Arts & Culture
17 Hippies and Dobert Gnahore
By Blaine Schultz Dobert Gnahore Na Afriki Cumbancha There is a pulsating sense of energy just beneath the surface of Dobert Gnahore’s music. Her fluid vocals are gently propelled by musicians led by acoustic guitarist Colin Laroche de Feline. With roots in Africa’s Ivory Coast, it is no surprise that the English translations for Gnahore’s songs tackle some heavy issues – dipping into gender politics, economics and war. A percolating battery of percussionists and vocalists adds up to some intriguing music with a message in any language. Appearing Sunday 5:30 p.m. Global Union festival at Humboldt Park 17 Hippies Heimlich Hipster Records The title cut of 17 Hippies Heimlich “tells what happens when a strong feeling should be kept a secret, so as to keep that feeling alive and strong; whereas blaring it out would destroy it.” But there is nothing secretive about this tribe. While many kids went techno when the Berlin Wall fell these folks went the other route picking up ukulele, dulcimer, violins, accordion and various horns to form this moveable feast. Alternately rollicking and melancholy, they pick and choose influences from Morocco, Romania, France and Germany. This rag-tag bunch is hard to peg unless Cajun-Balkan-Indian is a new genre. One of the members even dated the Velvet Underground’s Nico. Appearing Saturday 1 p.m. Global Union festival at Humboldt Park
Sep 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
Heavy Trash
In Heavy Trash’s latest adventure (which picks up from their last release in 2005), there’s more riff-burning, pompadour-bobbing and gum-smacking than you can shake a fried chicken leg at. Bringing back the days of curvy cars, pinup ladies and smoking without borders, Jon Spencer (Blues Explosion) and Matt Verta-Ray’s (Pussy Galore) “Heavy Trash” moniker is definitely cheeky. Think Chris Isaak gone bad – pretty, blue-eyed boy soul with a sharp, ugly edge. Heavy Trash’s self-titled debut was a welcome addition to Jon Spencer fanatics’ collections. Going Way Out With Heavy Trash stacks up to their first release and even delves into a more fleshed-out, swinging sound. Rolling into the first track, “Pure Gold” hits like a cyclone in Tornado Alley, Spencer channeling Presley more convincingly than many white-caped King wannabes. Strutting like a rooster through a dusty coop of hens, Spencer lolls into the pretty garage n’soul of “Outside Chance,” then greases it up in “Double Line,” pairing up gritty guitar solos, sticks tapping short, short, short as if on a hot tin roof, along with brass-balls bass lines whose rough and ready tones are reminiscent of the infamous relationship between The Sharks and The Jets in West Side Story. Going Way Out With Heavy Trash is a hot little album, full of swagger and strut. The only truly campy departure is “You Can’t Win,” which thankfully comes at the album’s close, with Spencer drawling about “Pepsi-Cola, Doritos and beans” and being “drunk on pomade.” This doesn’t play nicely with the rest of the album. Still, Heavy Trash has turned out another call to all rebel rousers, one which will satiate those with a hankering for some straight-up rockabilly flavor.
Sep 1st, 2007 by Erin Wolf
Ministry
Al Jourgenson isn’t about to be considered a politically-charged wordsmith on par with Bob Dylan. Still, this hasn’t stopped him from developing an antipathetic and personal relationship with Bush, Cheney and the Holy War on Terror. Starting with 2004’s Houses of the Mole, followed by 2006’s Rio Grande Blood, the Unholy Trinity concludes with The Last Sucker, a venom-drenched and decidedly non-poetic screed against the Decider and his entourage. Anyone who remembers Ministry’s brutal indictment of Bush Sr., Psalm 69’s “N.W.O.,” is as familiar with The Last Sucker’s formula as is needed. Song after song delivers the same jackhammer drum programming and machine-gun riffage that Ministry’s produced for years, delivered with pit-bull vocals and samples of government icons hypnotically chanting sound-bite mantras. Al doesn’t mince words – lyrics like “I got twins and a Stepford wife/I never had to work a day in my life” don’t leave room for interpretation. But where the Ministry of the Bush 41 era sounded fresh in its rage, the Bush 43 edition has gone stale. The repetitive, stock 16-note chug hammers the brain into a numb paste, perhaps so the listener understands how Jourgenson’s head felt after poring through hours and hours of Bush/Cheney sound bites. Maybe then we won’t notice how cliché it is to name a song about the Veep “The Dick Song,” to say nothing about spending six minutes coming up with new ways to say “Dick Cheney/Son of Satan.” The Last Sucker is Ministry’s final recording, allowing Jourgenson to ride off into the sunset along with lame duck Dubya. Judging by the content of this release (including a baffling cover of the Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues” ), it’s possible that, like Bush the Second, his exit is about eight years too late.
Sep 1st, 2007 by DJ Hostettler
Carolyn Mark
Victoria, B.C.’s most acclaimed Party Girl, Terrible Hostess and less lime-lighted half of the Corn Sisters, Carolyn Mark has removed the training wheels of collaboration (her last release was strictly duets) and is again riding solo. Nothing Is Free, whose liner notes devote the disc to “all the Cowboys, Vampires, Pirates, Poets, Scarecrows and Enablers,” is a reflection of the Can-country minx’s adorably kooky “Point o’ View.” In Mark’s universe, hopes are kept “where we can see ‘em,” those without investments can justify spending “thousands of dollars/keeping Friday alive” and aver that “it’s easier to love an idea/than it is a man.” Equally endearing are Mark’s auctioneer vocals on “1 Thing” and “Get Along,” tracks that could easily be caroused to under a state fair beer tent. Not to be pigeonholed to a do-se-do, Mark’s sound flutters from sunny surf rock (“Happy 2B Flying Away” ) to spacey daydream (“Destination: You” ) , pollinated by her husky Natalie Merchant purr and lyrics that pack a Loretta Lynn punch. “Poisoned With Hope” is uncharacteristically bulky and grating, but pardonable given Mark’s unmatched whimsy and otherwise fluid execution. Folksy, nobody’s-fool showstopper “The 1 That Got Away (With It ) ” will most likely earn the attention of femme rags like Venus and Bust, but until she flags down a more mainstream demographic, Mark will continue her notoriety as “the other Corn Sister.” If her liner tribute to the freaks and underdogs is any indication, though, she won’t be shooting off flares any time soon.
Sep 1st, 2007 by Amber Herzog
September 2007
SEPTEMBER 4th Joshua Bell Red Violin Concerto Sony Classical Ted Nugent Love Grenade Eagle Super Furry Animals Hey Venus! Rough Trade SEPTEMBER 11th Black Francis Bluefinger Cooking Vinyl 50 Cent Curtis Interscope The Go! Team Proof of Youth Sub Pop Hot Hot Heat Happiness Ltd. Sire/Warner Monade Monstre Comic Beggars Banquet Orange Escape From L.A. Hellcat/Epitaph Pinback Autumn of the Seraphs Touch and Go Shout Out Louds Our Ill Wills Merge SEPTEMBER 18th Babyface Playlist Mercury bella No One Will Know Mint James Blunt All the Lost Souls Custard/Atlantic The Donnas Bitchin Redeye Kevin Drew Spirit If… Arts & Crafts Dropkick Murphys The Meanest of Times Born & Bred/Warner Gloria Estefan 90 Millas Burgundy/SonyBMG Mark Knopfler Kill to Get Crimson Warner Ben Lee Ripe New West Barry Manilow The Greatest Songs of the Seventies Arista Ministry The Last Sucker 13th Planet Recordings/Megaforce Thurston Moore Trees Outside the Academy Ecstatic Peace Mya Liberation Motown New Found Glory From the Screen to your Stereo Part 2 Drive-Thru SEPTEMBER 25th Athlete Beyond the Neighborhood Astralwerks Devandra Banhart Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon XL Recordings Jim Brickman Homecoming Savoy Jazz Steve Earle Washington Square Serenade New West Melissa Etheridge The Awakening Island Foo Fighters Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace Roswell/RCA Brian Setzer Orchestra Wolfgang’s Big Night Out Surfdog Freezepop Future Future Future Perfect Rykodisc Herbie Hancock River: The Joni Letters Verve Deborah Harry Necessary Evil Eleven Seven Music PJ Harvey White Chalk International-Island Iron and Wine The Shepherd’s Dog Sub Pop Ja Rule The Mirror The Inc. Chaka Khan Funk This Sony BMG Matt Pond PA Last Light Altitude Nellie McKay Obligatory Villagers Hungry Mouse Meshell Ndegeocello The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams Decca Queen Latifah Trav’lin’ Light Verve Shocking Pinks Shocking Pinks Astralwerks Small Sins Mood Swings Astralwerks Stars In Our Bedroom After the War Arts & Crafts
Sep 1st, 2007 by Erin Wolf
Raise the Curtain!
The performing arts season bursts open with a half-dozen theatre groups launching productions this month. The Milwaukee Rep opens no less than three shows, including its centerpiece – Lee Ernst as Cyrano De Bergerac. The Rep’s cabaret opens its season with this year’s Roger Beane show Life Could Be A Dream. In more edgy local theatre, Wisconsin Lutheran College presents a couple of compelling one-acts, including Tickless Time, about the nature of time, and The Illuminati In Drama Liber, an experimental piece that explores the nature of linearity. Further out, Madison’s Mercury Players Theatre presents a comic musical production of Reefer Madness. Also in Madison, The Madison Rep opens its season with Death of A Salesman. Death sings a bit closer to home with The Skylight Opera Theatre’s production of The Midnight Angel. Local stages animate with intense drama as Dramatists Theatre and Milwaukee Shakespeare launch Orpheus Descending and 2 Henry IV respectively, both productions of some pretty heavy work by two of the greatest playwrights in history.
Sep 1st, 2007 by Russ Bickerstaff
“Keep guard over your EYES AND EARS as the inlets of your heart …” — Anne Bronte
The percussion of two eyelids meeting during a blink is not audible to the human ear, which consists of fibro-elastic cartilage covered with skin and fine hairs. In contrast to the eyes, the ears are always working. Visual reality is limited to a single, blinking field of vision and sight requires the tireless work of the ears to give it direction. Thus sight is aided by the ears, but rarely are the two given equal attention onstage. The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra will address the disparity between sight and hearing this season by presenting two concerts featuring music written specifically for the eyes. In April, the MSO performs the score to Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights as the film is projected overhead at The Marcus Center. Earlier on, the MSO will perform a special Halloween concert featuring scores written for Alfred Hitchcock films. Hitchcock worked with such influential film composers as Bernard Hermann, Dimitri Tiomkin and Franz Waxman, so this could be profoundly good. The work of another composer who wrote largely for the eye will be included on a concert at the Wilson Center in September as visually appealing Grammy-nominated vocalist Monica Mancini performs on the 15th. Included will be songs written by her father Henry, who wrote scores for over a hundred films in his lifetime (The Glenn Miller Story, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Pink Panther ). Monica will perform some of her father’s songs (such as “Moon River” and “Dear Heart” ) to clips of the films in which they appeared. In the realm of more contemporary film music, The Waukesha Symphony Orchestra will present Corigliano’s Suite for Violin and Orchestra from his Academy Award-winning score to The Red Violin. The WSO will be joined by American virtuoso Maria Bachman – one of Corigliano’s favorite violinists. In a similar hybrid of film and music, The Skylight Opera closes its season with Nine: The Musical. Written by Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit, this Broadway hit is an oddly skewed adaptation of film legend Frederico Fellini’s autobiographical masterpiece 8½. The musical adaptation of Fellini’s highly surrealistic and self-referential film may seem like something of a curiosity, but the show was a big hit on Broadway. The Skylight has a flair for putting together visually appealing presentations, so it will be interesting to see how they render what should prove to be a very interesting evening of musical theatre.
Sep 1st, 2007 by Russ Bickerstaff
“THE HEART has reasons that reason cannot know.” — Blaise Pascal
Radiance and darkness come from the same place. If the mind is the brightest place in the human body with its constant storm of electrical impulses, perhaps the human body’s darkness exists in the heart – a place of absolutely essential, tireless labor. The heart creates enough pressure in the course of its constant pumping to shoot blood out of the body up to 30 feet. It can continue pumping even after 1/3 of its muscle mass is decayed. In spite of this, what is strong and durable from within is also quite fragile from the outside. It only takes 25 to 75 watts of electricity to stop the heart from beating. Somewhere in every beat lurks the final one, pumping blood to darker veins on the other side of human consciousness. This season promises some particularly dark moments. In May, Windfall Theatre travels into a conspicuously bleak autobiographical musical with William Finn’s A New Brain. Finn chronicled his battle with brain cancer in a musical filled with more heart and true human emotion than most musicals ever aspire. The Skylight Opera launches a completely different take on the dark side of musical theatre with a production of The Midnight Angel at the end of September. It’s the story of a wealthy 18th century woman so bored with life that she throws a lavish, decadent ball, inviting Death itself as a guest of honor. A similarly dark specter descends upon the Waukesha Civic Theatre’s Concert Series this season with Igor Stravinsky’s The Soldiers Tale. It’s a brilliantly dark piece usually performed by seven instruments. Composed in 1918, it’s based on an old Russian folk tale about a deserting soldier who meets and loses his soul to the Devil. In February, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre presents its stage adaptation of the dense, gritty work of Russian darkness that is Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. The heavily intricate story of the brutal axe murder of two women will be played out sparingly. It will take a particularly deft scalpel to bring the extensive complexity of the original novel to the stage with three actors in a 90-minute show, but with the unique talents of Drew Brhel, Leah Dutchin and Mic Matarrese under the direction of Patrick Holland, Milwaukee Chamber’s Crime and Punishment could be one of the better shows on local stages this season. Under an even deeper pall of surreal darkness, The Milwaukee Rep presents Samuel Beckett’s vision of The End next March. Mark Corkins stars in Endgame as Hamm, who sees the final curtain falling and a new one rising. Another classic tale of dystopia makes its way to Wisconsin Lutheran College’s Theatre Department with George Orwell’s 1984. The title may be out of date, but the concept of a world watched over by the all-seeing Big Brother is a very interesting choice for WLC. Earlier in the season, WLC also presents a pair of one-acts about the darker aspects of time, including playwright Susan Glaspell’s intriguing short drama Tickless Time. Written […]
Sep 1st, 2007 by Russ Bickerstaff
“The LEGS are the wheels of creativity” — Albert Einstein
In tribute to their strength and versatility, legs are used metaphorically in a variety of different cultures all over the world to indicate strength or mobility. Consisting of thousands of flexible muscle fibers grouped into numerous muscles, the legs are capable of impressive range of motion and are used for a wide array of different movements from walking to running to jumping to dancing. In any given performing arts season, local dance groups celebrate dances from cultures all over the world. In September, Madison’s Kanopy Dance Company hosts Riad Middle Eastern Dance Company to blend disparate movements from two sides of the world. From further south, Ko-Thi performs its annual African-styled harvest show at Alverno. The bite of December’s cold blows in the Russian heat of not one, but THREE productions of Tchaikovski’s The Nutcracker. The month opens up with The Minnesota Ballet at the Schauer Center. The next day, the Moscow Ballet comes to the Riverside Theatre while later on in the month The Milwaukee Ballet brings Michael Pink’s vision to the Marcus Center. Things continue to heat up in January as the fleet-footed and colorful Ballet Folklorico Mexico comes to the Waukesha Civic Theatre. In March, legends from Russia mix with puppets and contemporary choreography as Kanopy Dance presents Dark Nights: Baba Yaga and Other Dreams – a collaboration with mask and puppet artist Heidi Cooper. The range of motion broadens even further in February as Alverno Presents the return of David Nieman’s Advanced Beginner Group in a show featuring dance inspired by the rules and tactics of sports. In April, Alverno Presents also welcomes the work of highly accomplished choreographer Karole Armitage and her Armitage Gone! Dance Company. Also in April, Danceworks presents a fusion of dance and new musical compositions as it collaborates with fresh art music gurus Present Music in what should be an extremely refreshing evening of dance and music. Milwaukee Ballet also has a few premiers coming up, including its annual trip to the Pabst Theatre for a concert featuring new work and the season-closing La Bayadere, featuring new work by Artistic Director Michael Pink.
Sep 1st, 2007 by Russ Bickerstaff
Rufus Wainwright at the Pabst – August 26, 2007
It’s always a little surprising that rock bands look and sound as good as they do at the Pabst, a gilded German theater full of red velvet, Italian marble, and busts of famous Austro-Hungarians (Beethoven, Wagner). But it never fails – dirty, dance-y, pounding shows are exalted by the baroquerie of the opera hall, not diminished by it. What a venue like the Pabst does for a performer like Rufus Wainwright, though, is something else entirely, something remarkable. For nearly ten years, the troubador has been crafting exquisite chamber-pop informed by opera, cabaret, lyricism, late-Victioriana, early modernism – melding every manner of anachronistic influence into something metropolitan, contemporary and very intelligent. We had gallery seats – eye-to-eye with the 2-ton Austrian crystal chandelier – but there is intimacy, maybe even privacy, in the vertigo of the second balcony. From way up high, with glasses of wine (actually, I had a glass of wine; my date had a PBR), we enjoyed the sonorous, humble sounds of opening act A Fine Frenzy, a pleasant piano/drum/synth trio that did not in any way overstay their opening act welcome. Not so for The Magic Numbers, a jumpy, bass-heavy band from England that started out fun and stayed on to the point of anxious tedium. Rufus took the stage elegantly late, attired in a patchwork suit, backed by a full band (including three horn players) dressed in stripes. The concert opened with the title track from his new album, Release the Stars; at each chorus, the disco ball over the stage – a grand foil to the crystal chandelier – showered us with hundreds of points of light. He is every inch a star, and probably always has been. His demeanor is classical, his presence hypnotizing. He played brassy, jangly songs with his acoustic guitar and wrought, rich songs on the grand piano: one from his new album, “Going to a Town,” aches with a weary refrain: “I’m so tired of you, America”. The concert was being taped, so some of the songs – notably “Art Teacher,” another sad little aria about a schoolgirl who falls in love on a field trip to a museum – had to be performed twice, which was no cause for complaint. It was almost like a salon, a parlor soiree – another welcome effect of the Pabst’s relative smallness – and Mr. Wainwright was the charming host, endearing us to him with fluttery banter and an uncanny command of the mood, from goofy (performing “Between My Legs” perched atop his boyfriend’s shoulders with a handful of giggly front-row fans dancing around him) to gorgeous (channeling Judy Garland in a lone spotlight) and exuding a certain tenderness for the audience (wearing liederhosen after his first set — this is, after all, German Athens). I felt like an honored guest, even up in the nosebleed seats. I left before the end of the concert, more than two hours into his performance. It was getting late, the dim lights were making me […]
Aug 31st, 2007 by Vital Archives
Moonlight and Magnolias
Milwaukee Chamber Theatre Watch the closing credits of any film and you’ll see a long list of people who lived, breathed and sweated a massive creative project for days, weeks, months or more. Every name on that list has a story behind it that might be just as interesting as the story the film tells. Milwaukee Chamber Theatre opens its 2007-2008 season with Ron Hutchinson’s Moonlight and Magnolias, a comedic tribute to the hard work and dedication of three men striving to finish the final script of what would become the single most commercially successful film of all time – Gone With The Wind. Actor, musician and high school teacher Tom Klubertanz stars as legendary film producer David O. Selznick. Selznick finds himself in the unenviable position of lacking a director on one of the most expensive films in history – a film eagerly anticipated by a legion of fans who have read the book and expect something good. Selznick pulls acclaimed director Victor Fleming (Dan Mooney) off his current project (The Wizard of Oz) to pick up where exiting director George Cukor left off. With a new director in place, Selznick decides to start over with a new script. Bringing in screenwriter Ben Hecht (Michael Herold), Selznick locks himself, Hecht and Fleming in his office to bang out a completely new script in five days. Selznick is aided by a seemingly endless flow of peanuts and bananas brought into the office by his secretary Miss Poppenghul (Marcella Kearns). Klubertanz doesn’t quite muster the emotional weight onstage to play the mighty film producer convincingly. The gravitas is hardly missed, however, as Klubertanz has a compelling nice-guy stage presence that makes the role work. Michael Herold gives a shrewd, intelligent turn as the last screenwriter to work on Gone With The Wind, performing with a deft comedic perspicacity that unleashes itself from some of the best lines in the script. Dan Mooney summons a great amount of arrogance for his initial appearance onstage as big-name film director Victor Fleming, which gradually erodes throughout play in a hugely entertaining performance. Kearns is perfectly conservative in the role of Selznick’s secretary until just the right moment at the end of the play. More than merely a comedy about the golden age of Hollywood, this is a play about three men working themselves to the brink of death. When everything else fades away, we’re watching three men nearly destroy themselves to build the foundations of what is destined to be an unparalleled success. As the characters’ sense of sanity and decorum start to deteriorate, we see the deeply affecting comedy of three men losing their minds, learning something about the nature of their business in the process. It’s a brilliant opening to what looks like a very promising season with Milwaukee Chamber Theatre. VS Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s production of Moonlight and Magnolias runs now through August 26th at the Broadway Theatre Center’s Cabot Theatre. Tickets can be purchased in advance by calling the box […]
Aug 13th, 2007 by Russ Bickerstaff
Bunny Rabbit In A Box Of Chocolates
As 8 p.m. neared on the night of July 21st, people milled about the Broadway Theatre Center. Casual conversation drifted through the lazy summer evening as show time approached. Alamo Basement had been at it for nearly 24 hours – writing and rehearsing the show that was about to make its debut that night. The Play In A Day concept is deliciously simple – get a group of people together (playwrights, actors, etc… ) and give them 24 hours to develop an entire feature-length play that they will then perform. Alamo Basement did something much like this last year. It was successful enough that they decided to do it again. Not long after the scheduled start time, Alamo Basement co-founder Michael Q. Hanlon and the play’s director Chris Scholke introduced the show. Taking suggestions from the audience, the title Bunny Rabbit In A Box Of Chocolates was chosen. Then the script was auctioned off to the highest bidder. A gentleman in the front row ended up winning the script, paying some $30 for something about which he, like the rest of us, probably knew almost nothing. After these small bits of business, the play began for the 50 or so people in attendance. A comedy set in a hotel in Transylvania, Bunny Rabbit In A Box of Chocolates was exceedingly entertaining. The script had been passed through a series of local DIY playwrights over the course of the 24 hours leading up to the performance. Pink Banana Theatre guru John Manno (Golden Apollo) got the script first. He worked with the actors to get a general feel for what the actors were interested in and went to work. The ensemble played characters they had a hand in developing, which made for an interesting stage dynamic during the actual performance. Alamo Basement co-founder Mike Q. Hanlon (who also served as one of the playwrights) played the hotel concierge, a classic comic straight man with a bit of a feral twist toward the end. The cast of characters parading through the hotel included a pair of honeymooning Wisconsinites with a sexual fetish for the history of warfare, a socialist hotel worker and his wife (a sexy maid with an inexplicable New York accent), a pair of dim-witted traveling thieves, a world-famous scientist and her eager assistant, a deposed Eastern European princess and others. In addition to Hanlon and Manno, playwrights included Peter J. Woods (Made In The Mouth) and Rex Winsome (co-founder of Insurgent Theatre). The script was remarkably coherent for something that four people took turns writing with very little sleep. Light comedies and farces try to capture a certain kind of mindless guilty fun, but something invariably gets lost in endless rehearsals. Impov comedy emulates freshness by giving the illusion of spontaneity, but all too often it’s simply actors forming pre-existing, pre-formulated characters and skits around audience suggestions. With Play In A Day, Alamo Basement seems to have hit on a sense of vitality that’s so glaringly missing in contemporary […]
Aug 1st, 2007 by Russ Bickerstaff
