Deep in the back room of a small bar in Toronto, The Cliks performed for their die-hard fans. Part of the emerging í¢â‚¬Ëœqueer rockí’ genre, those in the group identify as gay and write sexual/romantic/heart-break songs about women. Legend has it that their front man, Lucas Silveira, has already received a double mastectomy and is awaiting a complete female-to-male sex change operation.

Their official website reveals their marketing strategy: they are described as a í¢â‚¬Å“Toronto-based all-girl band with an androgynous imageí¢â‚¬ . Their sound likens to a mainstream pop/rock paradise- Gwen Stefanií’s clear, perfectly pitched trills over the energetic, power-laden instrumentation of Danzig. But one look at the army fatigue-adorning all-female audience suggested that the music of The Cliks was inconsequential to the personal narrative that seems the main draw.

Their history, however, was not openly discussed during the show- and here lies the paradox of the concert. It is a presentation of music, yet the audience is confronted by the persona of the musicians. Music is performance-based, but unlike most theatre it lacks a formal narrative. Consequently, the audience must rely on indirect means í¢â‚¬“ primarily various forms of media and gossip- to understand what is presented onstage. The stories accrued by the audience prior to the show lay a foundation that is built upon by the live performance. The result makes the formation of musical mythology.

Is musical mythology an intentional construction by musicians themselves, or does the audience play the pivotal role in its inception? Nick Roeg and David Cammelí’s movie í¢â‚¬ËœPerformanceí’ suggests that most of the responsibility falls to the artist. They portray two types of í¢â‚¬Ëœperformersí’: a rock-star played by Mick Jagger and a mobster hit-man played by James Fox, each with an inherent dual character. In this raucous, metaphysical film the í¢â‚¬Ëœperformerí’ is literally distinct from the person, created by him by not necessarily controlled by him.

David Bowie, who involved himself in a continual, methodical re-imagining of his public persona, has best exemplified this idea. He created his alter ego Ziggy Stardust, the androgynous alien, to address the duality between artist and performer, and then went on to devise such archetypal personas as the debonair boy-next-door (circa Young Americans) and the severe German (circa the Berlin Trilogy). These characters are beautiful and mysterious; they offer hungry audiences a glimpse into an entire fictional universe. Bowie clearly embraces the mythology that surrounds performance, and has taken great imaginative leaps to actively build his own.

Lucas of the Cliks, however, remains not so easily classifiable as Bowie. His self-identification as a male is clearly not part of any performance. And yet lies a gap between his real life and what gets presented at your average Cliks show. Onstage he is a gritty and forceful embodiment of queer culture, answering to the pre-conceptions of the audience (who appear primarily interested in the idea of The Cliks as a queer rock band). Most of those in attendance, however, have never actually spoken to Lucas, but have obtained pieces of information from various sources, filling in blanks along the way, thus constructing the mythology behind the band.

Daniel Johnston (a musician living with bipolar-disorder who has long suffered psychotic episodes) may be the best example of creating an audience completely preoccupied with the mythology behind the musician. There is very little written about him that does not immediately refer to his condition; his erratic and illogical behavior became legendary amongst collaborators and audiences alike, and a defining aspect of his performance. People would attend his shows to get a glimpse of the í¢â‚¬Ëœmad artistí’, a composite of stereotypes and hearsay, but would sometimes leave feeling they had exploited him.

Johnson remains a bit of an anomaly as vague recognition that the mythology of Daniel Johnston was, for him, a real struggle with illness, one not to be fictionalized and fetishized by curious fans. Yet, this undoubtedly happened, and in some ways, Daniel Johnston represents a case of the mythology dwarfing the performer.

This should not necessarily suggest that The Clicks have fallen victim to this degree of entanglement with their narrative, for The Cliks, like most other bands, contribute actively to their own narrative, and have considerable agency for its change. Nonetheless, sitting in their targeted audience, ití’s difficult not to visit the question where their story ends, and where the music begins.