B.DOLAN

n my book, the mark of a truly great CD is whether or not it creates its own world that you can return to each time you play it. Some discs manage it, most don’t. “The Failure”, by B. Dolan, manages it with aplomb, dropping you into a bleak, post-apocalyptic landscape and then leaving you to fend for yourself. Trust me, it’s a journey you’ll want to take over and over again.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Though hip hop is the genre that you’ll almost always find this album labeled as, there’s very little of that on this disc. While Dolan’s Strange Famous boss Sage Francis does show up to lend his formidable skills to the lone battle rap, “Heart Failure”, and label mate Sole shows up on “Young Americans”, the majority of this album can be classified one of two ways: Spoken word and soundscapes. Provided that you’re listening to the album all the way through, they both work.

The spoken word pieces succeed thanks to Dolan’s experience as a slam poet and performance artist; you can feel the palpable energy that goes into each syllable on offer here. Dolan has a Kafka-esque gift of bringing you along one path of thought and then, with one line, one word, one little change in inflection, he instantly alters the feel of the entire piece. Take “Kate”, for instance, which begins as a reflection on a girl and her daughter and, with one shout smack dab in the middle, turns the track into a menacing diatribe fueled by equal parts regret and vitriol.

The soundscapes are a bit spottier. While they propel the concept of the album along, they don’t necessarily work as standalone pieces. To listen to them all is to hear a story, to listen to one is to hear a snippet of conversation. This is the weak point of “The Failure,” that it must be listened to all the way through in order to maintain its power. Otherwise, there are only about six songs that work on their own. That’s not to say that it’s difficult to take this album as one undivided piece of work. At just over 49 minutes, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, and through Dolan’s storytelling, you can trace a clear progression through the story. The concept, that of the last man on earth listening to old poetry tapes with a robotic companion and slowly losing his mind, lends itself well to the heavy, lonely atmosphere that pervades much of this album. This is not a record to play at a party; this was meant for lonely drives late at night.

Even if you don’t have the time or energy to devote to a gloomy meditation on the importance of human interaction, the strongest songs on here are still enjoyable on their own. Apart from the aforementioned “Kate” and “Heart Failure,” there’s the live track “Bombzo For Baghdad”, a not-too-subtle reference to OutKast’s homophonous song, finds Dolan literally clowning his way through an attack on do-nothing war activists. While it works well on an album, it principally serves to make you want to catch Dolan live in order to miss none of his onstage antics. Sure, we can imagine a rotund white slam poet dressed as a clown or Evel Knievel, but how unsettling must it be for the poor anonymous audience member instructed to pull his finger midway through the song? There’s also the masterful “Joan of Arcadia,” a laid-back piece driven by a burbling piano and fairly simple snare beat that weaves together religious and political satire in the best traditions of slam poetry and will leave you breathless by the last couplet. With a line like “I killed a queer for Christ and didn’t even get a thank-you letter” buried in the middle of the song, you better believe that the beginning and ending are even better.

In the end, “The Failure” stands as a fascinating objet d'art, all but unknown and criminally so. Highly recommended for those that enjoy slam poetry and don’t mind investing the time into listening to an entire album. For anyone else, this may not be their cup of tea, but there are a few standout stand-alone tracks that will at least ensure that they won’t see this as time wasted. With Dolan releasing some more standard hip-hop fare on his mix tape “House of Bees Vol. 1” (Available for free on the Strange Famous Records website), this should at the very least raise some interest in his next album. - SPUTNIK MUSIC

n my book, the mark of a truly great CD is whether or not it creates its own world that you can return to each time you play it. Some discs manage it, most don’t. “The Failure”, by B. Dolan, manages it with aplomb, dropping you into a bleak, post-apocalyptic landscape and then leaving you to fend for yourself. Trust me, it’s a journey you’ll want to take over and over again.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Though hip hop is the genre that you’ll almost always find this album labeled as, there’s very little of that on this disc. While Dolan’s Strange Famous boss Sage Francis does show up to lend his formidable skills to the lone battle rap, “Heart Failure”, and label mate Sole shows up on “Young Americans”, the majority of this album can be classified one of two ways: Spoken word and soundscapes. Provided that you’re listening to the album all the way through, they both work.

The spoken word pieces succeed thanks to Dolan’s experience as a slam poet and performance artist; you can feel the palpable energy that goes into each syllable on offer here. Dolan has a Kafka-esque gift of bringing you along one path of thought and then, with one line, one word, one little change in inflection, he instantly alters the feel of the entire piece. Take “Kate”, for instance, which begins as a reflection on a girl and her daughter and, with one shout smack dab in the middle, turns the track into a menacing diatribe fueled by equal parts regret and vitriol.

The soundscapes are a bit spottier. While they propel the concept of the album along, they don’t necessarily work as standalone pieces. To listen to them all is to hear a story, to listen to one is to hear a snippet of conversation. This is the weak point of “The Failure,” that it must be listened to all the way through in order to maintain its power. Otherwise, there are only about six songs that work on their own. That’s not to say that it’s difficult to take this album as one undivided piece of work. At just over 49 minutes, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, and through Dolan’s storytelling, you can trace a clear progression through the story. The concept, that of the last man on earth listening to old poetry tapes with a robotic companion and slowly losing his mind, lends itself well to the heavy, lonely atmosphere that pervades much of this album. This is not a record to play at a party; this was meant for lonely drives late at night.

Even if you don’t have the time or energy to devote to a gloomy meditation on the importance of human interaction, the strongest songs on here are still enjoyable on their own. Apart from the aforementioned “Kate” and “Heart Failure,” there’s the live track “Bombzo For Baghdad”, a not-too-subtle reference to OutKast’s homophonous song, finds Dolan literally clowning his way through an attack on do-nothing war activists. While it works well on an album, it principally serves to make you want to catch Dolan live in order to miss none of his onstage antics. Sure, we can imagine a rotund white slam poet dressed as a clown or Evel Knievel, but how unsettling must it be for the poor anonymous audience member instructed to pull his finger midway through the song? There’s also the masterful “Joan of Arcadia,” a laid-back piece driven by a burbling piano and fairly simple snare beat that weaves together religious and political satire in the best traditions of slam poetry and will leave you breathless by the last couplet. With a line like “I killed a queer for Christ and didn’t even get a thank-you letter” buried in the middle of the song, you better believe that the beginning and ending are even better.

In the end, “The Failure” stands as a fascinating objet d'art, all but unknown and criminally so. Highly recommended for those that enjoy slam poetry and don’t mind investing the time into listening to an entire album. For anyone else, this may not be their cup of tea, but there are a few standout stand-alone tracks that will at least ensure that they won’t see this as time wasted. With Dolan releasing some more standard hip-hop fare on his mix tape “House of Bees Vol. 1” (Available for free on the Strange Famous Records website), this should at the very least raise some interest in his next album. - SPUTNIK MUSIC

At first glance, it wouldn’t be too difficult to cast B. Dolan off as Sage Francis Lite. They’re both Caucasian, portly, heavily-bearded members of the Hip-Hop community; not exactly a stereotype. Sage met Dolan years ago, and has released both of B.’s albums on his Strange Famous Records label. The pair toured together last summer doing Rock the Bells shows, and both could be safely grouped in the world of indie-rap, a subgenre that’s lost much of the presence it had about a decade ago.

But, musically, big differences exist between the two. For one, Sage has never done anything nearly as elementally hip-hop as Fallen House, Sunken City. Here, Dolan abandons the poems (both recorded and live) that laced much of his previous effort, The Failure, in favor of some straight-up rapping, all over Alias’s drum-heavy boom-bap-influenced production. The result is an in-your-face, no-holds-bar album of emotion and activism that would undoubtedly scare the living shit out of your CEO father or investment-banking uncle.

Given the MC’s status as co-founder of consumer awareness website knowmore.org, some verbal activism is to be expected. But unlike the carping and complaining that many of these artists who crown themselves “revolutionary” tend to do, Dolan both explains and elaborates. On “Fifty Ways” he raps about getting taken advantage of by the superpowers that be, illustrates said superpowers on “Earthmovers,” and continues to fear corruption on “The Reptilian Agenda.” There are no mixtape-y rap-just-to-rap type of songs on FHSC; every bar and chorus serves a distinct purpose.

Dolan shifts back and forth between two gears on this album: the huge, intense sound that he employs on songs like “Fifty Ways” and “Economy of Words,” and the softer, more intimate voice he uses on records like “Marvin” and “Body of Work,” the latter of which might be the best song on this album. It’s a poetic, moving piece about a female sex worker that brings you right to the story’s scene, as told by the women herself through the words of the MC. On the song, he ditches the in-your-face type raps utilized earlier and settles comfortably into storyteller mode, calmly and soothingly piecing together a fascinating, yet haunting narrative.

It’s an unfortunate reality, but as Hip-Hop as anyone would like to brand this, it’s too hard-hitting to possibly poke its head through the soil and into the over-ground. Fact is, it’ll be much more appreciated by “underground fans” (those still exist, no?) who get their radio rap fix on Hot 97 – but hate having to do so – than by mainstream fans looking for the next hot thing. Still, it’s clear that B. isn’t concerned, and the material benefits from it. - URB MAGAZINE

At first glance, it wouldn’t be too difficult to cast B. Dolan off as Sage Francis Lite. They’re both Caucasian, portly, heavily-bearded members of the Hip-Hop community; not exactly a stereotype. Sage met Dolan years ago, and has released both of B.’s albums on his Strange Famous Records label. The pair toured together last summer doing Rock the Bells shows, and both could be safely grouped in the world of indie-rap, a subgenre that’s lost much of the presence it had about a decade ago.

But, musically, big differences exist between the two. For one, Sage has never done anything nearly as elementally hip-hop as Fallen House, Sunken City. Here, Dolan abandons the poems (both recorded and live) that laced much of his previous effort, The Failure, in favor of some straight-up rapping, all over Alias’s drum-heavy boom-bap-influenced production. The result is an in-your-face, no-holds-bar album of emotion and activism that would undoubtedly scare the living shit out of your CEO father or investment-banking uncle.

Given the MC’s status as co-founder of consumer awareness website knowmore.org, some verbal activism is to be expected. But unlike the carping and complaining that many of these artists who crown themselves “revolutionary” tend to do, Dolan both explains and elaborates. On “Fifty Ways” he raps about getting taken advantage of by the superpowers that be, illustrates said superpowers on “Earthmovers,” and continues to fear corruption on “The Reptilian Agenda.” There are no mixtape-y rap-just-to-rap type of songs on FHSC; every bar and chorus serves a distinct purpose.

Dolan shifts back and forth between two gears on this album: the huge, intense sound that he employs on songs like “Fifty Ways” and “Economy of Words,” and the softer, more intimate voice he uses on records like “Marvin” and “Body of Work,” the latter of which might be the best song on this album. It’s a poetic, moving piece about a female sex worker that brings you right to the story’s scene, as told by the women herself through the words of the MC. On the song, he ditches the in-your-face type raps utilized earlier and settles comfortably into storyteller mode, calmly and soothingly piecing together a fascinating, yet haunting narrative.

It’s an unfortunate reality, but as Hip-Hop as anyone would like to brand this, it’s too hard-hitting to possibly poke its head through the soil and into the over-ground. Fact is, it’ll be much more appreciated by “underground fans” (those still exist, no?) who get their radio rap fix on Hot 97 – but hate having to do so – than by mainstream fans looking for the next hot thing. Still, it’s clear that B. isn’t concerned, and the material benefits from it. - URB MAGAZINE

By CHRIS FARAONE | February 10, 2011

B. Dolan is like Joaquin Phoenix with no safety net and a whole lot more back hair. Unlike Phoenix in last year's faux meta-mockumentary I'm Not Here, the Providence native doesn't shock people for no good reason. Dolan isn't coming to the Western Front this Friday with a harem of homos and heretics simply to film the crowd's reaction. That's part of the plan, but there's more to the man's method than just madness.

It all started about 10 years ago in the Bronx, where Dolan, like so many rap wanna-bes, moved after high school to find a major-label record deal. Needless to say, that never happened. Like actresses who slum in porn, the burly New Englander soon realized the limitations of his mainstream potential. Before long, he was frequenting underground open-mic nights and poetry slams, whoring out emotions among sad females and aggressive young men.

"I hate the spoken-word scene more than anything else," says this veteran of HBO's Def Poetry and winner of more than a few slams. "There are a lot of parallels between slam poetry and battle rap. They can both be entertaining in some ways, but at least a battle rapper is trying to make you laugh. A slam poet has the same level of desperation as a stand-up comic, but they're trying to get you to get mad about an imaginary girl who they broke up with."

Although not the activist he is now — these days, he manages the anti-advertising website knowmore.org — young Dolan smelled blood in commercial waters. After performing at a Def Jam industry party in a trendy New York gallery and having strange cats with cameras tail him the entire time, he had his indie epiphany at 18. Within months, he dropped out of college, bought a drum machine, and began recording what would become his self-released 2002 debut, The Failure.

"Doing spoken word was the first time I ever tried to present my writing on a stage, and that's what it was good for," says Dolan, who has since evolved into more of a renaissance performer. "It taught me some basic stage tricks that I still use — like how to change my voice and talk to a crowd. But once you've picked up those chops, you need to get the hell out before you become some asshole who wins the poetry slam for the 10th year in a row."

Dolan will never be able to leave his spoken-word background behind altogether. Classics like "An Open Letter to Justin Timberlake" — on which he blasts the Disney ex-brat for "kicking reggae flows on the after-school minstrel show where parents go to pimp their little kids for dough" — are embedded online forever for the whole world to see. But he's not the sort of artist who regrets his past winners. In fact, it was that success that inspired him to become one of the most celebrated failures of all time.

"Performance poetry was very much about rules. There was a three-minute time limit, there was the no-costume rule, and, most importantly, in battle rap and slam poetry, your job is to tickle the crowd's balls and make everybody feel good. I had this yearning to make them mad, or, God forbid, make them uncomfortable. People clap no matter what — it's just a robotic crowd response for when something is over on stage. I wanted to do something that would make everybody silent."

Dolan rolled out Bombzo the Clown right around the time word broke stateside about the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad. The character — something like the grotesque and homicidal Captain Spaulding from The Devil's Rejects with the political sensibility of Rush Limbaugh — emerged at a random party in a Providence art space, dragging a hooded man across the stage and screaming racial epithets. Dolan succeeded — the crowd wanted to hang him.

Bombzo surfaced every few years, sometimes out of nowhere, other times interrupting Providence fringe-rap icon Sage Francis, whose Strange Famous Records signed Dolan in 2007. In Philadelphia, the mad clown's homophobic rant got people hollering, "Go fuck yourself." At the Middle East in Cambridge, Bombzo blasted the venue as a "latte liberal commie faggot fantasia," claiming Boston is an example of "how great a city can be once you've kicked out all of the colored people."

After offending even those who were in on the Bombzo joke, Dolan decided that he'd scratched his itch to stun people into rage and silence, so he moved on. Last year, he dropped Fallen House, Sunken City on Strange Famous, flexing his poetic storytelling skills, but relying on Maine producer/MC Alias for beats that are decidedly hip-hop. At the same time, he continued to produce live spectacles that fans are likely to remember for years.

For his next three shows — one apiece in Pawtucket, Boston, and Portland — Dolan has composed his own "latte liberal commie faggot" fantasy called the Church of Love and Ruin. The politically charged What Cheer? Brigade, the 18-person alt-marching band, will blow horns in all corners of the club. Vockah Redu and the C - BOSTON PHOENIX

By CHRIS FARAONE | February 10, 2011

B. Dolan is like Joaquin Phoenix with no safety net and a whole lot more back hair. Unlike Phoenix in last year's faux meta-mockumentary I'm Not Here, the Providence native doesn't shock people for no good reason. Dolan isn't coming to the Western Front this Friday with a harem of homos and heretics simply to film the crowd's reaction. That's part of the plan, but there's more to the man's method than just madness.

It all started about 10 years ago in the Bronx, where Dolan, like so many rap wanna-bes, moved after high school to find a major-label record deal. Needless to say, that never happened. Like actresses who slum in porn, the burly New Englander soon realized the limitations of his mainstream potential. Before long, he was frequenting underground open-mic nights and poetry slams, whoring out emotions among sad females and aggressive young men.

"I hate the spoken-word scene more than anything else," says this veteran of HBO's Def Poetry and winner of more than a few slams. "There are a lot of parallels between slam poetry and battle rap. They can both be entertaining in some ways, but at least a battle rapper is trying to make you laugh. A slam poet has the same level of desperation as a stand-up comic, but they're trying to get you to get mad about an imaginary girl who they broke up with."

Although not the activist he is now — these days, he manages the anti-advertising website knowmore.org — young Dolan smelled blood in commercial waters. After performing at a Def Jam industry party in a trendy New York gallery and having strange cats with cameras tail him the entire time, he had his indie epiphany at 18. Within months, he dropped out of college, bought a drum machine, and began recording what would become his self-released 2002 debut, The Failure.

"Doing spoken word was the first time I ever tried to present my writing on a stage, and that's what it was good for," says Dolan, who has since evolved into more of a renaissance performer. "It taught me some basic stage tricks that I still use — like how to change my voice and talk to a crowd. But once you've picked up those chops, you need to get the hell out before you become some asshole who wins the poetry slam for the 10th year in a row."

Dolan will never be able to leave his spoken-word background behind altogether. Classics like "An Open Letter to Justin Timberlake" — on which he blasts the Disney ex-brat for "kicking reggae flows on the after-school minstrel show where parents go to pimp their little kids for dough" — are embedded online forever for the whole world to see. But he's not the sort of artist who regrets his past winners. In fact, it was that success that inspired him to become one of the most celebrated failures of all time.

"Performance poetry was very much about rules. There was a three-minute time limit, there was the no-costume rule, and, most importantly, in battle rap and slam poetry, your job is to tickle the crowd's balls and make everybody feel good. I had this yearning to make them mad, or, God forbid, make them uncomfortable. People clap no matter what — it's just a robotic crowd response for when something is over on stage. I wanted to do something that would make everybody silent."

Dolan rolled out Bombzo the Clown right around the time word broke stateside about the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad. The character — something like the grotesque and homicidal Captain Spaulding from The Devil's Rejects with the political sensibility of Rush Limbaugh — emerged at a random party in a Providence art space, dragging a hooded man across the stage and screaming racial epithets. Dolan succeeded — the crowd wanted to hang him.

Bombzo surfaced every few years, sometimes out of nowhere, other times interrupting Providence fringe-rap icon Sage Francis, whose Strange Famous Records signed Dolan in 2007. In Philadelphia, the mad clown's homophobic rant got people hollering, "Go fuck yourself." At the Middle East in Cambridge, Bombzo blasted the venue as a "latte liberal commie faggot fantasia," claiming Boston is an example of "how great a city can be once you've kicked out all of the colored people."

After offending even those who were in on the Bombzo joke, Dolan decided that he'd scratched his itch to stun people into rage and silence, so he moved on. Last year, he dropped Fallen House, Sunken City on Strange Famous, flexing his poetic storytelling skills, but relying on Maine producer/MC Alias for beats that are decidedly hip-hop. At the same time, he continued to produce live spectacles that fans are likely to remember for years.

For his next three shows — one apiece in Pawtucket, Boston, and Portland — Dolan has composed his own "latte liberal commie faggot" fantasy called the Church of Love and Ruin. The politically charged What Cheer? Brigade, the 18-person alt-marching band, will blow horns in all corners of the club. Vockah Redu and the C - BOSTON PHOENIX

For a music fan with broad taste, planning out a weekend’s entertainment can be difficult. But every once in a while, a show comes along that removes any potential indecision by bringing together several genres you’re interested in — and a few you weren’t even aware of — and stacking them together on one bill. Such is the case with the Church of Love and Ruin Tour, which rolls into Boston tonight like an insane traveling circus of vaudeville, burlesque, hip-hop, marching bands, drag, and more.

The tour comes from the mind of Rhode Island’s B. Dolan, the slam poetry-influenced rapper who has released a series of genre-busting records on Strange Famous Records, a label run by like-minded Providence rapper and spoken-word icon Sage Francis. Dolan’s most recent, “Fallen House Sunken City,’’ is a gritty, bomb-throwing mix of paranoid breakbeats from Portland, Maine, producer Alias, and politically charged takedowns.

The progressive lyrical content is a mirror of Dolan’s other role as the cofounder of the knowmore.org, a website dedicated to promoting ethical consumer practices and raising awareness of corporatism run amok. It helps to explain the broad scope of the Love and Ruin tour, which also features Providence 16-piece marching band the What Cheer? Brigade, show hosts Jamie and Sissy DeWolf of the Oakland battle-rap, burlesque, and poetry revue Tourettes Without Regrets, New Orleans standouts DJ BeesKnees, and “sissy bounce’’ act Vockah Redu & the Cru, as well as Boston drag queen Ms. Nicholle Pride.

In other words, it’s not your typical hip-hop show — not that typical hip-hop is part of Dolan’s repertoire anyway.

“My crowd at this point is expecting weirdness,’’ he says. An average show might find him wearing an Evel Knievel costume under his clothes; halfway through the set he tears off the outer later and jumps a tiny bicycle off the stage. He might also perform in character as an aggressive right-wing clown called Bombzo who harangues the audience with offensive political diatribes.

“It’s always been my thing that the people that come to my shows appreciate that it’s not a normal hip-hop show,’’ he says. “I use people’s comfort in that environment as the canvas. ‘You’re at a hip-hop show when suddenly . . .’ ’’

After upping the anything-goes ante for years, he says, eventually you have to bring in a marching band and a drag queen.

The genre mash-up revue within the context of a hip-hop show is an idea Dolan got from seeing a performance of Tourettes Without Regrets while he was touring California in 2008. “Their hosting style is kind of uniquely suited to combining a whole bunch of genres and creating a very chaotic atmosphere where anything can happen and everything can be appreciated. I saw a format that I could take and kind of run with.’’

To help facilitate that chaos, the DeWolfs will work the crowd in between performances, with audience participation playing a crucial role. “They come out beforehand and explain that there will be no detached hipsters at this show,’’ Dolan says. “You’re not going to sit in back with your arms folded and make catty comments. It’s not that kind of show.’’

Instead, the audience might be asked to write down some of their worst romantic or sexual experiences, the best of which will be reenacted onstage by interpretative dancers. “They also play a game called pig-hearts baseball,’’ Dolan says. “Jamie draws a bull’s eye on his [expletive] and the crowd throws pig hearts at the target.’’ He’s particularly excited about a planned game of toilet paper dodgeball to be staged between the two sides of the audience as well.

The tour, which will also hit Providence, Pawtucket, and Portland next week, had its first run in New York City last night, so whether or not any of these disparate elements will actually work together remains to be seen. “It’s just going to start this week, which is interesting and horrifying,’’ Dolan says. “The only place the show has existed is in my mind.’’

A film crew will be following them for the duration for a future DVD. “I think it’s going to work really great. But either way if it’s an enormous success or a colossal failure, at least it will make for good footage.’’

The uniqueness of the line-up is even clearer when you consider the diversity of the performers involved. Even in the world of progressive hip-hop, performance art and traditionally queer artforms can still be something of an aberration.

“I really like that aspect of it,’’ Dolan says. “It’s something I wasn’t totally intentional about, but I definitely didn’t shy away from it either. In my music and in the music of Sage Francis who runs my record label, we’ve always talked about gay rights, and homophobia in hip-hop, but at the same time we are two white hetero men. The fan base is cool with it, but it’s like the next evolution of that challenge to our audience for me to be like ‘You’re cool with me the hetero white guy giving lip service, but are - BOSTON GLOBE

For a music fan with broad taste, planning out a weekend’s entertainment can be difficult. But every once in a while, a show comes along that removes any potential indecision by bringing together several genres you’re interested in — and a few you weren’t even aware of — and stacking them together on one bill. Such is the case with the Church of Love and Ruin Tour, which rolls into Boston tonight like an insane traveling circus of vaudeville, burlesque, hip-hop, marching bands, drag, and more.

The tour comes from the mind of Rhode Island’s B. Dolan, the slam poetry-influenced rapper who has released a series of genre-busting records on Strange Famous Records, a label run by like-minded Providence rapper and spoken-word icon Sage Francis. Dolan’s most recent, “Fallen House Sunken City,’’ is a gritty, bomb-throwing mix of paranoid breakbeats from Portland, Maine, producer Alias, and politically charged takedowns.

The progressive lyrical content is a mirror of Dolan’s other role as the cofounder of the knowmore.org, a website dedicated to promoting ethical consumer practices and raising awareness of corporatism run amok. It helps to explain the broad scope of the Love and Ruin tour, which also features Providence 16-piece marching band the What Cheer? Brigade, show hosts Jamie and Sissy DeWolf of the Oakland battle-rap, burlesque, and poetry revue Tourettes Without Regrets, New Orleans standouts DJ BeesKnees, and “sissy bounce’’ act Vockah Redu & the Cru, as well as Boston drag queen Ms. Nicholle Pride.

In other words, it’s not your typical hip-hop show — not that typical hip-hop is part of Dolan’s repertoire anyway.

“My crowd at this point is expecting weirdness,’’ he says. An average show might find him wearing an Evel Knievel costume under his clothes; halfway through the set he tears off the outer later and jumps a tiny bicycle off the stage. He might also perform in character as an aggressive right-wing clown called Bombzo who harangues the audience with offensive political diatribes.

“It’s always been my thing that the people that come to my shows appreciate that it’s not a normal hip-hop show,’’ he says. “I use people’s comfort in that environment as the canvas. ‘You’re at a hip-hop show when suddenly . . .’ ’’

After upping the anything-goes ante for years, he says, eventually you have to bring in a marching band and a drag queen.

The genre mash-up revue within the context of a hip-hop show is an idea Dolan got from seeing a performance of Tourettes Without Regrets while he was touring California in 2008. “Their hosting style is kind of uniquely suited to combining a whole bunch of genres and creating a very chaotic atmosphere where anything can happen and everything can be appreciated. I saw a format that I could take and kind of run with.’’

To help facilitate that chaos, the DeWolfs will work the crowd in between performances, with audience participation playing a crucial role. “They come out beforehand and explain that there will be no detached hipsters at this show,’’ Dolan says. “You’re not going to sit in back with your arms folded and make catty comments. It’s not that kind of show.’’

Instead, the audience might be asked to write down some of their worst romantic or sexual experiences, the best of which will be reenacted onstage by interpretative dancers. “They also play a game called pig-hearts baseball,’’ Dolan says. “Jamie draws a bull’s eye on his [expletive] and the crowd throws pig hearts at the target.’’ He’s particularly excited about a planned game of toilet paper dodgeball to be staged between the two sides of the audience as well.

The tour, which will also hit Providence, Pawtucket, and Portland next week, had its first run in New York City last night, so whether or not any of these disparate elements will actually work together remains to be seen. “It’s just going to start this week, which is interesting and horrifying,’’ Dolan says. “The only place the show has existed is in my mind.’’

A film crew will be following them for the duration for a future DVD. “I think it’s going to work really great. But either way if it’s an enormous success or a colossal failure, at least it will make for good footage.’’

The uniqueness of the line-up is even clearer when you consider the diversity of the performers involved. Even in the world of progressive hip-hop, performance art and traditionally queer artforms can still be something of an aberration.

“I really like that aspect of it,’’ Dolan says. “It’s something I wasn’t totally intentional about, but I definitely didn’t shy away from it either. In my music and in the music of Sage Francis who runs my record label, we’ve always talked about gay rights, and homophobia in hip-hop, but at the same time we are two white hetero men. The fan base is cool with it, but it’s like the next evolution of that challenge to our audience for me to be like ‘You’re cool with me the hetero white guy giving lip service, but are - BOSTON GLOBE