Shine As They Do

| 17 Feb 2015 | 01:40

    WRITERS HAVE TO use the back entrance of the Hammerstein Ballroom tonight. That's the way it should be for hippies, too. I'm still surprised to see a bunch of video crews and photographers gathered around a backdrop in a musty old basement. I'm further baffled to see that plenty of them are effeminate Hispanics. For a moment, I'm thinking that I've stumbled upon a neat gay nightclub item for New York Press' upcoming "Best of Manhattan" issue.

    As it turns out, the gay international media has turned out in force for Paulina Rubio's appearance at the Fourth Annual Pantene Pro-Voice Concert-that being a very big deal that they're taping for MTV, featuring a young woman between the ages of 14 and 21 who's won some kind of competition like Lindsay Lohan was trying to win in Freaky Friday.

    Rubio explains the distinctly different press corps. I've never heard of Rubio, and don't mind saying so. Ashanti can't speak as freely. This leads to a memorable exchange, as some journalist from overseas corners the perfectly polite pop star: "Do you like Paulina's songs?"

    "Umm?yeah!"

    "Which one?"

    "Umm?nothing comes to mind right now."

    Ashanti's dazzling smile never falters. However, I'm a lot more impressed by this cute black gal with a stunning supershag. Plenty of eyeliner provides the petulant sexiness of a young Joan Jett, and her look of semi-comprehension makes her the new Christina Ricci. Fefe Dobson looks absolutely nothing like the dull gal who graces the cover of last year's self-titled debut on Island Records. She's gotten an impressive makeover that would've sold a lot more albums.

    I spend most of my time staring at Fefe and trying to find some way to liberate a bunch of Gibson guitars that are hidden behind the photographer's backdrop. They've all been autographed by guitar gods such as Ashanti and MTV VJ Quddus. That'll make for a bizarre collectable someday.

    My heist is interrupted when we're all marched to a cramped area at the front of the stage and told to have a good time for the next four hours. The "Media Pit Rules" helpfully note "MEDIA IS PROHIBITED FROM THE VIP AND GENERAL ADMISSION AREAS." Any hack caught outside the media pit "WILL BE ASKED TO LEAVE IMMEDIATELY." Which is all fine and well, except that I didn't bring earplugs, and I'm not going deaf over the pleasure of hearing Ashanti sing "Rock Wit U."

    I bravely take off my press badge and slip out to see how the simple folk live. They're living very nicely. They're getting free gelato, free issues of YM magazine and even free samples of Pantene moisturizing shampoo. They can also get a high-tech hair scan by Pantene employees dolled up in lab jackets, just like the gals used to wear at the Clinique counter.

    The crowd's a nice mix of kids, teens and MILFs. It's overwhelmingly female, of course. I go into the men's room, and it's deserted except for two refugees from the adjoining VIP room looking for a place to get stoned.

    My own evening would go by a lot faster if I hadn't glommed on to Fefe. I'm mainly here to see Skye Sweetnam, who starts off the show while playing to a sparse crowd. Britney's canceled tour kept me from enjoying Skye's opening in her proper arena setting, but this 15-year-old remains a promising look at the future. Ideally, Skye will be the point where bad Swedish dance pop is overwhelmed by great American bubblegum rock.

    Sweetnam's already making an important cultural contribution with her genuinely sexy booty-shaking. She ignores tired moves and reaches back to a go-go girl heritage that's been either trivialized or ignored by MTV's current generation. This also provides a stark contrast to the ironic headbanging that remains a staple of NYC's rock scene.

    Every shimmy from Sweetnam takes us another step further from the sad legacy of former faux teens such as?oh, that moron junkie from Squirt TV whose name I can't remember. Skye must've shook it right out of my head. The only real disappointment is Sweetnam's predictable cover of "Heart of Glass." It starts out sounding like Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'," which would've been a lot more fun to hear.

    Ashanti was far too polite in regard to Paulina Rubio. Her dancers move like the Andrea True Connection, but Paulina herself is a lame Sun City lounge act. Her elaborate production goes on forever, too. I'm not supposed to be in the area, so I can't take a break over at the porn shop across the street. Instead, I'm reduced to hiding out downstairs, reading a YM article about bad break-ups and looking like somebody's bored father.

    It's particularly irritating since I'm now just waiting for Fefe. I'm not interested in Marié Digby. That's mainly because of her annoying accent mark. Besides, I'm not expecting much from the winner of something called the Pro-Voice competition. It's not likely that Marié's going to be some inventive neo-riot grrrl singing "Margaret Sanger Wanted to Kill Fefe Dobson's Grandmother."

    Digby probably surprises a lot of people by being pretty good. She should start billing herself solely by her surname. The L.A. gal's honestly thrilled to be making a splashy East Coast debut, and her enthusiasm is catching. I also like how she keeps brushing her hair back so that we can see her singing at the piano. It's really cute when porn stars do the same thing, albeit for different reasons.

    Digby's got a gorgeous voice, and her lyrics survive the sparse showcase of piano/guitar/cello instrumentation. This is the 4th Annual Pantene Pro-Voice competition, and I can't say that I've seen any major-label bios identifying previous winners. She'd make for a pleasant coffeehouse revival, though.

    My dream girl finally hits the stage, and I'm instantly disappointed to see that Fefe's lip-syncing. At least, that's my impression as she bounds around the stage without missing a note. I put my press badge on and head back to the pit, where I happily confirm that Fefe is, in truth, just a classic little gal with a big voice. To be honest, I was more interested in trying to look up her shirt. Still, it's nice to see that my heroine's no studio-processed skank.

    Her live show is a further improvement on an uninspired debut. You couldn't assemble a better History of Rock backing band. The drummer's sporting a purple boa, there's a bigmuff bassist, and the guitarists are a stony alt-rock cliché paired with a beaming power-pop elf. The sophomore album should be a proper big deal. Until then, Fefe is already NYC's most important rocker. The video for her new song "Don't Go" manages to make CBGB's look kinda cool again.

    My original clever plan is to contrast all this with the 35th Annual Penthouse Party at Spirit. That's before I arrive the next evening to find that the club is both comfortably cool and dark. There's nothing more pleasant than being in a place like this when the summer sun is lingering outside. Also, it's a rare open bar with brown liquor.

    The party was obviously arranged before Penthouse's publishers got the word that a $42.5 million cash injection had fallen through. That was their most promising plan to avoid bankruptcy, and the European investors had pulled the plug yesterday. I just sit in the shadows, get real drunk and watch guys in suits have serious conversations. I can't bring myself to go over to the media table where Penthouse Pets are answering questions like, "So do you have a man now?" They look hot and everything, but they're no Fefe. o