"Hy...Hy-uh...Hy-per...Me-di-oc-ri-ty."

Thus begin the lyrics to electroclash band Fischerspooner's first single, "Emerge."

I know it's not cool to like Fischerspooner. They're, like, sooooo last year.

Oh, wait. The cutting-edge NYT Style section just did an article on them; I must recalibrate.

They're, like, sooooo two years ago.

Before Wednesday, I had never seen the band perform, but I was already sick of them thanks to near-daily mentions in the Village Voice and overexposure to hipster infestations in Williamsburg that invariably entailed running into someone who would induce small fits of white-hot rage by beginning sentences with "my friend is, like, friends with [Fischerspooner frontman] Casey Spooner, and, like..."

One of the band's PR people invited me to their album release party a little over a month ago, and I went long enough to scrape together a Gawker article that would best be summarized as "annoyingly ironic fashion + Susan Sontag + I need another drink." I wrote nothing about the band, aside from a few observations about Casey's enthusiasm at the party, and nothing at all about the music.

This was probably not what the PR guy was hoping for.

Then again, it's the brave publicist who sends a press release or party invite to Gawker in the first place. Contrary to what an anonymous reader stated last week, gossip columnists don't need PR people to survive. I don't need to hang out with celebrities; I just need to know people that doand in New York, those people aren't difficult to find. Name-dropping is an extreme sport in Manhattan, and you can't walk two blocks without stepping on someone who, like, ohmygod, totally knows Heidi Klum's, like, personal trainer's housekeeper. It's almost funny.

Actually, scratch that. It is funny. Ken Courtney of Just Another Rich Kid recently explained to me that his "I fucked Gisele/Chloe Sevigny/Casey Spooner, etc." shirts were the products of frustration at hearing one too many hipster pals squeal, "Oh my god?! You know my friend Chloe Sevigny?" and thinking "your friend Chloe Sevigny? You mean Chloe Sevigny-who-we-just-met-for-the-first-time-last-week?" Ken said the t-shirts took the name dropping to the next level. "Oh, you know Chloe Sevigny? Well, guess what? I fucked her. And I'm going to put it on a t-shirt'I fucked Chloe Sevigny.'" [Ed. Notedo you, like, know my friend Ken Courtney?]

But I digress.

The admirably persistent (and possibly masochistic) PR guy sent another email along the lines of "you really have to see the band to know what the hell they're about." Fair enough, but why do I care to know what the hell they're about? We're at war! Mysterious diseases are sweeping East Asia! Air France and BA are grounding the Concorde! Good god, man! Why would I possibly care about your silly little band?

Oh, right. Because you're offering me free tickets and as of this morning, I have no plans tomorrow.

I called my friend Stacy and invited her to come with me.

"Fischerspooner?" she said. "Aren't they, like, soooo last year?"

"Free tickets," I replied.

"Okay," she said.

(Alright, that's not true. She agreed to go immediately; she has a friend who's, like, friends with Casey Spooner.)

We arrived at the Hammerstein Ballroom and ran into Pete Rojas, editor of Gawker's sibling blog Gizmodo and admitted hyper-fashionista. Pete could probably distinguish between Comme des Garcon and J-Crew with little more than a literal thread of evidence. I can easily imagine him holding a strand of cotton in front of lamp, and sniffing, "this just screams 'mass market.' J-Crew. Obviously." Pete probably knew about Fischerspooner three years before they formed. Since Fischerspooner wasn't cool anymore, I could only assume he was being intentionally subversive by appearing in public at one of their shows. "See you later," he said, and then disappeared.

Stacy and I headed immediately to the bar, like the borderline alcoholics we I am, and settled into our seats in the mezzanine balcony. DJ Hell the German guy with a lingerie linewas playing an electroclash/'80s set onstage while Stacy and I were playing a rousing game of "spot the kitschy white go-go boots," which quickly morphed into "mock the kitschy white go-go boots," and then into "I need another drink."

Two hours later, we were still sitting in the balcony. "Where's the fucking band?" I moaned.

On cue, the lights dimmed. The stage filled with smoke and blinding backlights revealed several bizarre silhouettes. Warren Fischerone half of the primary duowas hidden, DJ-ing from the wings. The lead, Casey Spooner, was center stage wearing a white wig, heavy makeup and an all-black Dior Homme suit. Two female vocalists dressed in semi-Victorian attire, also wearing white wigs that were most accurately described elsewhere as resembling "exploding sheep," stood nearby as a coterie of scantily-clad female dancers wearing elaborate feathered headdresses gyrated around Casey. (Cirque-de-Soleil meets electrogoth?) They lip-synched the song and performed a dance routine that consisted mostly of Casey striking calculated Madonna-in-"vogue"-era poses and strutting around the stage, emerging melodramatically from clouds of smoke and punctuating the occasional bass note with an androgynously seductive thrust of the hips.

It was unbelievably over-the-top and campy, butand I'm loathe to admit itkind of hot. I felt an inexplicable desire to don heavy black eyeliner and lick something. Or someone.

"Please remove your tongue from my ear," Stacy said.

Ahem.

(Alright, so that didn't really happen. Fortunately for Stacy, I appear to be on a 26-year heterosexual streak.)

They finished the number and Casey walked offstage to change costumes, shaking his head, and exclaiming, "I totally fucked that up!" followed by impatient little drama-queen sighs into the microphone.

Upon resuming his position center stage, he said, "When you have very limited talent...you have to use other things...Like, um, costumes...And makeup."

Someone shouted from the audience. "Oh, shut up!" Casey said, unsuccessfully suppressing a smile. "Haven't you heard? We're soooo last year!"

Stacy was laughing hysterically.

"I think I sort of like them," I said. "And I sort of hate myself for it."

She nodded, gasping for breath.

"We're fucking up entertainment," said Casey.

A couple of songs and costume changes later, Casey appeared in a black-and-white striped suit lined with long red-orange strips of fabric that flowed from various open seams. He stood in front of a wind-and-smoke machine in disco aviator sunglasses and lipsynched another song while clawing at the fake torrent of wind. The music stopped; the wind stopped; and Casey deadpanned, "That was about nature."

He paused. "And clowns."

In between costume changes (sometimes onstage, sometimes revealing Casey's silver sequined briefs, which in a subsequent number make a solo appearance as he sheds a white tux to finish a dance), there were periodic episodes of yelling at the audience. During a slower number, a few people whipped out lighters like it was a 1989 Bon Jovi concert. Casey interrupted the song. "Is that the best you can do with the fucking lighters?!" he berated the crowd. "Come on! Pretend it's a really big concert!" More snickers.

They had already played "Emerge"their most recent single and unofficial band anthem. "Hey, should we play 'Emerge' again?" Casey asked. The audience responded enthusiastically.

"Okay. But only if you fucking sing along!" he yelled, pointing an accusatory finger at the crowd. "If you don't fucking sing the fucking lyrics, I'm walking off this stage!"

The opening bars of "Emerge" filled the ballroom, and the audience half-heartedly recited the lyrics.

"Hy-per...Me-di-oc-ri-ty...You don't...have to...e-merge...from nothing...You don't...have to...tear a-way...You don't..."

The music abruptly stopped and Casey walked off the stage. He reappeared a few seconds later (different costume). "Okay," he said. "We'll do it again. But you better FUCKING sing this time!"

They played "Emerge" again, this time with a completely different dance routine.

An onstage assistant had been scrambling around the stage the whole show pretending to get in the way, to comic effect. "Peanuts!" Casey screamed. The stage lackey stood at attention. "Bring me my coat!"

"Bring meeee my po-li-ti-cal statement!" he said. "Peanuts" produced a trenchcoat made from an enormous American flag. "Yeah," Casey said, snickering as he put it on. "You figure it out."

This image was lost some time after publication.

By the end of the show, Stacy was laughing so hard she was crying, and I was ruefully admitting that I really enjoyed the show. Or the joke. Or maybe just the fact that someone at Capitol Records gave two guys who openly admit they have no musical talent a boatload of money to fabricate rock-stardom, in a somewhat failed but admirable attempt to out-Warhol Warhol.

We went back downstairs and ran into Pete again. "Had you seen them before?" he laughed. "They do exactly the same things every show."

Sounds like that would get old, I thought.

"This is the fourth time I've seen them," he said.

Guess not.

Stacy and I ambled back upstairs for the afterparty. (As it turned out, we, um, did have a friend who was, like, friends with Casey Spooner.)

The man of the minute appeared a few minutes later in a t-shirt, tight pants, and what appeared to be Ugg boots, shaggy blonde hair disheveled, and eyeliner smudged. He had a half-empty bottle of Veuve Clicquot in one hand and somewhat inexplicably, a package of Stayfree maxi-pads in the other.

"Someone gave them to me," he explained.

"I, uh, really liked your show," I said, with exceedingly painful and twitchy sincerity.

"Thanks!" he grinned. "Would you like a Stayfree?"

Fischerspooner: total bullshit; soooo last year... but you really do have to see them.