It was a cold January night, the kind that still carried the rare hush of New Orleans’s once-in-a-century snowfall. Inside the warmth of the AllWays Lounge, that chill melted into glittered euphoria. Local artists like Joshua the Bock and Rescalla gathered alongside fans and friends for an occasion that was part birthday bash, part record release, part graphic novel debut—and part world-premiere of a musical. At the heart of it all was Slade Warnken, better known as Sw33t, the frontwoman of New Orleans’s New Romantic synth outfit Drugstore Lipstick.
As burlesque dancers slinked through the 7 p.m. matinee crowd, exchanging twenties for dollar bills with a wink, it was clear: this was more than a show. It was a statement—a bold, glitter-drenched arrival for a band staking its claim on both stage and page.
Singer-auteur Sw33t belted out the initial notes of Bio Girl under a plasticine moon, flanked by her bandmates Romanticgetavvay and Tyler “Jangles Mackenzie” Bellingar. Bimbo Yaga, who prides herself on being the “trans MILF of your dreams” cooed coyly to the audience as dancers gyrated to the rapscallion tunes of Sw33t’s “Bio Girl” incarnation. Foolishly, as this author was lulled into the spectacle, she gushed about her Valentine plans in vain. Sw33t invoked Cupid and all the Valkyries as she belted, “Hopelessly bound for each other…How could we part…Like lovers in the dark…reaching out for your touch…I feel like I knew you another lifetime ago.” Who in the audience couldn’t relate — all of us thinking ourselves so unique and yet so trapped in the same fate of the love dance?
What Sw33t and her cacophony of cohorts have done is not your regular record release. By 2025, we’re all familiar with the rinse and repeat of live performance, merch table, cassette tape and t-shirt. Drugstore Lipstick delivered a Shakespearean musical with a tinge of burlesque and camp, but not in a high enough dose to make it unrelatable. BioGirl is a tale of longing and if you weren’t convinced by Sw33t’s soaring vocals, then the graphic novel illustrated by Leo Grauf will situate you in the universe of Slade Warnken’s yearning and existential burning.
The Allways Lounge is a solid venue but on the night of January 26, Warnken and krewe made it a holy altar where all the broken were blessed — by love, high theatrics of the Oscar Wildean sense and under the Ursula-the-Seawitch spell of one of New Orleans’ most magical maidens, Bimbo Yaga.
Purchase Drugstore Lipstick’s music and comic here. Listen to “Meet Me in the Dark” here.
