“No I ain’t got no religion
got no church or superstitions
Oh but I still have a vision
that you’ll break free from this prison…”
—Starfox and the Fleet “Tiger in the Room”
Words by Jason Lee. Cover photo by Ramon Rivas.
In the wee hours of the First Day of the Sixth Month of the Year of our Discord 2024, a not-so-mötley crew of gaily dressed extraterrestrials fell to Earth looking like time-traveling extras from Brian De Palma’s 1974 glam-rock fantasia Phantom of the Paradise, a cult classic that confounded audiences at the time by crossing Rocky Horror with Goethe’s Faust and this a full year before Rocky Horror even came out…
L: photo of Lil’y Con Carnage; R: photo of Chloe Margott
…with aforementioned gaily-dressed going on to stage a Vaudevillian style variety show for the inhabitants of Planet Earth (or Planet Bushwick, at least) featuring musical entertainments and comedy and burlesque including a choral group who improvise made-up show tunes on the spot (Panichorus) and a psychedelic, outdoor, interactive “space jam” led by guitarist and “Extraterrestrial Brotha’” Dominick Martes, not to mention a decidedly un-Disneyfied Darth Vader striptease featuring everyone’s fave kink-positive dark overlord decked out in bondage gear, waving a thickly veined dildo to-and-fro like a lurid, floppy light saber cuz let’s face it there’s anything guaranteed to get Earthlings’ attention it’s Star Wars themed erotica…
…which raises the question of what motivated these long-distance immigrant misfits to travels across the universe to stage an “immersive space-themed rock n roll cabaret burlesque murder mystery experience” at the art & performance space known as Rubulad which come to think of it resembles a secret alien laboratory, its every nook & cranny stuffed to the brim with random bric-a-brac and assorted pop-culture ephemera, most likely collected as specimens of Earthlings’ many strange fixations, with a special custom stage design supplied by art director/production designer Sarah Caye to help make these aliens feel at home no doubt…
…the answer as we’ve gleaned it being that they sought (and still seek) to put the “extra” back in extraterrestrial and the “rock” back in rock ’n’ roll, at which they succeeded massively on both counts we must say, cuz looking back at that Saturday, far from being the grey pallid creatures with sunken chest cavities and blank expressionless eyes who don’t bother with clothes most of the time (perfectly legal seeing as they lack genitalia) as witnessed in many a Steven Spielberg film, these outer space travelers were done up like cosmic peacocks from beyond the our solar system…
…with the event’s headliners Starfox and the Fleet clearly setting about to dispel such stereotypical expectations, being “extra” and then some and ditto for their merry band of mercenaries and Earth-dwelling emissaries such as the night’s producer Dr. Zoe Nightingale, all of whom put on their best human suits and donned their best togs, resplendent in earthly fashions like spandex and shoulder pads, studded leather and feathers, draped in tinsel and glitter and rhinestones, all in service to an event billed as “Who Killed Rock ’n’ Roll? A Space Rock Extravaganza” which more so than seeking the homicidal perpetrators was an event intent on reviving rock ‘n’ roll’s moribund fortunes…
…which don’t get us wrong cuz we’re well aware there’s tons of great rock ’n’ roll bands out there grinding it out night after night on the local scene (thank goodness for it!) but still Starfox and her Fleet may be onto something given how relatively scaled down the audience is for rock ’n’ roll these days compared to times past, with the situation being even more dire for rock entering anything resembling “the mainstream” whatever that means these days, which really, just take a look at the Billboard Hot 100 and see if you can find a single unambiguously rock ‘n’ roll song on there (Billie Eilish being the nearest currently) which maybe has something to do with rock’s long history of striking Faustian bargains and selling out/pimping itself out ’til it’s got no soul left to sell seemingly…
WereKitten takes the stage
…which is of great concern to Starfox and her galactic brethren not only because her and The Fleet got so much soul power and ain’t sellin’ it, but also b/c rock music is precious resource across broad expanse of the galaxy, much more so than here on Earth, seeing as the majority of planets don’t even have music period (try being a space slug and making music with no opposable thumbs) and even those that do tend to produce sounds along the lines of Brian Eno in full-on floaty ambient mode or Space Lady type synth-based tunage…
… which is all well and good cuz when space aliens do actually try and rock the f– out they usually come off sounding something like Sam Smith at best and Ed Sheeran at worst whereas the best of earthly rock ‘n’ roll music gives space slugs a good excuse to shake their space slug asses which is crucial in promoting procreation and perpetuating the species cuz sadly space slugs aren’t that into schtuping other space slugs in general which is why rock ‘n’ roll is so crucial…
…so you can see why NASA made the wise decision to include a vinyl record, namely, the Voyager Golden Record, aboard the Voyager 2 spacecraft launched in 1977, a spacecraft that’s still exploring the outer reaches of the Milky Way to this day, not to mention being the first to probe the mysteries of Uranus *rim shot* and when the alien community first heard “Johnny B. Goode” they collectively replied, “send more Chuck Berry!” and with the direness of current state of earthbound RnR now fully clear they’ve appointed a special commission to save the music and Earth itself too while they’re at it with Starfox appointed as the mission’s fearless leader, wielder her keytar like it’s a laser gun which it probably is…
…cuz as it transpires Earth would’ve been vaporized long ago (we’re the worst polluters in the universe for decades running and otherwise have a reputation for being untrustworthy which is why aliens shun us for the most part) were it not for all those ET’s whose emotional and psycho-sexual wellbeing depends upon hijacking our radio transmissions and (more recently) streaming media which means that our planet’s very survival depends upon continuing to produce real-deal, down ’n’ dirty rock ’n’ roll in a sizable enough volume to meet their needs which is where Starfox and the Fleet come in…
…with SATF being a band of fellow space aliens led by their titular frontperson who’ve made it their mission to pose as Earthlings and write real deal rock ’n’ roll songs that’re uplifting to humanity (see above) while still rocking the f*ck out (shout out to the Fleet’s musical director Sir Ion Archenar) and putting on ecstatic live shows to remind people how much RnR can mean to our collective well-being, serving as “a reflection of the magic and depth within ourselves” in Starfox’s own words with a vitality and life-affirming realness rarely seen elsewhere in 2024 not to mention rock und roll’s progressive boundary-expanding benefits too, witness for instance how it helped overturn racial segregation in the ’50s and ’60s and beyond (legally enforced segregation that is) and could potentially help alleviate prejudice against space aliens too…
…a task SATF undertook on 6/1/24 with the help of earthbound allies like The Screamin’ Rockets who traveled to Rubulad all the way from Philadelphia, PA to play, and Andrew Leonard, who brought a sense of rock ’n’ roll passion to his jubilant gospel-tinged queer anthems about the freedom to love and be loved in whatever form and fashion one so chooses, and here it’s crucial to remember that we’re been here before or at least our immediate ancestors have, with rock having been declared dead on arrival yet eventually reborn more times than a Buddhist monk with a pile of oily rags and a can of gasoline (no disrespect intended)…
…which in our reading is what Starfox and the Fleet’s latest single “Tiger in the Room” is all about, e.g., how we all gotta “prey for salvation” (note the double-meaning) and pay for our salvation too by “danc[ing] under the moon” (not the worst thing) in between repeatedly “tripping and losing our way” (paraphrasing slightly) while occasional being petty enough to be “dripping wet with envy” but that’s the cyclical nature of life innit or death and rebirth if you prefer which is just our own idiosyncratic take on the song and what do we know really…
…besides how freakin’ catchy that “ooh-ooh-ooh” melody is and how the rhythm section of Brian City (bass) and Crow Starbird (drums) give the song a coiled intensity and stable underpinning (showcased in the second verse most especially) for all the keyboard/vocal/guitar dramatics up top which get to the very heart of rock ‘n’ roll we think which at it’s best helps one find euphoria in the everyday and to tap into a latent spirituality that has nothing to do with organized religion but it’s always tenuous innit, with rock music facing the first of its many death-and-rebith cycles not more than a mere few years after it was first born in the mid-1950s…
…cuz by the late ’50s/early ’60s Chuck Berry was in jail, Elvis drafted into the army, Jerry Lee Lewis plagued by scandal (marrying your 13 year old cousin will do that) and Little Richard ordained as a minister which left the white bread likes of artists like Pat Boone, Frankie Avalon, and Perry Como to carry the torch (fine as pop singers and balladeers but no rock ’n’ rollers) and just as it took the British Invasion washing up on our shores some years later to wake Americans up to rock’s continued potential today it’s probably gonna take nothing less than an Alien Invasion to get the same point across so let us hope and pray that we don’t end up as prey and that Starfox and the Fleet are up to the task of rescuing humanity…
