Extra Fancy Needs Some Extra Work

Rock music has frequently served as a vehicle for social issues, so Extra Fancy’s mission to rock its way out of the closet and into the popular culture spotlight isn’t surprising. Yet the rock arena has traditionally been a boys’ club that excludes gays. Extra Fancy’s strategy is to tackle straight-up rock ‘n’ roll with an aggressively gay agenda--as the Los Angeles quartet did to the best of its ability at Spaceland on Friday night.

Wielding metal tubing with which he pounded his signature 50-gallon oil drum, bald and burly frontman Brian Grillo took the tiny stage with authority, yet as the set progressed, his bearing proved to be somewhat less imposing than his physique. The music occasionally took on a hard-core edge, but the group never pushed it over the top. The club’s acoustics made it difficult to understand Grillo’s words, the most distinctive feature of Extra Fancy’s music, but that didn’t dampen the genial mood of the evening, and several female fans felt compelled to leap onstage, even removing their shirts in a statement of gender politics. It was certainly significant that they did so without being harassed--unfortunately more significant than the music that inspired them.

Broadening perspectives is an admirable goal, but if Extra Fancy wants to make itself heard beyond the converted, it will have to take its music to a higher level.