As the story goes, Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson were tooling around New York one day when they came across a CD with a cover that was weird enough to make them buy it. When they took it home to play it, they were blown away. The self-titled CD was by Antony & the Johnsons, and it’s amazing. He calls his music “screaming faggotry,” though scream is nowhere near what he does with his exquisite voice at his sold-out N.Y. shows. He’s a torch singer: sparse, nuanced, and delicate, with songs so beautiful even Archie Bunker would cry. And the twisted underside to his lyrics could be the soundtrack for a gay Lars Von Trier film. Do not miss this show.
This article appears in Feb 16-22, 2005.