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Christmas for the naughty
A Faerie Scary X-Mass at La Femme Buvette on Friday in Ybor City promises to turn the holiday on its head.
By MICHAEL CANNING
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 21, 2000
Curse Mackey thinks even naughty boys and girls deserve gifts at Christmas. "If you come to the right place," the Tampa vocalist added.
The right place he refers to is La Femme Buvette (the historically elegant Ybor City nightclub formerly known as the Cherokee Club), where Friday night a Christmas event not unlike something Trent Reznor and Tim Burton might organize will unfold.
Mackey's group the Grim Faeries is headlining A Faerie Scary X-Mass, an industrial-tinged alternative music night out for those who like a little bit of Halloween with their Christmas. A dead Christmas tree will stand sentinel over the proceedings, where moody lighting, smoke and creepy silhouettes of goblins and fairies will complete the atmosphere.
Also performing with the Grim Faeries, whom Mackey describes as "dark, metallic trip-pop with an industrialized gothy groove," are local bands Mind Static ("elegant and ethereal electronica," according to Mackey), Nothing Promise ("hard-edged doom core"), Time Flies ("alternative power pop for outpatients") and techno DJ Lil' Anthony.
Special guest caricature Santy Klaws will roam about, dispensing gifts from the event's sponsors, which include Monique's Body Essentials, Gothica, Kat Clothes, Kicks on Seventh, Lady C's House of Domination, Vinyl Fever, Creatures of Delight and Merlin's Books.
Sounds almost like a thesis for an anti-Christmas. "It's our take on it," said Mackey (a.k.a. Chris Mackey). He considers the real Christmas to be nothing more than "just consumer imagery of celebration, retailers happy to motivate you to spend your money, which is what Christmas is really about these days. Just another Hallmark holiday."
The Grim Faeries' artistic pedigree is such that astute fans of defunct Tampa goth band Shadowcraft, Chicago psychedelic/industrial band My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult and Irish superstars U2 should recognize its members. Guitarist/keyboardist Mikee Plastik played in Shadowcraft. Vocalist/keyboardist Mackey has been performing live with Thrill Kill Kult since 1996, and vocalist Xtina X (a.k.a. Christina Petro, and Mackey's wife) is a former Busch Gardens belly dancer who toured with U2 as a featured stage extra for part of their 1992 tour.
The tour took Xtina to Ireland, a stronghold of fairy (or faerie) mythology. While she didn't see any fairies, the experience stoked her fascination, and not just in the aesthetic sense that informs the image of Grim Faeries. She considers herself a true believer and says, "It's our goal that eventually the whole world shall believe that fairies exist."
The fairy aesthetic extends beyond Xtina's stage persona and dress, which she describes as "a frenzied, tattered dresses and little mangled wings and a wreath of flowers on my head and a wand."
It's become a state of mind that buffers against the real world. "I think that I've become extremely disenchanted with life," said Xtina, "and that through Grim Faeries we sort of created our own enchantment."
Mackey shares Xtina's full embrace of their band's concept. "The Grim Faeries is kind of a fantastical take on literature set to music, but also a very stark, realistic and often grim perception that we have of how society and reality is, and how it treats its kids and takes care of its own. In a nutshell, my concept is to create my own world through music that allows it to exist in art and to press that as far out as I can to keep the outside world at bay."
The Grim Faeries have a four-song, self-titled CD available on their Web site, http://www.grimfaeries.com.
-- Michael Canning can be reached at (813) 226-3408, or at canning@sptimes.com.
PREVIEW
Faerie Scary X-Mass with the Grim Faeries, Mind Static, Nothing Promise, Time Flies, DJ Lil' Anthony, Santy Klaws
When: 10 p.m. Friday Where: La Femme Buvette, 1320 E Ninth Ave., Ybor City.
Cost: $5 for 21 and older; $8 for 18 to 20 (18 and older only admitted).
Information: (813) 247-9966.
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