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Angel Of Angst: Ricki Comeaux
by Patrick Shannon, III

Ricki Comeaux is one hell of a good singer and she also writes some damn good songs. She's also the perfect image of a 1990s chic dyke, with the style and off-center svelte of a Calvin Klein model, like Kate Moss-remember her? Moss looked very tall on the runways of the fashion world because she was so thin. Every bone in her body gave her an angularity of grace perhaps found only in a Twyla Tharp ballet. Unlike Ricki Comeaux, the now nearly forgotten Kate Moss had everything but a healthy beauty.

Ms. Ricki Comeaux is all of the best of Kate Moss, but take away the dark, sunken, drug-addicted eyes and make them bright-make them be able to change color from gray-blue, to green, to hazel to a yellow and even to a mysterious darker hue of brown. Keep the thin angular grace of her Kate Moss physique but give it a rosy healthy glow; add a short-cropped head of platinum blonde hair, dark roots peeping out as if to show the world I'm not afraid to be different and change my colors. Give her a face with the bone structure of a classic beauty-the face of a Da Vinci Madonna. Then you've got a Ricki Comeaux, an outspoken twenty eight year old out-of-the-closet Lesbian who looks all of 18; a womyn who exemplifies a classic 1990 chic Lesbian beauty under any circumstance or any spotlight.

The night I met her as she was setting up for a gig at our town's famous Rubyfruit Jungle nightclub. The two barwomyn on duty were Deb, wearing a T-shirt that said "100% Gay", and Charlotte, who was as charming as her co-worker in a different way. Deb was from Alabama and spoke with that soft Alabama musical sound in her accent. Charlotte sounded more like a Vassar graduate. After a chat with Deb and Charlotte, I took up my perch on a stool some distance from the stage. I watched Ms. Comeaux from that distance and took note of her outfit: dark tight trousers, black sleeveless T-shirt, and a very au courant pair of black lace-up boots.

"Deb," I asked, "what kind of boots is Ms. Comeaux wearing?" She walked over to take a sly peek and came back.

"Ah'm not shure," she said, "but they look like femmy dykey biker boots to me." I couldn't beat that image if I tried to, but to be sure, I asked barwomyn Charlotte (who described herself as a native New Orleanian but an Army Brat, so no Deep-South accent to her speech), to give me her description of those boots.

She sneaked over and came back with the comment, "Beats me, but they sure do the job on her, don't they?" And yes, they did look perfect and very hot on Angst Angel Comeaux. Comeaux also had a tattoo of Celtic runes en circling her right bicep which I noticed when we finally sat down together for a few minutes. Now I want to get one for myself. I could use a little dyke chic I'm told-or any kind of chic. But back to The Angel of Angst.

"I'm from Lafayette, Louisiana. I graduated from high school there and I graduated from college here at UNO. I majored in Communications," she said with a natural warmth in her tone of voice. "I'm a singer songwriter," she continued, "and everything we do is original except for about 5 or six numbers. I started messing around writing poetry in college, got into music and started playing open-mic nights around town and then my girlfriend played the guitar about ten years ago. Her name is Lauren Hamlin. She and I were dating and I was doing everything on my own and I'm not really good on the guitar. I mean I can write the music and play it but I need a better guitar player. It had been ten years since Lauren had played but I asked her to get her guitar from New York and she did and we've been singing together ever since."

"What is your favorite instrument?"

"I play the acoustic guitar."

"What are the names of the other band members?"

"I'm the singer songwriter and I play the guitar. Lauren Hamlin, my girlfriend, plays the acoustic guitar and electric on some songs. Only on the slow songs she does heavy picking. Just for the second time only, Melissa Pausina plays keyboard. I just got her and Lauren to do a little bit of back-up vocal, but they're nervous about it. Lydia Domingue is our manager. She gets me gigs, calls the press; she really handles everything from setting up to promoting."

"Who are your favorite singers?"

"Everyone under the sun from Bonnie Raye, to the Cranberries. My old influences are Melissa Etheridge, Simon and Garfunkle, Patti Smith. I listened to Peter, Paul and Mary and Linda Ronstadt from my parents. I listen to everything. I didn't know what I was doing. I just sat in my room and did it. My parents were not encouraging at all. My mother kind of supports me, but my father is against everything I'm doing. I have a sister who's very corporate but she's backed me from the beginning. Jennifer is two years older and she's my biggest backer. I'm much more interested in the slow, sad songs. I'm an angst writer. I found it was very hard to get local New Orleans people to listen to that so I've written a few fast songs for cover. I have a 5 song CD out but we're about to do another CD and I'm going to add the slow angst stuff to that. People seem to really like them. I did a gig with Michael Chase and I've always been out of the closet since I realized I was Gay when I was 18. Every one accepts my being Lesbian, even my dad. I went for the dream. After I got the degree I went to my father and said, 'I'm ready to do my own thing now and I'm doing it.'"

"What would you like to say to the Lesbian and Gay community?"

"That you shouldn't be ashamed of who you are. All the forces were against me [coming from] the smallest town in the world. And I have never had anyone look down at me because of what I do because I just don't come out and say it. After they know me then they might salvage it (my Lesbianism) and they're like Oh, you're normal. Wow. You're made of the same skin I am. I've had only positive, really because I believe that if the world could understand that we're just like everyone else. I've had such welcome. I've never hid it, not once, and I've been open since I'm 18 and I've only had good things, only good things happen to me."

"Do you think this may be because of the older generation that came before you and fought for so many years for some kind of acceptance, or tolerance?"

"I'm sure. I'm sure that I do owe them a debt. God, forbid-in the 50s! I mean it could be better of course, but I'm glad to be different. I mean, it's wonderful to be brave and proud and to know more than these people. At least we're not ignorant. We're blessed. We're really blessed."

Want to know more or hear this great potential talent before she becomes too big and expensive? Call her manager, Lydia Domingue, at 318.981.5845 or via pager at 318.295.2092; in New Orleans, 504.945.2477.

Catch a rising star. All Ms. Comeaux needs is luck. She's got everything else. Move over, k. d. lang.

Put Ms. Comeaux under a spotlight and give her a guitar. And let her sing her own songs. She'll break your heart one moment and make you cheer the next as she sings out for the Gay cause which is, in truth, the human cause. Songs about lost loves and lovers lost. One song especially moving is about a young womyn who died from AIDS. Another just tells the world "F**k You!". Another mourns for a lost innocence. She reminds me of a 1990 Janis Ian with the realized angst of the X Generation or perhaps the Decade of the L. Generation. Ms. Comeaux is all here and now and has the musical talent to make both her hereness and her nowness work-work your mind, work your heart, work your body. Go hear our own Goddess of Angst.

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