With the conspiratorial cock of a painted-on eyebrow, a mischievous grin creeping across his face and a megaphone in one hand, the mellifluous Golden Throat strides purposefully onto the stage in front of a magnificent black-and-white art deco set, festooned with potted palms.

Rather than take up a spot behind the microphone at centre stage, however, the white-faced songbird seats himself casually in a parlour chair, takes a sip from a snifter on the table next to him and brushes his long, black, flowing locks for a few moments.

Behind him, meanwhile, a keyboardist sporting a red fez and a bushy moustache, a drummer in (what else?) a crown and a kilt and an upright bass player, decked out in a white tux jacket with tails over black leather pants - a monocle fixed at his eye - play on.

Eventually, Golden Throat rises to his feet, strides up to the mic and begins to sing fondly about a specific portion of his girlfriend's anatomy - or her favourite feline - the song's lyrics leave his precise meaning open to interpretation.

So begins a Fort Langley audience's introduction to the latest incarnation of the Heartaches Razz Band, a vaudeville-esque variety act featuring a cast of zany characters, plenty of innuendo and some rather edgy lyrics which venture boldly into such taboo subjects as necrophilia and masochism.

Before audience members can get too comfortable with their discomfort, however, the tone of the concert changes dramatically as the band launches into a lovely rendition of the 1930s standard Dream a Little Dream.

The performers freely admit they enjoy shocking unsuspecting viewers.
"The show consists of slapping (an audience's) face and patting their heads," explains Doug Fraser, the Langley singer/songwriter who performs the role of Golden Throat.
"It's not mean spirited at all," insists Langley's Ron Davies, who plays bass as Ron Richtofen. On stage, the two are joined by keyboard player Bob Wishinski in the character of Prof. Phineas Harguff, drummer Hugh (Prince) Milligan and, occasionally, by a gorilla hula dancing in a grass skirt.

"You don't confuse it with anything else," says Fraser of the act which has begun reintroducing itself to Lower Mainland audiences after a 25-year hiatus.

A few days having passed since the show at Fort Langley's Chief Sepass Theatre, all traces of Fraser's white make-up and pencilled-in eyebrows have been wiped away, but the wavy lengths of flowing black hair that help characterize Golden Throat are all his.

It is Fraser who comes up with the content of the band's ever-changing show, but "fortunately," says the singer, "we (band members) all breathe the same air when it comes to humour."

As for their audiences, well, say the two men, people either love the act or hate it.
"There's no middle ground," notes Fraser.
"We go out there with an edge. We don't namby pamby it. It's an act that doesn't pull its punches; that doesn't care so much."
"That makes it culty, which is good," adds Davies.

Theirs is a shtick that has been working since the vaudeville era and, for Fraser and the Heartaches Razz Band, since the 1970s.
 

"It's an attempt to create environmental theatre and draw (the audience) into the fantasy," he explains of the show's setting.
"They realize it's not 1938 but that Golden Throat thinks it's still 1938.
They know we're a little bit nuts and they go with it."

Regarding the vaudeville era, says Davies, "There was a magic that doesn't exist right now. The Muppet Show is the last vaudeville act that people remember."

"Setting it in the '30s was a fun thing," says Fraser. "People seem to identify with it, even though they weren't there."
After, quite literally, disbanding in 1979 the Heartaches Razz Band, with Fraser as its sole original member, began beating once again on Feb. 4, at Langley Fine Arts School.

Following that rather risque performance, reports Fraser, an elderly woman approached him, took his hand and told him, "Some of what you did was very wicked . . . and I loved it all."

Another audience member likened the experience to riding a rollercoaster, never knowing what was around the next bend.

And then there was the impromptu fan club which materialized in the front row. It was made up of three young men in white T-shirts, collectively bearing the message "I Love Golden Throat."
No, they weren't relatives or paid employees, insists Fraser. They were just three guys who liked what they saw on the band's website and came out to show their adulation and support.

And the men have worked hard to earn that support, rehearsing five hours a day, five days a week for the past year.
In that time, "we've learned to read each other very well," Fraser says.
That's been a big help when it comes to the unscheduled starts and stops that characterize this off-the-wall act.
And then there are the ever-changing beats that Milligan, the band's newest addition, has had to master in order to hold the act together and keep it tight.

"The band is so much better than it's ever been," exclaims Fraser, listing off an impressive resume of the former Heartaches Razz Band's accomplishments.
"We toured with Blood, Sweat and Tears, and 50 other bands of that calibre," he says proudly.
"No matter who the big name on the bill was, we'd stand in the wings knowing we were going to knock (the audience) out because they were not ready for us."

There was also a run at the Knotts Berry Farm theme park in Southern California, extended tours on the university circuit as well as some dabbling - as all 1930s acts must - in radio.

The complete Heartaches Razz Band's history is well documented on its extensive and hilarious website at www.heartachesrazzband.com.

"We had a very underground act," reflects Fraser of the 1970s version of his band. "But what was under ground then is above ground now," he notes.
"This is above ground and we can push it, because there's nothing else like it."

The Heartaches Razz Band will return to Chief Sepass Theatre to push their act further, no doubt in every sense of the word, on Good Friday, March 25. Doors open at 7 p.m., the show begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 each and will be available at the door.

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