You'll party like it's 1975 when you attend Mutha Chucka's Sex Drags and Rock n Roll, her outrageously fun drag review at the Castro bar Midnight Sun. Mutha Chucka doesn't chuck around: her show is old school drag. Her guest stars play wonderfully over the top drag parodies of famous celebrities, like the seductive Amy Bathhouse, who went on stage in sexy female attire, albeit sporting a full beard.
The show is classic lip-synching combined with raucous sketch comedy. Mutha Chucka, who admits to being of a "certain age," is a popular veteran of Trannyshack and The Monster Show, among others, and has her feet firmly planted in the past.
At one recent performance of Sex, Drag and Rock 'n Roll, she opened with "Queen Bee," a Barbra Streisand number from 1976. Babs fans might recall the song from "A Star is Born" (1976).
Later during that same set, Chucka took to the stage and wowed the audience with "I'm The Greatest Star" from Streisand's mega-hit "Funny Girl." Mutha did the Diana Ross and the Supremes version of the song.
Mutha Chucka (whose real name is Chuck Gutro) is the queen of the stage at her shows, and is often the best known performer. But she's more than generous when she introduces her guests, often joining the audience's applause. The night I attended, the music ran the gamut: from Destiny's Child, to the J. Geils Band, to a hilarious Gilda Radner skit from Gilda's 1980 one-woman show "Live From New York."
"My own performances cross every genre, from the straight-up lip synch to short skits we create and funny skits we copy from TV and the internet," Mutha explained. "The queens have followed. Some are dead serious, some are freakin' gross, some scary and some hilarious!"
Mutha noted the difference in her musical choices, and in those of her younger guest stars.
"I book a cross-section of drag queens, but the reality of shows like mine is that most of the performers are in their 20s and 30s," she said. "They cover all the contemporary performers. They do singers and bands they grew up with and liked. Being under 35 for the most part, they pick people from the last ten to fifteen years."
But Mutha Chucka has a fondness for the classics, what some might call good old-fashioned rock and roll.
"Rock and roll is well over 60 years old now," she said. "I want music from across that spectrum, but I'm not going to limit people to my view of rock and roll."
She pointed out that while Diana Ross and Barbra Streisand weren't generally associated with rock, both have performed music in that genre. Streisand's A Star is Born was a remake of the Judy Garland classic, albeit set in the rock world.
"I've always loved music and those women spoke to me," she said of Streisand, Ross, and other divas such as Carole King, Linda Ronstadt, Patti LaBelle, Gloria Gaynor, Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin and many others. "As a gay kid in the '70s who came of age in 1980 at the onslaught of AIDS, I came with a lot of baggage. Those ladies taught me not to be a victim. I do strong songs and identify with strong women singers."
Mutha said she embraces all kinds of drag queens.
"I love performers who give 110%, who commit to their vision, who are creative in their choices, and who take risks," she said. "If you have that, then quite honestly I don't care what kind of drag queen you are."
"Sex, Drag and Rock n Roll" can be seen the first Saturday of every month at The Midnight Sun; next on April 3. www.muthachucka.com www.midnightsunsf.com