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	Diamanda Galas' musical mystery: witch or genius? By MELISSA FYFE SYDNEY Saturday 20 January 2001 If Buffy the Vampire Slayer stumbled across Diamanda Galas on her nightly ghoul patrol, she would be quick to spike the singer with a wooden stake. Buffy would be mistaken, of course, because the admired musician is not a bad person. It is just that she looks and sounds so otherworldly. Galas, 45, is not your ordinary kind of diva. The Greek-American has been called a blasphemer and a witch; she looks like Morticia Adams and her four-octave voice is capable of a gigantic, sometimes blood-curdling, sound. For some - like her gothic followers in black boots and lace who climbed the steps of the Sydney Opera House this week for her two sell-out shows - Galas is a hero. For others, like the small group that shuffled out after a few songs, it was all a bit too much. Perhaps that is because Galas does not sing about pretty things (one of her Sydney shows was about the Armenian and Anatolian Greek genocides of 1915 and 1922). Tonight, she performs her "greatest hits" show, La Serpenta Canta, at the Victorian Arts Centre Concert hall, as one of more than 100 artists taking part in the gay and lesbian Midsumma Festival that started last Saturday and ends on February 13. Galas is most famous for her Plague Mass, about the HIV epidemic. Her brother, a victim of the disease, died in her arms. Her knuckles are now tattooed with "We are all HIV+". Galas, who once hung out with drag queens before deciding she was a better musician, has discovered that even those close to her can be uncomfortable with her material. On her last Australian tour in 1988, she sacked every member of her crew for lack of support. "I fire lots of people," she said. "And you know what? After a while I got used to it." Although Galas has achieved some mainstream fame - Oliver Stone, for instance, put her version of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' I Put a Spell on You on his Natural Born Killers sound track - you'll never hear her songs in the top 40. And she doesn't care. "In America ... they will starve you for not writing love songs ... My music is completely unmarketable. But as I'm interested more in immortality than mortality, I don't give a f---." She also performs in Adelaide on January 23 and Perth on January 27.

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la serpenta canta reviews

Diamanda Galas' musical mystery: witch or genius?

By MELISSA FYFE
SYDNEY
Saturday 20 January 2001

If Buffy the Vampire Slayer stumbled across Diamanda Galas on her nightly ghoul patrol, she would be quick to spike the singer with a wooden stake.

Buffy would be mistaken, of course, because the admired musician is not a bad person. It is just that she looks and sounds so otherworldly.

Galas, 45, is not your ordinary kind of diva. The Greek-American has been called a blasphemer and a witch; she looks like Morticia Adams and her four-octave voice is capable of a gigantic, sometimes blood-curdling, sound.

For some - like her gothic followers in black boots and lace who climbed the steps of the Sydney Opera House this week for her two sell-out shows - Galas is a hero. For others, like the small group that shuffled out after a few songs, it was all a bit too much.

Perhaps that is because Galas does not sing about pretty things (one of her Sydney shows was about the Armenian and Anatolian Greek genocides of 1915 and 1922).

Tonight, she performs her "greatest hits" show, La Serpenta Canta, at the Victorian Arts Centre Concert hall, as one of more than 100 artists taking part in the gay and lesbian Midsumma Festival that started last Saturday and ends on February 13.

Galas is most famous for her Plague Mass, about the HIV epidemic. Her brother, a victim of the disease, died in her arms. Her knuckles are now tattooed with "We are all HIV+".

Galas, who once hung out with drag queens before deciding she was a better musician, has discovered that even those close to her can be uncomfortable with her material.

On her last Australian tour in 1988, she sacked every member of her crew for lack of support. "I fire lots of people," she said. "And you know what? After a while I got used to it."

Although Galas has achieved some mainstream fame - Oliver Stone, for instance, put her version of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' I Put a Spell on You on his Natural Born Killers sound track - you'll never hear her songs in the top 40. And she doesn't care. "In America ... they will starve you for not writing love songs ... My music is completely unmarketable. But as I'm interested more in immortality than mortality, I don't give a f---."

She also performs in Adelaide on January 23 and Perth on January 27.