Impressions: Porn To Rock

I am at the Dragonfly, a club in West Hollywood, California, watching a no-name male porn star play guitar and scream dirty limericks over a backing tape. Four female dancers in G-strings alternately spanking themselves and waving giant (well, to me anyway) dildos don't make the music any better. Because the stage juts out into the middle of the room and has walkways on both sides to the back patio, most people watching are standing on the sides, as far behind the stage as they can because the view is better and the music quieter.

Vinnie Spit, the "singer" (and this term is used for reader reference rather than as a description of the sound coming out of his mouth) has released nine records and has starred in 35 "fetish" films. Listening to his music, I better understood his enjoyment of giving and receiving pain. During the last song, "Asshole Man," (sample juvenile lyric: "I'm addicted to crack") the "dancers" wave giant dildos and a three-foot inflatable phallus is produced.

"Asshole Man" is from a new album released January 26 called Porn to Rock (Callner Music). The record compiles songs from porn actors and actresses. Porn is not laughably bad; it's just unspectacular, with the quality and style of the songs varying widely. The gimmick isn't enough to hold a listener's attention very long.

The majority of the songs are in the dance-music vein, which makes sense given the style's musical and fashionable links to doing the deed. Though lots of styles and flavors are sampled, it's all dry humping, from the upbeat and lame beats of Johnny Toxic's "Happy" to Midori's Miami-bass driven "5,10,15, 20." Transsexual Karen Dior (Geoff Gann, Rick Van) enlists Stacey Q (remember "Two of Hearts"?) to give a little-girl voice to "Little Red Riding Hood." Ginger Lynn's "Fantasy World" is almost 15 years old, and it sounds like it. The song is reminiscent of Eddie Murphy's "Party All the Time" with its high-pitched synths and a mid-1980s drum machine. Marshall O Boy, David Bowie's soundman, turns in a lo-fi, punkish song that lasts less than two minutes -- bad for a porn movie, good for a crappy song.

Sabateur's "Harder" is Wax Trax-style dance music with samples of Chloe Nichole's en flagrante dialogue. David Burril's "Who's Normal" is dark and bass-heavy, which is another way of saying boring. Nina Whett's garage-rock, lifestyle anthem "Drink Beer and Fuck" is no different than what 50 high school bands in any city in America are playing; they just don't have a frontwoman who has sex on film.

The nondance songs fare even worse. Candye Kane's "The Meat Song" is an extended double entendre with a honking sax and rollicking piano, but the joke is over before the song is. The weirdest song is "Calypso Shower" from Suzi Suzuki, which juxtaposes her odd off-pitch warbling with what sounds like a preprogrammed sound from a cheap keyboard. It's almost like performance art, but she's not deep enough to pull it off, so it's just sad. Hyapatia Lee's "Strike Back" is a heavy-metal call to arms for like-minded people to, ah, as she puts "don't let that bureaucracy speak for you." Embarrassing at best. And Madison's thin, girly voice on "Man on the Moon," even multitracked to give it some depth, isn't going to erase any memories of her performance in New Wave Hookers 2.

At the Porn to Rock party, the lack of starlets is as disappointing as the record's music. I had hoped for a Boogie Nights-esque baccanalia feast of cocaine and public sex; instead, it is just another night at a bar watching lame bands. One of the MCs for the night is in a back room, sitting with two blondes in Catholic school-girl uniforms, looking bored and smoking something. And a pair of what look like adult-film actresses (teased hair, silicone, super-high heels) are outside having their pictures taken, but there isn't anyone famous, in or out of the porn world. (Unless you count the guy from the Stray Cats -- not Brian Setzer -- who stands next to me during Spit's set.) Instead the crowd features a lot of mouth breathers and people with video cameras filming the boring proceedings on stage. Probably the target market for porn.

There is a lesson to be learned from Porn to Rock, and it's not in "Strike Back": It's fine for metal guys to marry porn stars (Shane and drummer Bobby Hewitt from Orgy, Rikki Rachtman and Janine), but that's as close as the two worlds should get. Let the porn stars concentrate on their art, and let the musicians concentrate on trying to impress porn stars.

The paths of rock and pornography had been crossed long before Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee and future ex-wife Pamela Anderson's honeymoon tape was bootlegged and put up for sale on the Internet. Former teen porn star Traci Lords' 1995 debut record, 1000 Fires (Radioactive), was notable only because of her previous career and certainly not for the by-the-numbers dance music it contained. But just as Lords' record was awful, so too was the porn of Lee and Anderson. Bad camera work, bad acting (oh, wait, they weren't acting), and bad music (Soul Asylum) marred the overall quality, although Lee's money shot has won him compliments from porn legend Ron Jeremy.

Still, Candye Kane has become a mainstream blues singer with a handful of records. (The latest, 1998's Swango, is even on major label Sire.) With the mainstreaming of porn, more actors are certain to try to release records, although Porn to Rock doesn't provide much hope for quality. Isn't it enough that we already must endure Don Johnson, David Hasselhoff, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Joey Lawrence? Do we really need porn stars making bad music too?

The best porn record out right now didn't have a release (huh-huh) party with wannabe stars, but it's certainly more in tune with the libido than Porn to Rock. Sex-O-Rama 2 (Oglio) is music "inspired" by the classic porn sound of the '70s, a cliché of wah-wah guitars and rumbling bass in disco time. The '70s were the golden age of porn (see Boogie Nights) and not just because it was pre-breast implants; the music was integral to the mise-en-scene.

The first sign that it's classy is that it has Jenna Jameson on the cover, and because the original collection, Sex-O-Rama, gathered music directly from the soundtracks to Deep Throat, Debbie Does Dallas, and Behind the Green Door, it provides the expected. The pseudonymed musicians (Haywood Jablomi, Sid Getzoff ) merge blaxploitation grooves, cop-show car-chase rhythms and a general sense of sensuality. Perfect for those times when you and a lover are on a bearskin rug in front of a fire and you want the pizza delivery guy to join in.