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Lineup: The Tommy Chiffon BandIt’s been a long time since we’ve had a riveting rock and roll redemption to capture our attention, but in Los Angeles, the return of one of the city’s beloved ‘90’s glam- punks will offer just that. After a 15 year absence from music, androgynous crooner Tommy Chiffon has re-emerged to beguile a new generation and inject some much- needed spectacle into the scene. Chiffon’s story begins in the 80s, where, as a gay Latino youth in East Los Angeles, he was always the outsider. Add to his persuasions, a love of freaky fashion and musical iconoclasts with a folksier sensibility (Marianne Faithfull, David Bowie). His brother Anthony shared a love of music but gravitated towards its grittier side, pounding skins for punk and metal bands, and even playing with the legendary Black Flag. Eventually the dark power of one brother melded with the glittering passion of the other. The sonically-gifted siblings joined forces as “Will” and did the open mic circuit as an acoustic act, soon evolving into an electric one. When Black Flag broke up, Anthony joined another group of seminal rabble-rousers, Pygmy Love Circus, and Chiffon moved to San Francisco. It was a couple years later, when Chiffon came back to LA and by fluke, the brothers reunited for a show at The Dragonfly in Hollywood, that the Tommy Chiffon Band was born. That one show changed everything and garnered the group immediate buzz and bookings all over town. In the 90s, the group caused a stir with more powerful performances at the Viper Room, The Dragonfly, and gone but not forgotten spaces such as Al’s Bar, The Garage and Spaceland. They garnered attention from local press and a loyal following both gay and straight who dug their pretty melodies, heavy rhythms and the singer’s heartfelt flamboyance. But the demons that initially pushed Chiffon into music would ultimately push him too far into darkness and, as has been the case with many great artists before, the excess got the best of him. Tommy Chiffon (the person and the performer virtually vanished into thin air at the height of his career... from the stage, from Los Angeles, from the earth? That is another tale altogether.. It’s so much more fun to focus on the present anyway. The band and the man are not only still on the planet, they’re ready to rock it once again. The old songs are being buffed like gems. The lashes and lip gloss are itching to be re-applied. And the passion and pain of the past promise to make it all more powerful too. Get ready to celebrate life and self-expression and individuality. Get ready for the return and the redemption of The Tommy Chiffon Band!