Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 10, 1993 TAG: 9404070001
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Frank, the lead singer/lyricist/guitarist of the harmony-rich group that's so often compared to the Indigo Girls, may be vocal kin to the McGarrigle sisters or even the Everly Brothers.
But when it comes to stage presence, her demeanor is heavy-metal drummer to the core. She strums hard. She jumps up and down. Her hair is a dreadlockish mess, and she rarely appears on stage without her requisite jeans - holey from mid-thigh to mid-calf.
And yet her songs are chillingly honest, sometimes painfully frank. She and her sister, Cindy, sing political songs about gay rights. Songs not only about lifting the gay ban in the military but of banning the military itself.
"Sink the Censorship," for example, openly addresses Jesse Helms and his efforts to close the door on imagination and creativity.
"Box of Tissues" is about a person who stays with a cheating lover: Anybody with a heart/would have been alone/but you brought her/And anybody with a brain/would've left you then/but I stayed.
The contrast between the two sisters is equally interesting. Sonia is openly gay. Cindy, the harmonizer, is openly straight.
And their stage personnas are just as different, with Cindy being the quiet type who stands solemnly and sings while her sister jumps all over the place.
While they've received rave national-magazine reviews for their CDs "Deep Soul Diver" and "Live at the Bottom Line," Disappear Fear has yet to be signed to a major record label, a situation that smacks of prejudice, Sonia says.
"I think there are heavy contingents of labeling in the music industry," Sonia said recently from her Baltimore home in a telephone interview. "We're not on a major label, and yet we have a following that blows away a lot of alternative acts."
"Live at the Bottom Line," for instance, has sold more than 20,000 records for the sisters' independent label, Disappear.
The sisters have been singing together formally for five and a half years - though Sonia can remember when they used to sing James Taylor songs in the bathtub as kids.
Before Sonia could talk her sister into joining her as a duo, she performed with an all-female thrasher act in Baltimore, called Exhibit A.
"In Exhibit A, I used to cover up the fact that I was gay," she recalls. "But as of the beginning of Disappear Fear, I knew I had to be open about it - even before it became popular to do that.
"I just figured, if they like it, good. If 200,000 people like it, that's even better."
It's not easy baring your heart on a stage in front of hundreds of fans, but Frank believes that the music that really touches people is the music that will endure.
"That's what I try and write," she says. "I have to be truthful. . . we're all basically made out of the same thing. So I try to write music that comes from that place inside so it crosses the different genres."
This past February the sisters added a keyboard player, drummer, bass player and lead guitarist to their act. Although Cindy Frank won't be at the Roanoke show next week - she's taking a break from the road to have a baby - Sonia promises the harmonies will still be strong.
The band will continue forging their own niche, she says, following in the footsteps of Tracy Chapman and the Indigo Girls, for whom they sometimes open.
"With them, it's the songwriting and the talent that appeals - not the glamour," she says. "I mean, don't get me wrong; I love Madonna, too. She has 2,000 people who work for her. She's right up there with Mary Kay. She's basically using an already created system to her own advantage."
Nonetheless, hard, honest songwriting is and will remain the core of Disappear Fear's work. "Our society always offers ways of blurring our vision about our feelings - whether it's smoking pot or getting drunk or playing basketball, whatever.
"The name `Disappear Fear' is about opening up," she adds. "When you disappear fear, what you have left is love, and that's a nice place to live your life from."
Disappear Fear, The Iroquois Club, 9 p.m., Wed., Sept. 15, $6. 982-8979.|
by CNB