The L.A. Weekly Interview: JD Samson and MEN

I love dancing. We all love dancing, but I didn't know I was into "dance music" until I was in Le Tigre, and then when I started seeing that the kids at those shows were freaking out and they had a space to be themselves — they didn't even know their bodies were moving. It was so beautiful. It made me feel happiness. People moving together. MEN is dance music, but it's also punk and weird and ... cool! [laughs]

But I think that it's true that when Le Tigre started, there was a new attitude of not being angry but being happy, becoming optimistic as a group of people, and I don't think that was Le Tigre's doing. I think everyone started changing their attitudes about things and it just worked. It was, timewise, everybody wanted to dance and have fun, be happy.

PHOTO BY CASS BIRD

MEN (from left): Ginger Brooks Takahashi, JD Samson, Michael O'Neill. "It's about love. And enjoying each other."

The cover of Le Tigre's This Island (2004), with JD Samson front-and-center

Location Info

Map

The Echo

1822 W. Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Echo Park

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More About

• Ginger Brooks Takahashi
• JD Samson
• Le Tigre
• Punk Rock
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

BROOKS TAKAHASHI: It's like a shift from oppositional politics to a pleasure politics and sharing an experience — instead of, "We're fighting against this, yeah!," instead of all the energy going outwards to fighting against something, it's more like, "We can use all this energy to make something that we want, instead of trying to fight against something."

Do you see in your shows a next generation of younger queer kids who take that attitude for granted?

SAMSON: Yeah — and they'll probably start making oppositional music ... [laughs]

Back to the Indigo Girls!

SAMSON: Actually, yeah. Back to the Indigo Girls! [laughs a lot]

BROOKS TAKAHASHI: Back to Tribe 8!

MEN will perform at the Echo this Friday, September 17, at 9 pm.