Justin Vivian Bond branches out with 'Dendrophile'

Edward Guthmann, Special to The Chronicle
Thursday, April 7, 2011

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/06/DDBE1IOOJ2.DTL

For his first solo LP, New York cabaret artist Justin Vivian Bond chose the title "Dendrophile." It means a person who gets an erotic charge from trees, but in Bond's case it also refers to people "who honor their own nature, instead of trying to be something other than they are."

Nature, adaptation and identity were always loaded issues for an effeminate boy growing up in Hagerstown, Md. Bond, 47, recently clarified that identity - he calls himself transgender, neither male nor female - by changing his name from Justin Bond to Justin Vivian Bond.

Justin Bond unbound

Published 04/07/2011
by David Lamble

http://www.ebar.com/arts/art_article.php?sec=music&article=843

"My ideal listener is someone who's smoked a little pot and is playing dress-up in their room, getting ready to go out." – Justin Bond.

[...]

As I rhapsodize about our little heat wave, Justin cries out, "Don't rub it in. I just hope it lasts until I can get there." Proclaimed "the best cabaret artist of his generation" by New Yorker critic Hilton Als, Bond is doing his second live show in a year at the Castro Theatre (Saturday, April 9 at 8 p.m.), again produced by Marc Huestis, this time a live concert in celebration of his first full-length solo CD, Dendrophile.