(Wo)man About Town: Edie Sedgwick

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THERE'S A MAN about town who gets on stage in women's clothes — pantyhose included — and sings about Mary-Kate Olsen, Angelina Jolie, Bambi and cocaine.

It's not a joke, farce or drag queen revue. It's a rock show, albeit one you aren't likely to forget.

Using the moniker Edie Sedgwick (after the Andy Warhol-associated actress/muse), Justin Moyer has been performing his humorous and, yes, intelligent songs for more than eight years. The similarities between Edie Sedgwick and Moyer's work with bands like minimalist post-punk group Antelope and the electroclash-y Supersystem are hardly understated, though you probably won't find either singing an homage to Rob Lowe.

Though Edie Sedgwick has changed from its early incarnation as a one-man show with a backing iPod to the current full-fledged band, the nature of Edie Sedgwick has stayed the same.

"Duke Ellington said that if it sounds good, it is good. I agree with Duke Ellington — that's my policy," Moyer said. "I agree with Duke Ellington on most matters," he added with a laugh.

"If a song is fun or funny or danceable to me, that's the most important criteria in deciding if it gets performed or recorded. It might have really poignant lyrics or a really great message or be really smart or clever, but rock shows aren't really the place for diatribes and well-thought-out manifestos. They're about entertainment."

With sparkly eye shadow, a slinky dress and songs with lyrics like "That pig's blood came down in a red flood" and "Good goddamn, Jared Leto is the culprit," Edie Sedgwick shows certainly qualify as entertainment, complete with projected films for backdrops.

And then there are the lyrics to the song "Angelina Jolie," off the new digital- and vinyl-only "Things Are Getting Sinister & Sinisterer" (Dischord): "Thinking 'bout a baby, working on a baby, let's go get a baby. Black baby," sings Moyer.

It's kind of ridiculous.

You can't help but laugh, even if you're not sure what you're laughing at. It's kind of like a Harold Pinter play: funny but confusing and disturbing at the same time. You're never quite sure if you get it. Is "Angelina Jolie" an attempt at subversive social commentary? Is it mocking her? Mocking celebrity culture in general?

"I don't really write songs about girls or politics, at least not in a traditional way," Moyer explained. "I tend to write songs about media and my perceptions of mass media, and I sort of fell into writing these jokey, over-the-top lyrics. Any perceived social commentary that's part of my music is really just supposed to be a natural outgrowth of what sounds good. ... I feel like artists that decide on a message and then painstakingly set out delivering that message are generally pretty boring artists."

Hence the theatrics of Edie Sedgwick.

"You might really hate my act, but its unlikely that you've seen anything like it. I've seen so many bands — probably thousands of bands in my life — and it's just that I don't even remember them," Moyer said. "I guess I just want to be memorable."

» Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW; with Imperial China, Title Tracks, Wed., Jan. 7, 9 p.m., $8; 202-667-4490. (U St-Cardozo)

Written by Express contributor Katherine Silkaitis