Tribe 8 Delivers Bawdy, Flirtatious Show

When Tribe 8’s singer Lynn Breedlove revved up a chain saw before her band’s show at Spaceland on Friday, the audience knew they were in for something different. That was just the beginning. During the show, Breedlove removed her shirt to reveal nipple rings and an anarchy symbol scrawled across her belly. Then she displayed a dildo. “What do you think this is, ‘Geraldo’ or ‘Oprah’?” she asked.

Hardly. Fans have come to expect this kind of in-your-face sexuality and punk ethos from San Francisco’s Tribe 8, an all-lesbian, multiethnic troupe that’s a prominent force in the militant “queercore” movement.

The group flirted with mosh-pit-friendly punk and performance art in songs from their new album “Snarkism” such as “Wrong Bathroom,” their criticism of sexual segregation, “Tranny Love,” an ode to transsexuals, and “Checking Out Your Babe,” a tongue-in-cheek warning to the heterosexual men in the audience.

(The chain saw--formerly used to “castrate” Breedlove during a song about date rape--was wielded against guitarist Lynn Flipper in a mock battle.)

With a flair for the kind of rebel-minded danger that fuels the best rock ‘n’ roll, Tribe 8 transformed the old epithet “dyke” into a badge of honor and merged sex industry props with the trappings of a heavy, hard-boiling punk normally associated with masculinity. Their unshackled ferocity and Breedlove’s sense of humor made Tribe 8’s message fun, bawdy, high-risk entertainment.