A performer painted pink, wearing makeup that simultaneously recalls Divine and back issues of Famous Monsters, floats up to a makeshift stage at the Manes Emporium of Doubt on a Friday night and sings heartbreaking, near-operatic pop music. The small crowd swoons in unison, the neighbors dont complain, and Orlando meets Miamis JuJu Pie in the backyard of a house tucked away in a quiet neighborhood near downtown.
This is one moment in Orlandos DIY community, a loose confederation of smaller venues and spaces dedicated to showcasing performances unconstrained by rules or labels experimental and untrammeled music, art and creativity.
Dont get us wrong, we at Orlando Weekly love live music in all of its myriad forms and scales anything that gets people out of the house gets a big thumbs up from us but lately weve really been taken with the more outré fringes of the DIY music scene in our town.
This is a scene thats been the beneficiary of multiple shots in the arm recently. Theres been a resurgence of house venues hosting shows, as well as mid-size venues taking chances on events and artists they would have shied away from previously. And a local corps of very diverse performers are being met, crucially, by audiences ready to take a chance on outside-the-lines sounds.
Shows operate mostly as communal, small-scale labors of love, with shared contacts, resources and equipment. The impetus to present these shows is usually a deep personal desire to expose locals to whatever touring act is coming through, often for the first time. (It sure isnt a desire to make money.) Weve been to a hell of a lot of performances in these DIY settings of late, and weve documented a fraction of it where possible. Heres a collection of impressions and moments that took our breath away and made us both lean in and jump back at the sheer strange beauty of it all.