Peach struts on to the stage in a bedazzled, black-and-white-striped dress looking like the most glamourous of inmates or a sexy Hamburgler. The crowd at The Cobalt showers applause upon one of its newest and most admired drag queens.
Music begins, bass rumbling, and she reels off every word to Lil Kim’s “How Many Licks” in perfect lip-sync. I been a lot of places, seen a lot of faces, aw hell, I even fucked with different races. Near the end of the song, Peach does one-armed push-ups in three-inch heels while maintaining the illusion that she is, in fact, Kim’s white doppelganger. The audience hurls five-dollar bills at the stage. Girl is hustlin’.
All in a night’s work for this unlikely queen. Underneath the make-up, Peach Cobblah is Dave Deveau, award-winning playwright and promoter for popular East Van queer parties, Queer Bash and Hustla. Deveau produced a drag show for a year prior to putting on make-up and strapping on fake breasts himself, and first found inspiration to do so in his wallet.
“My business partner and I started doing drag for financial reasons,” he says. “We weren’t making any money but watched queens get tips thrown at them week after week so we thought, ‘Let’s make some fuckin’ tips, girl.’”
Peach Cobblah aka Dave Deveau photographed by Rob Seebacher in Issue 9: TRANSPLANT.