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Softcore (BEVIN BOYKO)

"We’re a punk band essentially," says percussionist/electronic musician/Stylus Magazine editor Taylor Burgess (2Tailz) about Softcore, the "feminist band" he currently drums in.
   
"We like a lot of hardcore. I like a lot of dance bands, and we’re loud and obnoxious, but we’re entertaining and endearing," he says when I ask him to describe the Softcore sound.
   
Burgess says Softcore formed as a direct result of the members’ adventures in film and sound, punctuated with licks of sexual politics.
   
"We started a year and a half ago," he says after finding a quiet spot in the Lo Pub on a freezing January night. "Myself and David Dobbs (Vampires, TWIN, ex-Absent Sound) got together to create a single song called Confetti for this film, to help with the score.
   
"They needed a title track and it was supposed to be based on a performance. They were going to play the film and we were going to play the song."
   
"But when we got together to do it, we started jamming and we smacked out six songs, not just the one," guitarist Dobbs adds. "So we thought we should keep on doing it."
   
Songs in the Softcore set include Three Score, The Hardcore Song, Surgery, Taco Tuesday and Get Thee to a Nunnery.
   
Experience the attention-grabbing fun dance party of Softcore at the Graffiti Gallery on Jan. 21 with Mary Jane Stole My Girl, Manic Shakes, a mandatory experimental Greg Hanec performance and Burgess operating as opener 2Tailz. Softcore gigs next on Jan. 28 as part of the Big Fun Festival at Into the Music with Ultra Mega and Slow Dancers.
   
If you can’t wait to hear Softcore, there’s good news, so put down the tissues and check out the audio issues!
   
"We have a demo called Dissues up on Soundcloud," Dobbs says.
   
"We’re going to be recording in the upcoming months. In February we plan to record at UMFM," Burgess adds as the trio’s vocalist, Lasha Mowchun, arrives.
   
It turns out that the catalyst film Dobbs and Burgess were working on — Confetti — was actually their vocalist’s project. (Conducting this fun interview was kind of like unfolding a press kit in reverse.)
   
"I’m interested in feminism," says Mowchun (ex-Lemon Flavored Condominiums, Fists In). "And I guess a lot of this band’s stuff is structured around our keynote interest in feminism.
   
"I personally believe that everything that is feminized in society is often put down, or humiliated or degraded. I wanted to make something about sexuality — female sexuality — and take something out of its usual context with this idea of tasteful nudity, and then make it really punk rock."
   
There’s the underlying Softcore philosophy! Now, let’s talk presentation.
   
"I think the live show is really important," Mowchun says. "Me and Taylor and David get pretty excited, and sometimes we get dressed up. In the past, Taylor and David wore bright tights and pearls. We were thinking of making up outfits that we’d wear. I made up this weird suit — a man’s suit. I sewed all these pants together so that each person fits inside one pant leg, and the shirts are sewed together so that we’re really close," she says.
   
"I really like to sing and I kind of like attention, too. I’m also kind of ashamed of how I like attention."
   
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