This July a new and very homo-hot version of Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd will dominate the 2005 Munich Opera Festival.

The drama — in which the angelic Billy Budd becomes the sexual focus of a sadistic master-at-arms — stars the very humpy Nathan Gunn (above) in a production that features over 50 all-singing, all-shirtless sailors.

Now the last time we checked, opera torsos looked like the beached Pavarotti washing up on the Bay of Naples. Thank you America and Nautilus machines and 2xist underwear ads for putting on the pressure to create a baritone like Nathan Gunn!

Gunn has made quite a reputation for himself singing in as near-naked a state as the directors can possibly devise. (more…)

“I’m so sick and tired of the shit on the radio…” That’s the opening salvo from the one summer album you’ll want to start saving your lunch money for — now. Esthero’s Wikked Lil’ Grrrls , scheduled for a June 25 release. (more…)

What’s sexier than a thick-armed, fire-headed rocker? Well, this big boy could be shirtless too. But Josh Homme refuses to shed threads for the camera!

After watching him perform last night on Saturday Night Live as the smoldering frontman for Queens of the Stone Age, I spent the day googling and couldn’t come up with even one near-naked image of him half as hot as his face. He looks to me like the lovechild of Eric Stoltz and Elvis Presley. And that’s my kind of man love!

Josh Homme chose the peculiar name Queens of the Stone Age for his band because he felt its gay vibe would repel the dumbest yahoos in the moshpit and attract a better grade of headbanger to his concerts. If the Queens’ rushing guitar riffs don’t dazzle you — relax — Homme’s “big red” presence certainly will — big time.

Even when SNL host Will Ferrell “joined” the band last night, sporting a goofy blond afro and clanging a cowbell, the beefy, 6-foot-5 Homme continued to monopolize the stage with his ace guitar work and fullblown sexual authority. He conveyed both a low-key amiability, as well as the menace of a young tough curling his lip in a sneer. (more…)

With downbeat colors and the lurid Naked City imagery of Depression-era painters like Reginald Marsh, Owen Smith is single-handedly reviving the venacular style of a coarse and brutal America only glimpsed now in the HBO series Carnivale and the shadowy neo-noir film Sin City. His painting “Don’t Ask” (above) is typical of his sweaty, narrative style. Here two male groups are in collision, the grossed-out soldiers clearly overwhelmed by the larger figures of a fleshy gay couple, one of whom looks back with an easy air of desire — but more than that, of challenge. (more…)

Oh, George! At 43, no longer a Boy. The years have not been kind. A failed come-back, a failed Broadway musical, and now we hear he’s "the hottest DJ in New York " (according to a fan site.)

All of which have made Boy George a delightfully nasty fount of venom and gossip.

The favorite target for his usually fair but withering edicts are fellow pop stars, particularly those who have had longer, steadier times in the sun. Elton John, for instance, had to quietly send out mutual friends to tell the Boy to please shut the fuck up after George took him apart in a recent interview. "You’re making a fool of yourself," George was told. "And Elton is offended." (more…)