Clint Asay (guitar, vocals) and Ben Lerman (keyboard, vocals) met in 2001 as waiters at the Time Café. In early 2002, due largely to the acquisition of a friend's 4-track, they decided to set their sense of humor to music. (They wrote a song before going out one night.) About six months later, they played their first show at Sidewalk Café (at Sixth Street and Avenue A). In November, after that show, having named themselves The Isotoners (for no particular reason; it sounded funny and reflected a campy sensibility), they added accordianist James Andralis (their favorite bartender) and drummer Bryce Edwards (who had been guitarist and vocalist of the band Boy Crazy). Edwards is the only "band" musician in the bunch.

Their musical style evolved into what you would rightly call gay cabaret-punk. They play songs about dating foreign men, rebellious teenagers with a penchant for fashion, and having sex while commuting. Their material is novelty songs and parodies, all written by the band, but mostly by Lerman and Asay, with musical input from the rest of the quartet.

Ben Lerman lives the Lower East Side, Clint Asay in Williamsburg, Brooklyn; Andralis in Sunnyside, Queens and Edwards in Kensington, Brooklyn.

Their most popular song so far is "Subway Love," about finding love in mass transit. There is another song about dating foreign waiters, with a chorus that goes: "You are a love refugee/You're in my arms illegally/you fucked up and now I'm having you deported." In a parody of the hobo classic "Big Rock Candy Mountain," they sing: "In the Big Gay Paradise Valley/The men are hot as hell/And everyone gets photographed/By David LaChapelle."

The La MaMa show will be a 45 minute-set by the Isotoners, some special guests, and a couple of very short films by Brendan Toner.