True sounds of the underground with Tonetta

Running across Tonetta in 2008 was a life revelation. Youtube hardly lacks weird, homemade videos that defy reality, but watching this 50-something Canadian man flex and shake while wearing angel masks and strange makeup, singing about rough, gay sex in the sweetest manner imaginable and completely unironically….it was like a doorway into a wonderful, mutant universe. The fact that some of these videos and scratchy, lo-fi tracks are from 1983 just makes it even more amazing. You feel like you’re watching something found at a crime scene. After being an underground youtube sensation for a year or two, he was picked up by in 2010 by Black Tent Press to have his classic and new material released for the first time. I’ll let the videos speak for themselves. Behold the world of Tonetta.

Published June 17, 2011.