Nervous Gender was supposed to play on Good Friday and they sort of did, passing up an offer to open for the Plugz in order to play this benefit. They had been excellent a month before at a Science Holiday event and I liked the idea of them playing for the women's building. There was a time when lesbians got together for heavy swaying concert where feminist folk singers sang songs that make the Modern Lovers sound pessimistic, but these women are wild and crazy guys and Lace Gallery's Punk Meets Art show a year ago inspired this full moon Easter ritual. The feminists didn't have $2500 for the Heaters (!) so they got the Tracers and Fender Buddies for $100 and Nervous Gender for free.

   At first girls disco-danced in one room while punks stood around in another. Then the lights went out, and a Patti Smith tape came on while Cheri Gaulke and Sister Angelica Furiosa performed a skit where a masochistic monk turned into a cobra on the cross and slept with a blind nun. This was followed by the best art of the night, a 20 minute video tape of a vagina laying colored plastic eggs full of toys. One woman commented: "Did you see how many eggs there were? That's how many times a woman can come!"

   Then Nervous Gender's Phranc announced "We're not nervous" and the band performed "Suburbia Diptheria" and "Berlin Redhead" for a half-pleased half-offended audience. A member of the Tracers had his fingers in his ears while a girl was dancing and yawning at the same time. Punks and separatists cheered when "Do the Gestalt" was dedicated to Dr. Toni Grant, and Phranc swatted here head with an L.A. Weekly. Later her guitar didn't work for "What Can I Do?" and "Poets" was all noise. Then producer Annette Hunt announced that the 40 minutes were up and she didn't want to stay all night. "Pussies!" screamed Phranc to the audience before doing their last song, "Mommie's Chest." She left the stage snarling about the "goddamn dykes" while Gerardo, Michael and Edward seemed to take it more philosophically. Nervous Gender toys with being the first "out" punk band, "but people think we're weird 'cause we're queer." Their brand of electronic chamber music and their sense of humor makes them one of my favorite bands. By the time artist Ann Mavor emerged from a paper mache egg as a tap-dancing chicken Nervous Gender had left for Bace's Hall while their fans went home to watch tv like intellectuals. As opposed to Gender's music, the Blondie type rock n roll of the Fender Buddies made people want to dance in the worst way. They encored with "House of the Rising Sun"!!! And the Tracers have two lead singers, one who looks like Little Lulu and another who tries to look funny-weird instead of funny-ha-ha. Who knows? They'll probably do an album and be around forever. However, when I learned to draw, tracing was cheating.

   So the woman's video center made money, a group of boring people got their Rocky Horror-like thrill but punks and feminists certainly did not connect politically, and Punk Meets Cunt was a failure.