Search - Mark Weigle :: Soul Sex

Mark Weigle lets it all hang out

Tim Brough | Springfield, PA United States | 07/13/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you are familiar with Mark Weigle's previous CD's, then this two sided effort is going to be a comfort and a shock. When I say two sided, I don't mean in the old traditional side one and side two definition of vinyl albums. I mean in the split personalities of "Soulsex" individual CD's. The discs are each given a sub-title of "Wrestling The Angel" and "Versatile." A more appropriate moniker might have been "ego" and "id," respectively.



The "Wrestling The Angel" half is the Mark Weigle his fans will be most likely to identify first. It's filled with the thoughtful, insightful and folkish songs that Mark has graced us with over the course of his CD's. There is even a wonderful nod to his love of country music, in the begging to be covered "And I Love Horses." You will also find such out-conscious songs as "The Blessing" and "Little Boy," and the stellar "Why Not Fly." These songs speak more to me than any screeching diva or club mix ever will.



There are also a growing number of social issue songs here. "Lazy Mexican" attacks prejudice and "White Scarves On Tuesday" belongs next to Sting's "They Dance Alone," both in topic and musical excellence. But you'll also see a very pointed and angry song that looks into an unpleasant gay culture's mirror with "Tires and Gasoline," the story of Billy Jack Gaither, a man who was brutally murdered by gay bashers in Alabama around the same time Matthew Sheppard was killed in Laramie. Problem was, 39 year old middle aged men aren't quite as saintly as 22 year olds, and Gaither's murder was - when reported at all - usually a sidebar to the canonization of Sheppard. It's one of the many highlights on "Wrestling The Angel."



In fact, if that was the only disc we were talking about here, I'd probably be ready to gush about just how much Mark's music keeps improving, and how much I think his CD's are among the best you'll find. But then, you have that id disc roaring out from under that mild mannered persona. On the first song, a lead guitar snarls a gnarly lead and the first words you hear are "Hey there Mr. Trucker Man, I heard your zipper falling."



Buckle your seat belts, fellas. It's going to be a stormy ride. Focus on The Family is going to mess themselves.



"Versatile" is something that I've never heard before. Instead of high lonesome sensitive man to man paeans to love and eternal devotion, Mark tears the cover off with primal lunges into truck stops, parks after dark and leather bars. And these ain't pretty boys in OUT magazine fashion model adverts. These are mans' songs, odes to blue collar guys with a "Joe Gage face and a Brush Creek belly." (In fact, several of these songs are used as the soundtrack to the Joe Gage produced "110 Degrees In Tucson.") Just like the adult DVD soundtack the songs represent, there's a lot of celebration of the carnal on "Versatile." So if you're spooked by four letter words, slang description of male anatomy and what can be done to stimulate it, well, you might be reading the wrong review.



Mark also indulges in all sorts of musical carrying on here. There's the funky "Nasty Bizness" (with more than a slight nod to Janet Jackson), a "Baby Got Back" parody called "Buddy Got Gut" and one hysterical country satire with the obvious title "Made for Sucking You." It's not all snorts and giggles, though. "Ben's Whips" explores the leather scene without condescension and "Soulsex Disclosure/Essence" gives a thorough and honest assessment of modern - read second-generation AIDS era - relationships in four minutes. You even get the elevation of a band that should be recognized as gay icons as Mark respectably covers Judas Priest's "Desert Plains."



I always wondered when I'd finally hear somebody make an album that was nothing but an unbridled gay male libido, and "Versatile" completely delivers music that literally has its creator indulging in the expression to "rock out with your c--k out." The double whammy of Mark Weigle's "Soulsex" is already one of my favorite CD's of 2005."

SoulSex is all-consuming, high-spirited & FUN, like real sex

Bill Stella | Somerville, NJ USA | 04/28/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"SoulSex's two CD's could each stand alone as good albums. One, "Wrestling The Angel", blends gentle country with soft rock and features Weigle's characteristic laid-back vocal delivery (reminiscent of Gordon Lightfoot). But Weigle stretches out from his formula on a few exceptional tracks: "Tires & Gasoline" remembers the murdered and forgotten Billy Jack Gaither - and takes on the hypocrisy of the Gay icon-marketing machine. Covering Cheryl Wheeler, "Unworthy" elicits smiles of recognition -- everyone I play it for thinks it's about them! -- and the urge to sing along. The most deftly-realized song on SoulSex, the proud, indiscreet, hauntingly subtle, and literally death-defying "Why Not Fly" gives me chills whenever I hear it.



But Mark really shines on the other disc, "Versatile". Unprecedentedly honest, clear and queer, unembarassedly explicit, these often-sensual songs are about his erotic tastes. Sex and desire are out and in-front, raunchy and personal. From hoedowns to rave-ups, from servicing truckers to a daddy-boy resting his head on daddy's belly, each detail combines for a real trip.



"Buddy Got Gut" is seductive, defensive, a riff on "Baby's Got Back", and sketch comedy. Then there's - well, I have to say it: I appreciate "Asshole", another hypocrisy-skewering lyric that takes on nothing less than flipping our bodily shame into pride, up-ending the idiocy of expressing disgust via homophobia right on its ass. "These Lips of Mine" begins: "I learned why the good lord gave me wrists / when he slapped those handcuffs on / And I praised god he gave me teeth / to get your zipper down," sung with just the cutest, most adorable, most perfect excited catch in the throat ever. But on "Desert Plains" Mark pays full-throated, Out loud homage to Rob Halford, Judas Priest's Out heavy metal pioneer, and the antithesis of laid-back.



Mark Weigle has taken quite a journey to get where he is (it's worth the effort for you to listen to his previous releases), and he shares the experience with you, for real. Not cliched Gay, nor outre Gay, nor "So-o-o" Gay, Mark's songs are simply unembarrassed, unapologetically Gay. And, by expressing his personal truth so well, he reaches for the universal human experience and touches it in our hearts."

Vintage Mark Weigle - Plus

J Martin Jellinek | Memphis, TN United States | 12/10/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Soul Sex is another great CD from Mark Weigle. This one is, most appropriately, a double CD set. The two are very different both in musical style and in message. The first CD is more vintage Weigle. The songs are mostly folk-oriented and introspective. My favorite on this first CD is Little Boy, searching for the lost child within. Another very strong cut on this first CD is Soulsex (presented on both CDs), a call for sanity in sexual relations in a post-AIDS world.



The second CD really breaks new ground. This is the first music I have ever heard that really addresses the world of the sexual bottom in explicit, yet compelling terms. Songs like Picnic Tables and Ben's Whip cut to the quick in exposing the mindset of the what it means to be a bottom. This should really be required listening for so many gay men.



Each disc in this set could easily stand alone and be noteworthy recordings. As a set they are outstanding.

"