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Dragonette Likes It Hot
On Sunday night, the mostly Torontonian electropop extravaganza Dragonette took to the stage at the Social. Martina Sorbara, the group’s lead singer, stood up front in green stilettos and grabbed her glowstick necklace, proclaiming, “I feel so New Wave!” The group then proceeded to throb and pound out song after sweet, sensuous song from the tiny stage, while densely-packed fans, resigning themselves to the lack of horizontal dancing space, jumped straight up and down and pumped their fists in the air.
The next day, Torontoist met up with Dragonette on a sweltering Kensington patio. Though three of the four band members are from Toronto, the band is currently based in the United Kingdom and are just visiting their old stomping grounds.
When the subject of songwriting came up, we were a bit surprised to learn that most of the lyrics to their songs were written by Sorbara. She was a solo artist before her husband Dan Kurtz began leading her down the bouncy road to pop stardom, creating The Cure For Bad Deeds—an album of sultry, poetic tunes full of Toronto references. Gone are her days of singing about sending a lover home on the King streetcar and skipping stones at Cherry Beach. The lyrics she wrote for Dragonette’s self-titled EP don’t linger at streetcar stops and reminisce; they put on fishnets and take to the town.
Despite their explicit videos and clothes (or lack thereof), the band dislikes when their music is described as purely sex-driven. Kurtz says it’s an oversimplification, and guitarist Will Stapleton adds that most songs are about relationships of some sort; theirs are just a bit more blunt and straight to the point.
Since they’re one of the few bands that have made a cooking video, we asked what flavour their band would be if it was a food. Hot peppers were the unanimous choice; the band also expressed love for the marinated peppers served at Queen Street West’s Terroni. It’s good to know our city still has a place in their hot and spicy hearts.
Photo from Dragonette’s MySpace page.