WALLER FLOWERS

[June 1st, 2005] The first time I saw singer-songwriter Holcombe Waller-besides the big feature in the June issue of Out magazine-wasn't at his recent Fez Ballroom showcase or when he showed up dressed up as a Saudi princess for Sissyboy's "Apocalypstick" extravaganza last month.

No, the first time I saw Holcombe was in a more intimate setting. At a party two weekends ago, the 29-year-old was coming down the candlelit stairs of an old NoPo Victorian, wearing a wife-beater and blue jeans, his lithe frame covered in sweat. The San Franciscan, now a Portland transplant, had been dancing with friends at the wedding of two women, who claimed to be neither lesbian nor trannie, yet had decided to get married for reasons that remain blissfully unknown.

That wedding party, which transformed an antiquated tradition into a very new one, offers a neat metaphor to describe Waller's music. Another description might be to call him a Lilith Fairy or a gay version of Gillian Welch, but this alt-folkie's sound just doesn't seem to fit neatly into any musical genre. After listening to the shy singer's new album, Troubled Times, I think of his raw-edged sound as a whisper inside my head, the kind of voice that says so much by saying so little.

When I met him later for coffee, I realized Waller's personality is as hard to characterize as his music. He's one part intellectual (he studied physics, then switched majors to studio art), one part spiritual (he hangs with Radical Fairies, practices yoga, participates in a monthly full-moon chant and is 95 percent vegan) and two parts political (he disses Condi Rice and post-Sept. 11 politics on his new album).

He's interested in gender roles (he has a huge crush on the gender-bending boys and girls of the local gay guerrilla theater group known as Sissyboy), while he also identifies with queers who dismiss labels. "I'm trying to write about my response to the world, and it's not limited by my sexuality," Waller says. "To call me a gay singer-songwriter is a gross abstraction and links my sexuality to my life's work."

"But doesn't everyone do that?" I ask.

"I'm a flaming liberal when it comes to my politics," Waller says. "But I'm very traditional when it comes to my life (and work) habits. If you're really an artist, you're not so much satisfying a pre-created expectation as you are winning the enduring faith of your audience to take them somewhere new."

And as one of his newly faithful listeners like me might attest, Waller's a musician who's worth following. The challenge will be just how far he takes us-queer weddings between two straight girls and beyond.