Five extremely tall, handsome men stood on stage at New York's Irving Plaza and thrashed out a set of industrial-rock music to waves of acclaim from the crowd.

Lead singer Jay Gordon wore eye makeup and a red sweatshirt; two strands of hair were molded into devil's horns on his head. As he shouted his lyrics, he gazed intently into the eyes of audience members. Guitarist Ryan Shuck rocked back and forth with abandon and blasted through riff after riff, but his spiky blond hair didn't move one inch.

The occasion was local radio station WXRK's annual Lodo Show, produced this year on Feb. 23. Orgy -- with heavy national airplay for their cover of New Order's "Blue Monday" -- were stealing the Show.

"It's definitely getting out of hand," Shuck said of the single's success. "People are freaking out on the streets when we walk by."
By the end of their brief seven-song set, the band members -- all in their 20s -- had thrown two sweaty towels and a guitar pick to the fans, who seemed to outnumber the followers of the show's nominal headliners, glam-punk band D Generation. In fact, Orgy's fans chanted the band's name incessantly -- "Orgy! Orgy! Orgy!" -- during the sets of opening acts Dovetail Joint and Boiler Room.

Orgy's debut album, Candyass, has risen to #59 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. Much of the recording snarls. Its abrasive rock sound displays a kinship with the music of David Bowie, Korn, and Love and Rockets. So it's remarkable that Orgy's route to commercial success is being paved by, of all things, a cover of "Blue Monday" -- a classic '80s dance-rock track.

Since modern rock radio embraced the punked-up version of the New Order song over Orgy's own choice for a single, the spare and moody "Stitches", Shuck said the band has become smothered with attention. And that's just what they prefer, he said.

Southern California-based Orgy is the first act signed to metal-funk band Korn's Elementree Records, a subsidiary of Reprise. Shuck and Korn vocalist Jonathan Davis grew up together in Bakersfield, Calif., and are close friends and former bandmates from pre-Korn days.

Despite their success, Shuck said the band members still sign autographs for anyone who asks, even if their following is becoming massive. Krayge Tyler, Orgy's sound technician, said he believes the gesture shows the band's good nature. "They're not pretending to be nice," Tyler explained. "They really are that nice."

"Blue Monday" now is at #11 on the Billboard modern rock chart. The track, said Shuck, was the result of Orgy's desire to include a new-wave cover on the album as an ode to their pubescent days. The choice, he said, was a spontaneous one, and the track took only two hours to record and mix. "We just kind of translated it," Shuck said. "You can't f--- up a song like that."

Along with the contingent of pierced, tattooed and glammed-out teenagers that comprised most of the band's audience at Irving Plaza, "Blue Monday" is attracting a new radio-friendly following for the band. Daisy Barbaresco, a photographer and New Order fan, attended the concert with her two young daughters, Tracy and Sophia. Orgy's version of the song is what drew her to the event. Barbaresco said the two versions of "Blue Monday" compare favorably. "I like the basic elements of the song, its authenticity," Barbaresco said.

Shuck said he and the others members of Orgy -- Amir Derakh on guitar-synthesizer, Paige Haley on bass and Bobby Hewitt on drums -- are proud of Candyass. They recorded it over several alcohol-soaked weeks early last year in a rented ski chalet in Truckee, Calif., off of Lake Tahoe on the Nevada border, according to Shuck. The guitarist joked that the five musicians "increased our alcohol problem by 10 times" as they completed the work. They are especially proud, they say, of the absence of conventional keyboards from the album and their stage show. The band doesn't use pre-recorded decks of keyboard noise in its live shows, either. Hewitt plays electric drums, but most of Orgy's industrial noise comes from a combination of Shuck's feedback and Derakh's guitar-synthesizer. "We try to push it," Shuck said. "We play completely live. There's no sequencers." Regardless of whatever musical innovations they may stumble upon, a hit song is what brought Orgy to this promotional gig for nearly 1,100 people. Still, Stacey DeLorenzo, who described herself as an avid fan of the group, said she believes the band has enough appeal to escape "one-hit wonder" status. "Their other stuff is a lot different," she said. "That song can be surpassed."