It’s an exciting time for the Bay Area scenes. There is something of a renaissance, a new age of enlightenment that lends toward a greater sense of mindfulness and a heightened sense of consciousness. While the fight continues in the battles against the billionaires, tech adjacent influencers, dubious nimby politicians, ballot measures funded by the obsolete gentry of late capitalist zealots and so much more, the creative spirit remains undefeated. Through the power of the arts we are able to confront the problems that we contend with as a society. The imperfections that are apart of us can be explored through visceral dives into the things that both build us up and break us down. Every that is good for us and everything that is a detriment can be painted in a portrait, a landscape, a psalm, a poem, a film, a recording or anything that can be a vessel for communication and expression.

Leading us once again into the zeitgeist of the storm is Strange Men, San Francisco’s rising duo of Róisín Isner and Ashley Clayton who present their new hard raging rocker, “Do What the Boys Do”. Complete with a video that was filmed and edited live at the SF’s studio the Complex by the iconic Panda Dulce (aka Kyle Casey Chu) and George S. Rosenthal with the aid of AI frame blending — Róisín & Ashley ferociously observe the waves of self destruction that surrounds us in hand with our own vulnerabilities. Raging against the status quo and the toxic machines of our own making; Strange Men show us a reflection of the weird, wild and out of control worlds we call home. While we are beset in an age that is obsessed with wellness, putting in the work, addictions to therapy and shopping, parasocial posturing and so forth — “Do What the Boys Do” is a dark ride romp into the malaise that consumes our communities and offers a sense of awareness and all its varying causes and effects.

“Do What the Boys Do” accentuates the adverse and inverse of actions, attitudes and maladies of chaos that we find in our lives (and the lives of those we know). Strange Men bring their super succinct style of cool and catchy chops while tackling tales of imbalance and entropy. Beyond the punchy gut zapping electric skronk, sobering aphorisms of breakdowns, ODs and manic debauchery are recounted with a Wayfarer frames kind of smoke spittin’ chic. The ‘Men go for the jugular on constructs of gender roles, a statement that burns with the message that the maladaptive behaviors commonly associated with those that are AMAB can be for everyone of all gender identities, cultures and creeds. The duo delves down deep beneath the surface of performative virtue signaling that exhibits that the darkness from within does not necessarily just lurk exclusively in the hearts of cis male identifying persons. With lyrical allusions to the Corey Hart 80s hit, Strange Men take the audience down to the subterranean dimensions that traverses and thrashes through various shades and gradients of endless nights like a Leonard Cohen punk pentateuch poem of irreversible oblivion.

Panda Dulce and George S. Rosenthal’s visuals transform the Complex into a visceral citadel made all the stranger with the AI enhancements. The video adds a new dizzying component to "Do What the Boys Do" where the audience becomes engulfed into a warped universe that mirrors and mimics the reality that is all too familiar to us. The unhinged energy feels even more immediate, the menacing underbelly of manic behavior and fractured states of mind twist the senses like accidently getting caught in the slam dancing pit when you were expecting a more passive experience. Strange Men once again deliver a representation of the world that we know that continues to spin wildly outside the speed limits of control (even despite our most conscientious and mindful efforts).

Strange Men’s Róisín Isner offered some thoughts on the new single:

“Do What the Boys Do” is about being fucking on one. This song leaked out over a period when I spent my days visiting loved ones in psych wards and intensive care units, and my nights falling over in bars and getting poured into taxis. It explores the tension of trying to stay alive even when you don't want to, and the impulse to run away from yourself even if it destroys you in the process. It's also funny, in a stupid way — deflective humor we encase ourselves in to contain the chaos. Or, more importantly, jokes we share under the fluorescent lights of emergency rooms, because if you don't laugh you'll die.

There's a brand of feminist liberalism that seeks only equality with cis white men — to occupy their same space in society — rather than to uproot and dismantle systems of disadvantage. This strikes me so self-evidently idiotic. Even controlling for other factors, men experience higher rates of substance abuse disorder and suicide (and incarceration and homelessness and cardiac disease and lower life expectancy and homicide and and and). So the logic here is absurd. If all we desire is equivalence with men, then spiraling into crisis must be Girlboss shit. Is that the world where we want to live? Where we do what the boys do: break down.

Also, while I've never been able to put it into writing in a way I find satisfying: "Sunglasses at Night" is both a very stupid joke (we realized we could change the lyrics to say that and then we had to). But it's also a metaphor for engaging in maladaptive behaviors that make your already dark perspective even darker than it already is.

Strange Men’s “Do What the Boys Do” will be available everywhere March 22.

Catch their release show Sunday March 24 at Bottom of the Hill with Skating Polly and Bugsy.