Ashnikko
Aug. 1, 2026
The Agora
Cleveland, Ohio
By Robert McCune
On the other side of the tiny door in the bottom of Ashnikko’s purse is a world of Smoochies and Demidevils, fearlessly feral in their affections and fanaticism for the singer/songwriter/rapper/dancer/model.
It’s a world anyone can visit or inhabit and be, unflinchingly and jovially, the selves they might elsewhere feel pressure to hide, suppress or subdue.
A world where weird is wonderful, freakiness fantastic, and wearing your severed doll limbs on your sleeve, or head, is enthusiastically encouraged.
Ashnikko crawled through that tiny door in the bottom of her purse and emerged on a stage at Cleveland’s The Agora in front of a costumed crowd, who might just profess to in fact be shed of the costumes they wear in the “real world.”
The most outwardly expressive of the fans in the front few rows were awarded with “smoochies,” with an official Smoochie queen crowned on stage and autographed accolades handed out to others. One such fan, with a hat hand-fashioned from foam into the shape of a giant tooth, stood out to the singer as she peeked from backstage, and delivered a postcard of sorts: “That hat is Smoochies!”
At an Ashnikko show, all the world is a stage, and the stage is all the world they need, at least for a few hours on a weekday night. Reality, conformity are unwelcome.
Original is too tame a word to describe the experience of this show, which looks and feels as through the rabbit hole as anything Alice ever wondered about.
Taboo loses all meaning. Erotic becomes emblematic.
Ashnikko and her “Trinket Girls” dancers performed a graphic choreography to explicitly lyrical songs like “Sticky Fingers,” “Chokehold,” “Cherry Python,” “I Want My Boyfriends To Kiss” and “Slumber Party.”
Before full abandonment of all inhibition, Jordan Patterson with an acoustic guitar and a dee-jay serenaded the room with her emotionally raw, distinctive voice.
The Smoochies Tour is now in Europe and heads to Australia next.
Follow Robert McCune on Instagram (@Every_Thing_After_Photo) and listen to the “Every.Thing.After Podcast” on Spotify.
