Dance to them : Donald Cumming wanted a band that reflected his clubland education.

By MARK LEPAGE, Montreal Gazette

You may have thought you had fun growing up. You did not. Donald Cumming, however - his backstory is the one you dreamed New York City would write for you. Grow up in New York’s Tribeca neighbourhood, drop out of high school, run away from home for a clubland education, become the subject of a noted photog, meet your guitarist on a shoot in Mexico, return to New York in a rising young dance-rock band.

The Virgins bring a shamelessly upbeat groove to the stage, an open challenge to the shoegazers, hipsters, brooders, cynics or doomsayers. For Donald Cumming has been to the valley. He has faced the indie-boy fear. He has danced.

“My mom saw me dancing on TV and apparently she called my aunt and was just laughing so hysterically that she couldn’t put sentences together.” His mother was a disco dancer as a youth. “I don’t think she thinks I’m very good at it. But you know, parents just don’t understand.”

Cumming grew up hanging around the clubs Don Hill’s and Life, majoring in ’80s revivalism and the ’90s Puffy scene. Waiting in line with Champagne-rocking hip hoppers, drag queens and cats in fur coats. “After weeks of the doormen dealing with this little kid - I had a baby face, too, because I didn’t go through puberty until I was 17 - who seems to know everybody going in and out, they would just start to let me in.” He would become the subject of photographer Ryan McGinley, capturing young beauty gone wrong. He would meet guitarist Wade Oates on a photo set in Mexico, and slip through strobe-lit Manhattan life to the glittering, referential-yet-now grooves of debut album The Virgins.

They are young - Cumming is 26 - but “I don’t know how indie we are. We’re not necessarily sharing any ideologies or mission statements with indie rock. Not because we don’t like it, but because I don’t even know so much about it (now). I kinda know the Royal Trux/’90s/Sebadoh scene.”

Two years of touring have been “a beautiful way to see the world.” However, band life shares a lifestyle with club life. “I’m still in bars every night. We got a night off in Philadelphia, and we were so close to the city that we just came back for the night to see some friends. Add they were like ‘Hey, let’s go out, let’s party and get drunk.’ We were just like, ‘Dude,’ I work in a bar. I don’t wanna go to another bar unless there’s a mic waiting for me.” There will be.

The Virgins with Anya Marina and Lissy Trullie

9 pm Friday, Gargoyle, 6465 Forsyth Blvd

Free with WU ID, $10 for public

They’ll also play at Vintage Vinyl at 6 pm Friday.

www.myspace.com/thevirginsnyc

Click here for complete show information.