Revelry to Nowhere

A quick summing up:

The Can Kickers. A threepiece backwoods jug band featuring banjo, fiddle, & a maniacal drummer who plays the washboard while pogoing crazily off his kickdrum pedal. The crowd burst into a flaying hoedown during the opening song & never relented until it was over. Even joined in on the sea chanty singalong "What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor?" Occurred to me you can fuse punk energy with ANYTHING & have noteworthy results.

Bread & Roses. Can't find a website for these guys. That's probably intentional. They played with no electricity, just gathered the crowd around them in a circle & roared. They had a distinct dusty 1930's Great Depression leftie Guthrie Steinbeck Wobblies IWW vibe. Filtered through the sensibilities of The Pogues, of course. Instruments of choice included standup bass, fiddle, & Irish whistle. The singer looked a little like Gary Oldman as Lee Harvey Oswald. Very impassioned. I think they even snuck a Johnny Cash tune in there.

Black Cat Burlesque. Deliciously subversive strip teases. One woman serenaded another dressed in male clothes with a seductive torch song. As soon as the clothes were sufficiently removed, she proceeded to strangle her with the microphone cord. Another artist satirized jingoism with American flag pasties, faux cheerleader enthusiasm, lewd gestures, & finally smearing ghoulish makeup on herself. At least I think it was makeup. Could have been hummus for all I know.

La Gata Negra. The finest in masked lady wrestling. The evening's bouts featured Mistress Cheetah vs. La Hornita, The Irish Twins ("I'm gonna cut you!") vs. the Bad Habits (yes, nun wrestlers), & the tag teams El Gecko/Agent Orange vs. Missy America/G.I. Jane Doe. Has to be seen to be believed.

The whole shindig was organized by Black Ocean.

The Illustrations of Mister Reusch

www.misterreusch.com

La Gata Negra

Cinema of Sleep #2

Making their way on creaky bicycles through the gloomy shrouded caligarian streets, our elderly heroes pedal for freedom. The triangular walls of the streets, narrow at the top, wide at the base, feature long dark stripes running lengthwise along them. The city seems to be sleeping & the escapees keep as silent as possible so as to not rouse notice. But just as they reach the gate leading out of this godforsaken city, a bark of authority in French (with subtitles, mind you) orders them to STOP! Closeup of bicycle tire grinding to a sudden halt. Burly guards approach with threatening scowls. There is a brief interrogation which we can't hear but can easily follow the body language, resulting in a fluid swing of a guard's sword. As a whimsical circus waltz kicks in, we see from the point of view of the decapitated head as it arcs gracefully in the air, then back down again towards a squat old housekeeper in an apron, arms poised to catch it. But the head lands back on the torso of its owner because our heroes cannot be disposed of so easily. We see a dazed look on his face, a nick on his wizened forehead as a reminder of the sword. The youngest of our trio of Don Quixotes — the newcomer — speaks out of turn in outrage. Next it is his bewildered head's turn to sail through the air, again to the tune of that evercheery circus waltz. A craggy darkclad figure comes up the street & passes through the gate, perhaps a doctor headed with medicine bag to an urgent call, or a lawyer on his way to trial, or more likely an undertaker on his way to the grave. Our heroes, the guards, & the housekeeper all turn silently to watch him pass. The moviegoers (for this is all a movie) recognise this figure as Bob Dylan, & his tale will follow shortly. A few whispers of reverence are heard throughout the audience. One of the guards turns partially to face us with a furrowed brow. This is Dylan as well, perhaps a younger version, & his expression is to be interpreted as "where have I seen that man before?" & we all understand that, in an error of dreamlogic, the man passing through the gate is supposed to be his mentor in real life & his puzzled expression is an inside joke — two actors stepping outside the story momentarily to recognise each other.

Fun With Your New Head

Coming to a piano factory near you... the Messiah!

Okay, I exaggerate somewhat. In fact it's a sparkling new play by the indefatigably bewildered Sean Michael Welch. Reluctantly based in New York City, land of crumpled yogurt containers, Welch whiles away the hours fighting mail fraud & selling subversive literature to nuns, biding his time until he becomes the next brilliant playwright you've never heard of because you don't leave the house much these days & they don't feature him on Masterpiece Theatre because he's not dead yet. Regardless, he's got a body of quality work behind him more vast than many playwrights twice as dead as him.

Welch's first big success was Earl the Vampire, which won big bucks at ACTF & was subsequently published by Samuel French. Manufacturers of plastic vampire teeth reported record high sales that year. Coincidence? Could very well be. Success number two was Boise, Idaho (the play, not the city) which was published by Francis Ford Coppola's swanky Zoetrope Magazine & has been performed in all sorts of weird countries which I can't spell. To this day the citizens of Boise, land of unbreakable shoelaces, proclaim their adoration of Welch for putting their town on the map. Aside from his achievements in playwrighting & cartography, Welch has also been churning out film scripts & novels at an alarming rate. Recently he's been negotiating to have his quasi-Pythonesque screenplay Well Done, Pear Danube! turned into a film of Pantagruelian proportions. And that's far from all.

His style is eerily similar to Harold Pinter forced at gunpoint to write episodes for Three's Company. In fact, Welch claims he learned everything he knows about comedy from John Ritter. Of course he's also been known to say that about Robespierre & Manfred von Richthofen, so we tend to take such remarks with a slug of salt.

The new play is called The Trojan Whore & we feel you'll agree when you see it. Whore is being staged by the Mill 6 theatre troupe, who also claim moral responsibility for previous performances of Welch's Boise, Try Not To Step on the Naked Man, & The Last Adventure of Lance Adventure in Boston, land of belligerent fire hydrants. It promises to be funnier than anything you can possibly fathom. I recommend you go see it immediately, or risk having your kneecaps bitten off by anthrax-infected raccoons. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Here's the bird's-eye lowdown.

Guerrilla Artwork with Ron English

Mullets Against Hunger

I recently watched the DVD compilation of Live Aid, twenty years after the fact. Hadn't paid attention to it the first time around. (My favorite band as a kid was the Beatles, & since they weren't performing, I wasn't interested.) A few thoughts:

• Quick summary - "Hairspray, eyeshadow, DX7s, & lots of prancing."
• Rik Ocasek has the world's most prominent gullet.
• Who's Nik Kershaw?
• Tom Petty's muttonchops blatantly overstep regulation standards. Was he issued a fine backstage?
• At least we can be thankful John Lennon was mercifully spared the sight & sounds of "Revolution" publicly castrated by Carrot Top.
• What on earth prompted Bowie to go evangelical in the eighties?
• U2 kicked some serious rump in those days. Wow. Hands-down the strongest performance.
• For all his crimes against humanity, Phil Collins is still a pretty rockin' drummer when he shuts up long enough. Remember those early Genesis records?
• Was this Roger Daltry's final musical appearance before hanging up his microphone & going into politics under the pseudonym of John Kerry?
• George Michael is so gay it's painful.
• Duran Duran frontman Simon Le Bon kinda looks like Ewan McGregor. Is it the chin?
• Wasn't anyone heterosexual in the eighties?
• Other than U2, the scant few performers that came off with some degree of dignity include The Pretenders, Elvis Costello, & Judas Priest.
• Peter Gabriel is suspiciously missing.
• Imagine the same concert, only with the principle players recast as REM, The Replacements, Kate Bush, Tom Waits, The Cure, XTC, Husker Du, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, The Pogues, Talking Heads, Cocteau Twins, Stevie Ray Vaughan. There was good music going on somewhere back then. Honest.
• Twenty years ago, Mick Jagger was lookin' pretty old. Man, he's one floppy sockpuppet.
• Mmm... Tina Turner's legs.
• That end bit with Dylan, Richards, & Wood was spectacularly horrible. As in, "Bob, quick, get outta bed, zip up your trousers, & get on stage!" "Whu-?" Kinda charming though.
• "We Are the World" is a dreadful tune. Sorry folks. I hope we're not going to get pummeled with it on its twentieth anniversary.
• Run-DMC was at Live Aid? Everyone watches with blank looks. "What is this stuff these crazy negros are pumping out? They're not even singing."
• "Dancing in the Street"?
• I hope this thing ultimately fed a lot of people. It was a high price in cultural damage to pay.

Man, I hated the eighties.

Ophelia Drowns

The Greatest Show in Hell

Getcher genuine packaged sawdust right here, folks. Ringleader's Revolt by the fabled Beat Circus. One whiff & the damn thing won't come out of your stereo for weeks. It's one big trapeze act of banjo, accordion, trumpet, & tuba mayhem. As an evil ringmaster twirls his mustache in the corner, plotting the demise of your sanity. It's glorious. You can smell the salted popcorn & elephant dung from your living room. And it's not one of those scratch-n-sniff CDs either.

This outfit of crazed windjammers is masterminded by Brian Carpenter in his caulked Belgian hat, who leads them through song titles like "The Contortionist Tango," "Requiem For John Merrick," & "Daredevil Chicken Trapeze." Two-thirds of the Sob Sisters even put in a glamorous appearance, bedecked in peacock feathers (bad luck, y'know). More fun than a rubber ladder. More thrilling than a runaway lion with mange. More tasty than gobstoppers & fried dough.

Grinning clowns prowl the midway with daggers, among the hypnotised ballerinas with lost eyes, psychopathic swordswallowers, roguish roustabouts, angst-ridden acrobats. Somewhere in the depths of Clown Alley a snooping towny gets a pie in the face. And JP Sousa has risen from the grave, seeking revenge. And this is the soundtrack to it all. These maverick carnies were probably cosmically intended to be the backing band for Tom Waits circa Frank's Wild Years, but things didn't pan out. Accidents happen in threes.

Yes indeed. These are the songs I want playing on the gramophone when I take that final boxcar ride into Hell. Hey Rube!

Mah Spoon Is Too Big

Cinema of Sleep #1

On top of a tall building under a windy grey sky, someone is scheduled to jump off the roof at four o'clock. I lurk around the edge pensively, wondering if it's me who is to jump. All those ants below, none of them are concerned on just another workday. I even start crawling over the edge, clinging to the underside of a stony outcrop, feet dangling in space, fascinated by the thought of impact.

Aboard a bus, grainy archival footage of the Rolling Stones playing "Under My Thumb" is shown on an overhead monitor. But something's wrong with the bus - mechanical failure? All very vague. The twerp in charge of the excursion goes up front & turns off the video before the song ends, then announces that the bus will be pulling over soon for repair. And warns us not to use the bathroom. A haughty middleaged woman in jewelry & strategic makeup, clearly used to getting her way, comes back to use the bathroom anyhow, goes past the twerp dismissively. Through the bathroom door we hear her complain, "hey, the water is coming over the sides of the bowl." The twerp snickers. I notice a puddle forming at my feet too, oozing up from beneath the carpet. And the water is a very artificial red. Tainted by some chemical. Maybe this situation is serious after all. I'm still sore about him shutting off the music midsong though.

Sitting in the passenger seat of an old jalopy, staked out overlooking a railroad track on an arid Texas road. I'm trying to explain to the driver why I disliked a particular scene in a movie which went on much too long. The driver shakes his head & defends the scene, saying it's an effective use of climax. "What climax?" I protest, "it takes place at the beginning of the film." The old bloated transvestite beside me sympathizes. She can't hear too well & I find myself talking into her ear, which is gnarled & misshapen, maybe even partially chewed off. "What? I can't hear you," she keeps saying.

Garter Belts & Bathtub Gin

In my continuing saga of fledgling musical journalism, I bring to your attention The Sob Sisters. These three feisty flappers play from a repertoire of jazz standards culled from the Roaring Twenties. I was fortunate to catch them recently at the nefarious Ukulele Noir.

Karen & Renée flank the stage on artful cellos. Haven't quite figured out their musical modus operandi, but I'm under the impression that Renée is mostly responsible for the grunts while Karen takes care of the swoons. Meanwhile, Kitty in the middle bows her singing saw, coaxing out warbles like a ghost on a wire. She's also adept on kazoo & a variety of tiny wooden instruments that go plonk. Karen doubles on ukulele & Renée blows a mean pennywhistle. All of the Sisters take a turn on vocals.

This night they took to the stage with fleurs in hair & pearls around necks, & launched into a mischievous version of "I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover." Karen sang "Paper Moon" in a husky voice full of aplomb. Renée treated us to a devastating rendition of "Am I Blue." Kitty sang a ditty about a magician making her inhibitions disappear. Ukulele maven Craig Robertson tilted his fedora & joined them for "My Blue Heaven," an original called "The Hypnotist," & several others. They capped the evening with a rousing "Mister Sandman."

It was a fabulous show. I spotted F Scott & Zelda at a table in the front tapping their feet along in merriment. Harry Houdini, that sly scoundrel, hovered near the side of the stage behind a potted plant, sneaking glances at Renée's pulse-quickening gams. Near the bar, Clara Bow couldn't help but break into the Charleston during Kitty's swinging kazoo solo. TS Eliot hunched over a table, scribbling a mellifluent ode to Karen on a cocktail napkin. I'm fairly certain that was Lady Brett Ashley I saw lurking near the door with a frumpy look on her face because all the male attention was devoted stagewards instead of on her. The RCA Victor dog even left his post at the victrola to waggle over & give a listen.

So again, that's The Sob Sisters - keeping the romance alive & now appearing at a speakeasy near you.