MEN


If one could make a trailer for the scene in the early 2000s on the Lower East Side, the soundtrack would be Le Tigre. The band had recently added JD Samson—their roadie and slide projector operator—and their electroclash interpretations of feminist and LBT sociopolitics were inescapable. They also made great dance music. Nearly one decade, a tour with Peaches, a million DJ gigs, and an official hiatus for Le Tigre later, Samson has returned with her band MEN, reclaiming dance floors with their thumping, disco house beats.

“When Le Tigre decided to go on hiatus, I started focusing on my deejaying career,” says Samson, who formed MEN while deejaying with LeTigre member Johanna Fateman. “I guess I’ve been doing a lot besides that. Working on my personal self. You know, all that adult stuff.”

MEN’s live performances, where Samson is joined by Hirsute members Michael O’Neill and Ginger Brooks Takahashi, are hard to categorize. It’s “gay lez disco for old school Phish
phans,” according to Samson. But it’s also as thoughtful as live dance music gets. It’s retro without kowtowing to traditions, and at the same time forward-thinking and sophisticated.

“I used to go out every night dancing, walking, watching, waiting. Now I kind of can’t imagine where I would go if I wanted to have a good time. All the lez bars are over. All the sound systems are bad, says Samson. “I’m older now. But I think New York is tame. And I miss it when it wore fishnets and screamed from every roof.“

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