Sex and rock & roll go together as smoothly as do sex and drugs, or drugs and rock & roll. But the devil, as Car Wild is discovering, is in the details.
The band’s leader, Ian G., wrote a concept album based on a book he loved, a small yellow volume that’s been in his family for generations and which he first discovered when he was 10 years old. He is of course a known commodity from having playing guitar in The Earnests (later known as The Bunburys when The Earnests UK sued over the name) for a decade or three. So he was able to put together a short tour of small clubs and casino lounges for a concert version of the record, which came out on his own Devoted Friend label late last year.

The reaction wasn’t exactly what he expected. “Let’s just say my intentions were misread,” Ian allows. “Anybody who knows about the original author of this book mostly knows that he was put in jail for being gay 100 years ago. I just hadn’t realized that certain works of his are just never done, because they can’t escape that context.
“Everywhere I played, it was like a big gay dance party. I was congratulated for coming out—which I haven’t, by the way. I feel weird having to say this now, but I just don’t happen to be gay. The album isn’t a gay album. Yet all I was getting was gay audiences—who were expecting something very different.”

It doesn’t help that Ian G. dresses, in his own words, “foppishly” on stage, is slim and handsome and youthful, and even looks like he wears make-up. He swears he doesn’t—“My whole family has long lashes and red cheeks.” (True; witness his sister Windy of The Mere Fans.) He says he’s never minded if people speculated about his sexual tastes—goes with the ‘70s rock territory he was once immersed in, he figures. He simply does not want his private life to be entangled with his work, which is currently entangled with the life and work of a prominent homosexual historical figure.

At first Ian played up the connection between the album/concerts and the book and its author. Then he subdued the writer’s name and just mentioned the book. Then he downplayed the book’s title.

Leaving it out altogether isn’t an option. “This is one of my favorite books of all time. I don’t want to be accused of plagiarizing it. I’m proud of my adaptation. But I’m not adapting some subtext of the novel, or the realities of the writer’s life. I’m telling the story, and people don’t seem to want to get that.

“I’m proud of this project, worked on it for years. But I clearly haven’t worked out how to present it yet.

“Part of me still thinks that I’m going to be in my 40s and people are still going to be looking at me wondering if I’m for real. But I know in my heart that’s silly. The art is over there, and I’m myself, over here. I even think how people look at that author, and that little yellow book, will change.”

Notice how we got through this whole column without mentioning the noted author who’s colored this whole project with his irritatingly influential brilliance? That was intentional, though we don’t think it helped much.

Ian G. performs Friday in the Music School concert hall of the college on the hill. The solo set will include a suite of songs from his concept album plus a few Earnests hits.

The Saviles, The New Helen and Under the Balcony pop until they drop for an early show Saturday afternoon. But wait—there’s more! Millie and the Model Marvels are doing a one-off gig with vocalist Les Ballons of In the Gold Room, as The Model Millionaire. The live music rages from 2 p.m. until some sort of televised sporting match begins… Panthea, Roses & Rue and Quantum Mutata keep the gloom throbbing for a sardonic Saturday at Hamilton’s, where the big screen TV’s in a whole other room… The True Knowledge and Young King, Christian reggage, at D’ollaire’s…