people lined up all the time. There were people standing in the back and one Saturday night the fire marshall was there, and I had to stop right in the middle of a floor show.”

All of that energy and showmanship also led to some ideas that are politically incorrect by today’s standards.

“We did a takeoff on the Jackson Five,” Harris says. “We were the Jacksons but instead of Michael we were Stonewall Jackson and Andrew Jackson. There were things that today you couldn’t do.”

Changes in the grind

When Barge left the East Coast for Chicago and points West, he brought the show-band aesthetic with him, but while some bands adopted the variety show format, it didn’t take off as much as it did back east.

Show bands thrived through the 1970s and mid-1980s, and while some of them still perform as wedding bands, the show-band business model had faltered by the dawn of the ’90s. What happened?

“I was in was the band Bittersweet almost 15 years doing as many as 50 jobs a year. We opened up for Bill Cosby, Fifth Dimension, Ray Charles, Barbara Mandrell. Then it was just wedding bands, bar mitzvahs and company parties. Some of the players had graduated into that,” Margus says. “Then you’re playing the circuit for years, with no recording contract, and you’re on the road six days a week, married with kids.”

Other factors led to changes in the scene: DJs became more popular, and they charged less than a live seven-piece band. But many show-band players say the law interfered.

“In those days,” Harris says, “People would go out any night of the week. When DUI laws went into effect in the ’80s, people would not go out as much. The budgets just collapsed.“

Farris, who performs to sold-out audiences today as part of local rockabilly legend Johnny Seaton’s band, recalls that in least one case, clubs pulled the plug on show bands too soon. He had a regular gig in a popular oldies band at the Pooks Hill Marriott in Bethesda, when one night in the early ’90s a waitress informed him that the venue was closing. It was to be converted into a corporate replica of the bar from television series Cheers.

“I went back there when it opened on a Friday night,” Farris remembers, “and there were three people at the bar, period. There was a stuffed animatronic Norm and Cliff. Cheers was playing on eight different televisions. Three people at the bar. That was the end.”

“I blatantly confront racism and white supremacy with my music and performance,” says the rising vocalist and rapper from Baltimore, Maryland.

With a mix of Baltimore club music, jazz and noise rap, Ali’s music blends an assortment of styles with critical theory. He strikes a balance between “turning up” and exploring deeper issues — such as living amid racism.

“I think people are over this s**t, this bubblegum music,” Ali says. “You need to go back and make music about the people again.”

Today Ali debuted his newest EP — called Mongo, after his middle name — via the Fader‘s website. A month ahead of the release, we talked about about white people listening to his work, how he feels biologically programmed to make music and what kind of “mainstream” he’d like to be.

Bandwidth: What does accessibility mean to you? Who should listen to your music? Who can listen to your music?

Abdu Ali: Who should be listening to my music? That’s a complex question. Who can listen to my music or who can interact with it… like my newer stuff, specifically, is made for POC [people of color] to raise their consciousness about social issues or self-empowerment — or just help heal. Whether they’re dealing with — well, I feel like we’re all dealing with post-traumatic slave syndrome or just the oppression of POC on the regular. My newer stuff is specifically for them. And then I have some songs that are just for people who are underrepresented: women, POC and queer, trans, intersex.

Then some songs, it’s just turn-up s**t — like, I got this new track coming out called “Did Dat” which is just being, like, patting yourself on the back like, “I did that! I killed that. I slayed it.”

As far as who should listen to it, I mean, everybody should listen to it. Everyone can benefit from listening to it; I definitely do. I made it, but I still benefit from listening to it, performing it. Everyone can listen to it. But when it comes to who is it for, that’s when I dissect it a little bit.

Warning: explicit lyrics.

Are white people coming to your shows, too? Do you feel some type of way about white people consuming your music?

You can’t really avoid that. Do I feel some type of way about them coming to my shows? Not necessarily, because it’s just positive energy and I welcome that. I don’t feel no kind of way. Do I feel some kind of way in a positive way when there’s a lot of POC and queer people there? Yeah, I feel really happy to see them. But as far as seeing white people, I just don’t feel no type of way. So, it is what it is. I don’t feel negative about it. Support is support and I appreciate that. But it ain’t like I’m bending my performance or bending my words to make them feel comfortable or anything. It’s still very much black music and for my people, you know. A lot of people be talking about that, too, but it’s hard because the more popular you get, the more… you know what I’m saying?

How do you see your music spreading?

Hmm. I like looking at it like levels — like you can be “mainstream” like Rihanna, or you can be “mainstream” like [Trina], but I don’t know, I do definitely want to get to a global level. My dream is to be able to connect to all black and brown people all over the world, you know? So I want to be global in that way, but “mainstream” as far as like, MTV Video Awards, and s**t like that, no. I don’t care about that s**t [laughs].

You’ve done writing before music and you’ve done a lot of visuals. Which is more important to you, the writing aspect or the visual aspect? Is it a combination of both? And a larger question: Are people more receptive to words or images?

Today, people are more receptive to images, for sure. I think back in the day it was words, but today, Instagram, Facebook, everything is image-based. When I make a music video for a song, people know those songs more than the songs I don’t make videos for. But what’s more important to me is the words and the production, for sure. I feel like they both need to be visceral and provoking.

Performance-wise, it has to resonate because every time I make a beat or something like that, I always think about how people are responding to it. I guess, really, the performance is more important than anything … I really, really think the performance is what solidifies me as a musician and an artist. It’s real. It’s not makeup. It’s no nothing. It’s no walls up.

How do you take care of yourself?

I don’t know, I ask myself that all the time. Because I’m always ready to be over this s**t. It’s hard. It’s like a drug, though. It’s a blessing and a curse. I can’t stop doing music — like, I really can’t stop. I have some, like, moments of fear, moments of discouragement, but I just gotta keep going. I always think of insects — like ants and bees, like they have jobs or whatever. One’s assigned to be a worker bee or worker ant… I feel it’s kind of like that where it’s just this innate, biological, thing of fate where I just have to do music.

Taking a break from their tour with Ra Ra Riot, the band delivered a couple of frenetic pop tunes in our studio.

Above, watch Sun Club play the brand new, unreleased track “Dirty Slurpee” live at the Wilderness Bureau, and don’t miss “Worm City,” off of their debut album, The Dongo Durango, below.

Subscribe to Bandwidth’s channel on YouTube, and don’t miss our awesome playlist of every Bandwidth session to date.

The new work from Bernstein, who plays saxophone in the adventurous Baltimore quartet Horse Lords, attempts to redefine how digital real estate is used. But exploring it may mean subjecting yourself to an uncomfortable experience.

Visit Bernstein’s website for The Great Outdoors, and you’re introduced to four sets of mind-numbing video and audio. The sound portion combines sax squawks and piano notes with helicopter drones, and they’re paired with repetitive animations that are the visual equivalent of locked grooves.

If it seems like intellectual porn, that’s because it kind of is. Bernstein says The Great Outdoors is essentially the final project for his MFA at Goucher College.

“[I was] pushing myself technically and artistically to try to figure out what an album could be in the Internet age,” Bernstein says.

The composition seems like something you’d encounter in a modern art museum, but Bernstein wants to bring unconventional art to an accessible platform, making the Internet a type of everyman’s gallery. But the work is immersive and beyond the audience’s control. In The Great Outdoors’ web space, there is no play, pause or fast forward.

Bernstein says he wants his work to challenge people to see and hear things in new ways, “or pay attention to their own vision and hearing in a new dimension.” He thinks the Internet medium can help achieve that.

Andrew Bernstein

“I’ve thought a lot about what a website is, and what websites try to do — be useful or get you to buy something,” he says. “[I] wanted to make something that … sort of didn’t have a purpose. A website that created a space that was just meant to be experienced, and not necessarily meant to do anything.”

Bernstein credits modern saxophonists and early drone music for influencing The Great Outdoors, along with Object Oriented Ontology, a domain of metaphysics that seeks to understand existence beyond a human lens. (According to scholar and game designer Ian Bogost, OOO contends that “nothing has special status” and “everything exists equally.” Bernstein says he’s still trying to wrap his head around the concept.)

However complex the theory behind it, though, The Great Outdoors synthesizes a common pre-Internet experience: It’s like staring at television static, waiting for something to emerge from the fuzz — because every now and then, something does.

Andrew Bernstein’s The Great Outdoors is out now on Ehse Records and its video accompaniment is viewable on the project’s website.

David Bowie plays Maryland’s Capital Centre, 1974 (Hunter Desportes)

On his first trip to the U.S. in 1971, Bowie was detained by immigration officials at Dulles Airport who were “suspicious of his fey manner and flowing pre-Raphaelite locks,” according to Bowie biographer Paul Trynka. He later made his way to Silver Spring, stopping at the family home of Mercury Records’ Ron Oberman and chowing down at a local restaurant, Washington City Paper recalls.

Bowie would go on to play numerous concerts at Maryland’s Capital Centre, including a stop on his Diamond Dogs tour in 1974. Thirty years later, he played his final local gig: a 2004 concert in Fairfax. Reviewing the show for the Washington Post, Dave McKenna wrote, “with a set that covered more than three decades of classic recordings in two-plus hours, David Bowie reminded a crowded house at the Patriot Center on Sunday how far ahead of the curve he so often was.”

Fans of the late music and style beacon gathered for a memorial in D.C.’s Malcolm X Park last night, and H Street hangout Sticky Rice hosted a Bowie karaoke session. But if you missed out, there’s plenty Bowie mourning/celebrating left to do in the capital region.

Check out this list of local tributes, below. (Did we overlook one? Drop a comment below, tweet at us or email bandwidth@wamu.org.)

State of the Union/David Bowie tribute
Jan. 12 at JR’s Bar & Grill
This Dupont Circle bar offers a double whammy tonight: a drinking game for President Obama’s final State of the Union address plus a Bowie tribute.

David Bowie Tribute Party
Jan. 14 at Rock & Roll Hotel
At this free party, DJ Ed the Metaphysical spins Bowie all night on the Rock & Roll Hotel’s second floor.

Let’s Dance
Jan. 14 at The Crown in Baltimore
David Bowie’s 1983 single “Let’s Dance” was one of his most popular songs ever, and his album by the same name is his top-selling record to date. No wonder — both are dance-floor gold to this day. Thursday in Baltimore, DJ Pancakes spins a night of ’80s dance tunes, sprinkled liberally with Bowie’s poppiest.

Holy Holy plays The Man Who Sold the World
Jan. 14 at Birchmere
Booked before news broke of Bowie’s death, this show at Alexandria’s Birchmere features longtime Bowie producer Tony Visconti and ex-Bowie drummer Woody Woodmansey playing the late star’s third album, The Man Who Sold the World, in full. As far as local Bowie tributes go, this is as real as it gets.

A Queer Tribute to David Bowie
Feb. 13 at Phase 1
Queer-friendly dance party GndrF?ck “celebrates Trans* folk from all around the spectrum,” according to its Facebook page. Next month, the soirée focuses on tunes from Bowie, whose famous gender play and bisexuality made him an icon for queer people everywhere. Resident DJ Ego spins.

Top photo by Flickr user Sarah Stierch and 1974 Bowie image by Hunter Desportes used under a Creative Commons license.

Ed Schrader’s Music Beat

Mac McCaughan

Ex Hex

She’s killed a bike.

Taking place somewhere in Baltimore, the slaughter, remarkably, is captured on film — in the new music video from Moolchan’s minimal punk project, Sneaks.

“X.T.Y” is the video’s name, the visual counterpart to a tense tune on Sneaks’ 2014 self-titled release. “X.T.Y is about whatever’s not on your side,” Moolchan writes in an email. “For me, it is anxiety. But then again, it makes me feel alive.”

More alive, certainly, than the kid-size bicycle that meets its fate at the video’s end. But at least the poor thing had a thrill in its final moments — the grainy, VHS-quality video shows Moolchan astride the bike, tearing up Baltimore’s streets alongside a BMX skillfully maneuvered by a guy she calls Reefer.

Reefer sports a devil costume. “He had a lot of tricks up his sleeve,” Moolchan writes.

So did director Ryan Florig, who spotted a trio of young girls at the skate park and immediately cast them in supporting roles, Moolchan writes. The girls goof around and pull shapes, bringing a childlike innocence to what’s ultimately a snuff film.

Moolchan expresses no remorse for the gruesome killing.

“We wanted an ending!” she writes. “Also, it was filmed on the day of the ‘Blood Moon,’ so we were just going with the spirit.”