JOSHUA RAOUL BRODY: Upcoming appearances
Thanks for stopping by. Sorry I don't get around to updating this as often as I should, but if you've got an unquenchable hankering for a dose of Raouliana, you can always e-mail me to find out what's in the immediate future. Or just to say hi.
If you got here via www.jraoul.org, you should be apprised that EXACTLY THE SAME WEBSITE can be found at http://jraoul.home.mindspring.com, and that it's probably a little easier to make bookmarks to pages within the site that way.
updated
at least every six months or so!
last updated, 5/12/08
photo by Terry Lorant
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Thanks to Tara Housman for the make-over suggestions
special thanks to David Fiedler for showing me how to do the intrapage links
grudging thanks to Jennifer Essex for having nothing better to do than check this more frequently than I update it.
Here's the latest updates. Click on the name to take you to a
more detailed description (which may or may not include the updated info):
My solo show (still very much a work-in-progress) -- About a year ago I wrote a first draft of a book (for reasons I can go into in correspondence if you're curious) with the working title The Art Song In Late 20th Century American Pop Music. I'm now trying to turn it into a live performance/lecture-demonstration, with the even more unwieldy working title The History Of Music, Paying Particular Attention To The Years 1966-1970, But Touching On Everything Before And Since, If Briefly. The next installation of my stab at it will be
Sunday, August 10, 4:30 pm, at Bird & Beckett, a lovely independent bookstore in Glen Park.
Talk Show Live -- Kurt Bodden's monthly talk show at the Purple Onion in North Beach. On Monday, May 12, I was one of the interviewees, and Tango No. 9 (see below) was the house band. This historic event is preserved as a podcast at the website, if you're interested.
Tango No. 9 -- take a stroll back to '60s Buenos Aires.
Our third CD is finished! Here Live No Fish is ready for consumption at CD Baby, Streetlight Records on 24th Street, and other fine music outlets.
Tuesday, August 12, 8 pm Climate Gallery
Friday, August 22 11am-2pm San Francisco Airport (go figure)
Friday, August 22 (yes, later that same night) 9 pm (8:30 doors)concert at Red Poppy Art House on Folsom and 23rd. Great little listening room.
Sunday, August
24, 10am or so -- Cotati Accordion
Festival
Wednesday, September 17th, noon-1:30 pm FREE - SF Jazz Festival
Levi's Plaza 1270 Battery, near The Embarcadero downtown SF
Thursday, Sept. 18 (tentative) - SoCha Cafe
Very likely our last gigs of 2008 -- so please be sure to come see us at at least one of these!
Saturday,
September 20 -- the Attic, Santa Cruz. POSTPONED
Sunday,
September 21 -- an afternoon concert (2:00-3:45) at the Chapel of
the Chimes in Oakland POSTPONED
Tango No. 9's concerts generally feature the selections in our repertoire that lend themselves more to listening than dancing, although there's a little of the latter, too. Sometimes we do a milonga (in this context, it means a dance party, featuring tangos, waltzes, and [in another sense of the word] milongas), often preceded by a tango lesson. We're also available for private parties, weddings, bas mitzvahs (you think I'm kidding?) and what-have-you.
Slouching Towards Disneyland -- the latest collaboration between Merle Kessler and me, featuring Merle's alter ego Ian Shoales. The run at the Marsh has come and gone, but we're still looking to book it at other Northern California venues -- maybe you know of one? Here's a couple of one-shot dates coming up:
NEW DATE! Friday,
September 12 -- somewhere in VISALIA
Three For All -- improvised theater. Sept. 5-6 at the Bayfront Theater. (or go to their website).
True Fiction Magazine -- improvised theater
occasional Saturday mornings on KALW-FM's West Coast Live
And watch for news of their annual New Year’s Eve show.
The Whoa Nellies -- mostly queer, mostly pop, entirely fun. Featuring Leigh Crow (formerly Elvis Herselvis), Connie Champagne, Peter Fogel (of Enrique), and other fine musicians. Watch this space (don't go to their website -- it's more hopelessly out of date than this one is). \
BATS Improv -- improvised theater -- many weekends at the Bayfront Theater. Plus special shows including Spontaneous Broadway August 16 (and other musicals).
Theee STUPEDS -- annoying rock band
With Ricky living full-time in London, our get-togethers are few and far between. We do hire ourselves out to host Jam Sessions With Real Live Musicians.
Rezzn -- annoying heavy metal band. Saturday, August 16 at Edinburgh Castle, although without me.
See me yap about a few books I like: http://bluerectangle.com/book_reviews/view_one_reviewer/710
Here's some products that include my
services:
AT LAST! The original cast album to Broke: Based on a True Story is available! Buy it at The Marsh or from the Duck’s Breath site or contact me for further info. Also available: Duck’s Breath’s box set (five audio CDs and a bonus DVD), which I had almost nothing to do with.
Big
Lou's Polka Casserole CD --
great gift idea! and check out her second album, Dogs Playing Polka,
and third, Doctors of Polkaology, both of which I'm also on.
The True Fiction Magazine CD -- great gift idea!
The Whistleaires' Christmas CD -- no longer a great gift
idea! I can't find them anywhere! If you know their whereabouts, drop me a
line! UPDATE: I got an e-mail from Phil Worman! What do you make of that?
The Tango No. 9 CDs -- still great gift ideas, all three
of 'em!
Club Foot Orchestra Plays
Nino Rota -- whaddya know? Another great gift idea! Back in print.
The Asshole Monologues -- o.k. gift idea.
Here's a more-or-less alphabetical index
of links to more detailed descriptions of other things I'm involved in from
time to time:
Around a California Piano -- seven piano players you've never heard of -- well, six you've never heard of, plus me -- in a delightfully eclectic and unpredictable program
An Evening of Song -- a bunch of nice people singing nice songs. Boy, we really should do another one of these sometime.
Ralph Carney -- incredibly strange music
Enjoy -- arty film
Ethel Merman Memorial Choir -- annoying singing group
The Folk-Ups -- very loud acoustic act
Improvpalooza — an annual improv festival held in June and July in Mendocino County produced by Doug Nunn of the Burns and Nunn comedy team and co-founder of Hit and Run Theater. The program is usually the current line-up of Hit and Run for the first weekend, a reunion of Hit and Run alumni for the second, and an all-star line-up drawn from Los Angeles Theatersports (with me on keyboards) on the third.
A Karen Carpenter Christmas -- just what the name suggests
The Marsh -- a breeding ground for new performance
Kitty Ultra Sound -- chanteuse
Mr. Lucky's Cocktail Party -- loungeissimo
My fabulous career as a composer for film, video, and multimedia
Orchestra Nostalgico (The band formerly known as Club Foot Orchestra)/The Nino Rota Project -- take a stroll back to '60s Rome
Overtone Industries' It's A Pretty Good Life -- avant-garde holiday show
Patsy Cline and the Memphis G-Spots
Rezzn -- annoying heavy metal band
Rick & Raoul -- comical musedy
Paul Robinson -- really great guitarist
Sprocket Ensemble -- original music for original animation
Tenderloin Opera Company -- experimental, neighborhood-specific musical theater
And here's the more detailed descriptions
in all their glory, but no particular order, and with almost certainly outdated dates. (For my current
schedule, please rely on the list at the top of this page.):
Tango No. 9(click the name to go to the website)
was formed in 1998 by violinist Catharine Clune to fill the gap in her life caused by Club Foot Orchestra's lapse into dormancy. She figured it would be easier to coordinate the schedules of a quartet than a 10-piece band, and that a tango group would be easier to rehearse in her living room than something with drums. Imagine her surprise when she discovered Astor Piazzolla, the Argentine maverick who combined traditional tango with jazz improvisation and classical composition training (learned from the legendary Nadia Boulanger) to produce an enormous body of material that is not only danceable but a joy to play and listen to. She had no trouble enlisting Odile Lavault (mainstay of the Baguette Quartette) on authentic Argentine bandoneon, avant-garde trombonist Greg Stephens, and me to join her in an exploration of this rich musical vein. A little more than half of our repertoire is by Piazzolla, with more traditional tangos, paso dobles, milongas, and odd novelty numbers filling out the rest.
Tango No. 9's debut CD, All Them Cats in Recoleta, is one of my prouder moments. Check the website for ways to get it. And watch this space for news of our new album, coming soon.
For a while the group looked like it was pursuing the greener pastures of traditional milongas, and they and I parted ways amicably. After experimenting with other pianists and bandoneonists and a couple of years' complete dissolution, I'm back in the fold, along with Isabel Douglass taking over the squeezebox chair.
NOTE: Our milongas are usually preceded by tango lessons (to recorded music), and we tend to lean more toward the traditional tangos in our repertoire. The club and concert gigs lean more toward the more modern stuff, especially Piazzolla (it is definitely possible to dance at these!).
Tonal Chaos(click the name to go to the website)
Six Bay Area performers (BATS's Gerri Lawlor, Kirk Livingston, and David Norfleet; San Francisco Mime Troupe's Amos Glick; True Fiction Magazine's Barbara Scott and Joshua Raoul Brody) take theater improvisational strategies and apply them to singing. The results careen wildly from haunting soundscapes to goofy sound effects to cabaret to Irish drinking songs to gibberish opera and back again, and everything in between and on either side... Tonal Chaos has been experimenting biweekly for the last two or three years, and made its dramatic debut last fall in my half-composed/half-improvised opera Smoke x 7.
BATS Improv(click the name to go to the website)
Local purveyors of Keith Johnstone's Impro, which has about as little to do with the crap you see on "Evening At The Improv" or "Whose Line Is It Anyway" as haute cuisine has to do with fast food chains. It's about characters and narrative, not delivering prepared one-liners more hastily and sloppily than a stand-up comic. Which isn't to say it's not funny.
Some people are put off by the ostensible competition inherent in the Theatersports (BATS used to be an acronym for Bay Area TheaterSports) format. I was, too, at first, but it's just for show; this is one of the more supportive and nurturing environments I've ever seen.
Most Fridays and Saturdays at the Bayfront Theater are Theatersports matches performed by some of the thirty or so "company players" (the more experienced improvisors). I'm often the musical accompanist.
There are some late shows by visiting improv groups (e.g.Kasper Hauser or That Time Of The Month, an all-woman group) and other related projects. Thursdays and Sundays are usually held by the "workshop players", people who have graduated from the Theatersports training. (True Fiction's Barbara Scott and I have been teaching an advanced workshop in song improvisation through Theatersports -- and also outside of it -- for years.) Sometimes the prime-time matches are pre-empted by special shows (see below), such as full-length improvised musicals or shows based on film genres (e.g. film noir), or guests, such as Three For All and True Fiction Magazine. Call the BATS hotline, 47-IMPROV, for the most up-to-the-minute schedule.
Long-forms
In addition to the "potpourri of games" that is featured over much of BATS's calendar, there are from time to time specialty shows that depart from that format, including a full-length improvised Gangster Musical, a Shakespearean-style play, and an evening of improvised fairytales.
Disco Romance Patterned after Saturday Night Fever: a romantic story with disco songs (improvised from the side of the stage by director Gerri Lawlor and hot new singer-songwriter Spencer Day) serving as a kind of Greek chrous commentary.
Spontaneous Broadway is, in a way, a long form in that the entire evening is devoted to a single conceit, but purists might quibble, because the first half is substantially different in structure and style from the second (which is, essentially, a play-within-a-play). (True Fiction Magazine's format is truly a long-form, although in the course of a single show many different narrative threads might (and usually do) emerge.)
Friday-Saturday, April 4-5, directed by John Kovacovich
The format of Spontaneous Broadway was developed at Freestyle Repertory Theater (the New York Theatersports league) by Kat Koppett (who we inherited from New York, lucky us!). The premise is that the audience is composed of potential backers of a Broadway show, and the producer has a number of possible shows to audition, from which excerpts are presented. In actuality, on arrival audience members are given pieces of paper on which to write imaginary song titles; improvisors then pick a song title, improvise the title and synopsis of a show from which the song was supposedly excerpted, and then improvise the song (with me improvising the accompaniment). Repeat about a dozen times, audience votes on their favorite, and the second half of the evening is devoted to the "Broadway premiere" of the top vote-getter, complete with reprise of the song from the first half!
IMPROVISED ELVIS -- My most frequent improv milieu, BATS, has given me the keys to the theater on you missed it, and I've decided to do another full-length, fully-improvised Elvis musical. Everything -- the songs, the dances, and whatever passes for a plot -- will be completely made up on the spot. PLUS we've got super-duper special guest star Rick Right sitting in on guitar. If you can only attend one thing on this page, you could do worse than coming to this one.
The Society To Undertake the Preservation of Endangered Dumb Songs (click the name for links to band history, member bios, master song list, etc.)
What with Ricky living most of the year in London and O-lan full time in LA, the old gang doesn't get to reune as frequently as we would like. It looks like our next gig will be house band at Comedy Day again September 30.
About
the name STUPEDS is always spelled in all
caps as it is an acronym: Society To Undertake the Preservation of Endangered Dumb Songs. It was recently discovered that there are two
other bands with the same name but, interestingly, one of them, from Dagenham,
England, draws its letters from the initials of the band members' names -- Sam,
Tich, Umberto, Pyotr, Ernst, Dozy, and the other Sam -- while Thee STUPEDS,
from Denton, TX, doesn't stand for anything -- they just liked the name and
didn't know how to spell "stupid" (or "the", come to think
of it) and couldn't write in lower-case letters. Our lawyers have advised us to
add yet another E to "Thee" in order to avoid trademark infringement
lawsuits from either of the two other groups.
Here's some completely pointless info about other things The STUPEDS may or may not be doing:
Our other relatively dependable gig is house band at Comedy Celebration Day, held every summer in Golden Gate Park. An amusing anecdote from the '99 show: Since our drummer Eric was on vacation, our bass player Dave brought his bass and his drum set and played both at the same time. At one point our guitarist Jeffrey relieved Dave of his bass and put it on himself, looking for all the world like a mutant version of Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, and playing all ten strings almost simultaneously. A little while later Dave went to retrieve his bass, but by this time the two guitar straps had become inextricably intertwined, resulting in a fairly mirthful and song-stopping bit of physical comedy, in which Jeff was almost strangled.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
The STUPEDS recently (oh, OK: a few years ago) were hired to portray a band called The Revolutionaries to appear at a product launch party for a company whose product claims to be a "revolution: the end of software". So the client asked us to perform rewrites of REM's "It's the End of Software As We Know It", the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Client Server", and the Beatles' "You say you want a Client Server, we-e-ell, you know..." They had us dress up in camouflage, leading many party-goers to walk by our stage murmuring "Where's that music coming from?" bemusedly.
We appear to be in greatest demand by corporate clients (and weddings) who want something kinda Big Chill-y but are sick of the same old Yet Another Unnecessary All-White Soul Revue. We are not for everybody, but it appears that for some people we are the bee's knees.
Rick & Raoul
Here's what we tell prospective corporate clients:
Rick Right and Joshua Raoul Brody have been purveying their unique brand of musical merriment since 1977, when Raoul joined the legendary San Francisco musical comedy act Rick & Ruby. The group, best known for their uncanny musical impressions and turn-on-a-dime transitions, gained national notice through tours with Robin Williams (appearing on his first album, Reality: What A Concept) and television appearances (Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, Midnight Special and many others). In 1980 Raoul devised The Society To Undertake the Preservation of Endangered Dumb Songs (or The STUPEDS), under which guise the team appeared on Mork & Mindy in 1981.
As a duo, Rick & Raoul recorded song parodies that found their way onto the Dr. Demento radio show, and continued to front ever-changing lineups of STUPEDS (at one point the band boasted some 15 members, including back-up singers known as The Idiettes and a horn section dubbed The Brassholes; in 1989 the group appeared in the mono-million dollar sci-fi epic Martians, Go Home, earning them mentions in three different Joe Bob Briggs columns). They have also forged estimable solo careers -- Rick as a world- renowned solo stand-up, Raoul as an accompanist for improv as well as a versatile composer. Their latest project has been hosting rock'n'roll jam sessions for wannabe musicians who missed the career bus -- think of it as karaoke for guitarists -- at conventions for the likes of Sun Microsystems and Apple.
Here's essentially the same info in more chatty form:
The STUPEDS started as my hobby project to flex my entrepreneurial muscles after a few years as the mostly silent sidekick to comical musedy team Rick & Ruby. Rick shared my fondness for the dumb songs and became my ko-konspirator of kitsch, and we also worked up a duo act to while away the time that Ruby was off having babies and Ph.D.'s. We still revive that act from time to time, although we spend more time playing Stump The STUPEDS with the audience than we do reciting prepared routines. We've also started up a little cottage industry hosting a sort of live karaoke bar for instrumentalists: Chris McGregor of Stage II Productions has been hiring us for corporate parties, where a typical hotel meeting room is magically transformed into a smelly garage, complete with hubcaps on the wall, spare tires and rakes lying around, and probably even oil slicks in the shag carpet -- and a drum set, a few amps, some keyboards and a p.a. So all these frustrated musicians-turned-whatever get a chance to strap on a Strat and play all the three-chord songs they know with Real Musicians! Sun Microsystems hired us for their Java One party several years running, one year we entertained Steve Jobs at MacWorld and were the surprise guest headliner over Spinal Tap. This year it's lucky Macromedia's turn to enjoy our services.
Click here for a snapshot of Rick & Raoul at 1999's event (it's a 224K .jpg; download time will vary depending on your hardware configuration and net connection).
For those interested in Rick's whereabouts, they're usually in England, where he has become a favorite in the Jongleur's comedy club circuit. Check the club listings page in Viz Magazine, if they still have them.
Merle Kessler(click the name to go to a web page about him that he probably doesn't even know exists)
When Duck's Breath Mystery Theater first moved to San Francisco from Iowa, only four of the five members came; Merle, the fifth, was busy in New York opening a play he'd written. So by the time he came out to join his brethren I'd gotten used to seeing their sometimes silly, sometimes surreal skits (think Monty Python if they'd come from the midwest) performed by four, and thought to myself "Who is this interloper?"
"This interloper" eventually became one of my two best friends and most enduring collaborators (Rick Right would be the other one, on both counts). After we sniffed each other's butts, artistically-speaking, in little shows at the Other Cafe and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Merle eventually hired me to score his script for Duck's Breath's 1984 NPR special, The Last Days of Palm Bay, and from that point on we've collaborated on literally several shows together, from the delightfully mis-subtitled one-man cabaret acts to full-length musicals and opera briefos (our latest, Jam, is part of Overtone Industries' Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands). We also co-wrote songs for CD-ROMs like Planet Dexter's Grossology (ooh, what a proud moment that was) and the computer game Tiny Tank, and have performed our songs without the shelter of a dramatic frame under the nom d'(c)tage And They're Cops! which rerears its ugly head in clubs from time to time. While I was in Vegas, Merle started working with our beloved Dave Terry (ex-Baltimores, Child's Portion, and faux Irish tenor) as Merle and Dave, or Dave and Merle, depending on who's at the mike doing the intros. They do many of the same songs we do as And They're Cops!, only Dave can really sing.
And we occasionally co-produce An Evening of Song.
Our new show, Slouching Towards Disneyland: A
Brief History of the World is the latest in
a series of "one-man shows so big it takes two guys and a six-pack of beer
to do it". It features Merle as his long-standing alter ego, surly
fast-talking social critic Ian Shoales; and me as his catatonic sleazy musician
friend, Raoul. Click here
if you don't know what we look like. And click here
for the Chronicle's extremely kind review of our last show, Broke:
Based on a True Story.
UPDATE: Click here
for an equally kind (if not soft-pedaling) review of Slouching.
And here's the website our
director, Bill Allard, has been throwing together about it.
Ducks Breath Mystery Theater celebrated its 30th anniversary. You missed it, but it's now available on DVD.
An Evening of Song
What started as just an attempt to create a venue for our (Merle Kessler's and my) very talented friends to sing a song or two has evolved over the years into ... just that: an evening in which our very talented friends sing a song or two. Think Prairie Home Companion without Keillor's smarmy baritone. A couple of dozen people (some talented singers without a professional outlet, some professional singers who don't get a chance to sing material outside their usual repertoire) sing one song apiece. Guests at the last show included members of the Ethel Merman Memorial Choir and True Fiction Magazine, both (or, depending on how you count, all three) members of the legendary duo Rick &Ruby, former Baltimore Dave Terry, former Bob Gunnar Madsen, former Pointless Sister Bermuda Schwartz, a capella trio PMS, and many many more. I play piano, Hopefully Jeff Kane is usually on guitar, and Merle is your genial host.
Friday, June 13, 2008, 8:15 pm at Noe Valley Ministry, Sanchez near 23rd Street.
Orchestra Nostalgico (the band formerly known as Club Foot Orchestra)
In the early '80s, the house band at the legendary Club Foot out on Third Street in SF was a bunch of improvising jazz and classical musicians pretending to play dance music. The founder committed suicide, so Richard Marriott inherited the name and used the ensemble to work out his compositions. He and a few of his musicians got tapped by Snakefinger to play in a show called "The History of The Blues, Parts 1 and 2", for which I played piano; we toured Europe in '83 and released an album on Rough Trade (Deutschland) that TECTones is considering reissuing but hasn't got around to yet. When we got back from Europe, Richard resumed Club Foot Orchestra with the blues band personnel and a few others, including Beth Custer and Opter Flame. When rehearsal demands started conflicting with my other interests, I was amicably fired, and the group went on to greater glory composing soundtracks for silent movies.
A couple of years ago, Club Foot was hired to provide the accompaniment for a show at Bimbo's about Hitler's Jewish psychic, Hanussen, and they, in turn, hired me to fill in on piano. When CFO's cellist Matt Brubeck was approached by Bruno's Restaurant to do an evening devoted to the music Nino Rota composed for Fellini's films, he decided to use mostly CFO personnel, including me, and we released a CD of that stuff a year or two ago on the Rastascan label.
More recently, Richard (who was not involved in the Rota project) requested that the Rotarians stop using the Club Foot Orchestra name, which he owns, so we're now going by the name Orchestra Nostalgico. A group calling itself the Club Foot Orchestra, featuring some past members, a string quartet, and Gamelan Sekar Jaya, recently performed a new score by Richard to accompany some Balinese silent film at the Castro.
Anyway, if you go to the Club Foot Orchestra site (here's one; here's another), you'll find background on this group that I was a member of for about ten minutes (including uncredited synthetic accordion wheezings on their first album, Wild Beasts, reissued on CD by Rastascan). If you check here periodically, you'll find out where the Rota project is playing next:
Ralph Carney(click the name to go to the website)(oh, here's his old one)
So I'm sitting backstage in a theater in Minneapolis in 1990 waiting for the union guys to get off their two-hour union lunch break, during which we are forbidden to so much as lift a strap on a road case let alone set up any of our own equipment to rehearse, and the phone rings, and I say jocularly "If it's for me, tell 'em I'm not here," and the phone keeps ringing and ringing, so finally someone picks it up and answers it, and then turns to me and says "It's for you."
It was Ralph Carney, who had called me a year or two earlier on the recommendation of Eric Drew Feldman (who had just moved to work with Pere Ubu in Akron, from which Ralph had just moved here to SF). My reply was "Not THE Ralph Carney?" which I'd like to think somehow endeared me to him. But I wasn't just blowing smoke up his ass; his reputation had indeed preceded him: I'd noted his credit on albums by Tin Huey, Tom Waits, and his own project, Swollen Monkeys; he's also livened up the proceedings of the Waitresses, the B-52s, and various Hal Willner projects with his limitless talents: various saxes, clarinets, flutes, brass, and string instruments are only a small percentage of his arsenal. When he first began insinuating himself on the Bay Area music scene, he would do these solo shows where he'd augment the above instrumental line-up with arcane Southeast Asian harmonicas and talking Gabe Kaplan dolls. He later moved on to being a dependable fixture in such far-flung ensembles as the Hesla-Robinson Big Band (in which company I first actually shared a stage with him), Oranj Symphonette, and the Blue Room Boys.
After crossing each other's paths too many times for coincidence (including my microscopic stint with Waits), we finally ended up in a project suitable to both our eclectic skills and senses of humor: it was called Ralph, Finger Puppet, and a few other names over the short time we did it. The first version of the project featured Ralph's friend Daved Hild intoning previously written poems over music improvised by Ralph, me, and percussionist extraordinaire Kevin Mummey; when Daved moved to Florida, we continued for a time as a trio, with occasional guests like Ralph's old comrade from Tin Huey, Mark Price. The "crowd" that had climbed the stairs to Above Paradise to see the poetry reading that preceded us was somewhat bemused by our combo's recital of Mexican folk songs, inept Cecil Taylor impressions, two-chord jams, and dance routines; I believe the fact that all of this was being made up spontaneously was completely lost on them. I coined the expression "free pop" in a desperate attempt to describe our application of jazz improvisation strategies to the materials of pop music.
Ralph, Kevin and I keep our hands in by occasionally subverting Mr. Lucky's lounge act, and plunged back in the deep end a year or so ago with a tour supporting Ralph's second solo album, I Like You (A Lot). The still-to-be-renamed group (I voted for "Carney", because it's got the name recognition factor plus alludes to carnivals and is also a word used to describe people who take advantage of suckers, but it looks like the more prosaic "Ralph Carney" (with "and friends" merely implied) will prevail) executed a triumphant mini-tour of the Southland's more prestigious bowling alleys and coffeehouses, sharing the bill with Smokey Hormel (formerly of Beck's group) and Stephen Hodges improvising they fool heads off.
By the way, I never did find out how Ralph tracked me down to that Minneapolis backstage phone.
Ralph's third solo outing, This Is!, is out now on Black Beauty Records.
Watch this space.
Three For All(click the name to go to the website)
Stephen Kearin and Rafe Chase, both formerly of True Fiction Magazine, along with Tim Orr from Bay Area Theatersports, accompanied by me on keyboards and Gerri Lawlor on lights, doing a potpourri of improv games in the first half and a long form in the second half. More reckless than True Fiction, which is both a recommendation and a caveat.
True Fiction Magazine (click the name to go to the website)
Award-winning, internationally-acclaimed, and just damned great improvisational theater ensemble. (See above, under Bay Area Theatersports, for my tirade about improvisation.) Probably the most common criticism we receive is that "it can't possibly be improvised"; indeed, one fan had to leave a recent show in the middle because the friends he'd brought were disappointed by the "poor writing". I've been with them since before their inception and, although I have resigned as a formal member of the group, continue to perform with them as a guest artist. The remaining members are Diane Rachel, Regina Saisi, and Barbara Scott. Info: 415-824-1559.
Occasional Saturdays at 10 am or so: West Coast Live, KALW 91.7 FM and other stations (at other times) around the country and, dare I say it, the world. If you're as disappointed as we are that we didn't get to go to Alaska with the show this summer, let them know.
The True Fiction Magazine CD, On The Radio, 1994-97, more than two years in the making, has finally surmounted all obstacles and is now available for your listening pleasure. It is currently on sale at performances for ten bucks.
Big Lou's Polka Casserole (click the name to go to the website)
One day Big Lou had a dream: dozens and dozens of accordion players all lined up playing "Beer-Barrel Polka". Not only has that dream come true (through the good graces of the Cotati Accordion Festival), but in pursuit of that dream she co-founded Those Darn Accordions!; managed to come in fourth in a field of two in one of the categories of the International Accordion Festival in Castelfidardo, Italy; got drunk on bathtub vodka in Vilnius, Lithuania; was responsible for me playing "Lady of Spain" 800 times in one afternoon; and produced my candidate for the novelty record of the year (although she insists it's an authentic polka album), Big Lou's Polka Casserole (Don't Quit Your Day Job! Records). (I'd like to take full credit for the horn arrangements, which are prominently featured throughout the disc, but I just wrote 'em: it was Big Lou's overarching vision that kept me from overwriting them into arcane obscurity.)
Since the above was written, Polka Casserole has released its second album, Dogs Playing Polka (complete with a photo of my friend Laura Hazlett's black velvet painting on the cover), and third, Doctors of Polkaology, for which I provided the same arranging and pianoplaying services as I did on the first.
She's currently playing with a reduced line-up (without me, but still worth checking out) at Schroeder's German restaurant downtown -- call them up to ask when their next appearance is!
Drizoletto (or Octomutt or sometimes The Hulagains)
A showcase for the not inestimable talents of singer-songwriter-guitarist Ted Savarese, backed by a rotating cast of characters which often includes bassist Ashley Adams, multi-everythingist Ralph Carney, guitarist Brandy, and others.
The Marsh(click the name to go to the miserably maintained website)
Their slogan is "a breeding ground for new performance" but that almost makes it sound like you could catch a disease there. What it is is a fine little venue for theater, music, and indescribable little concoctions that you simply won't find anywhere else. The many shows and people I've worked on and with there include Merle "Ian Shoales" Kessler, A Karen Carpenter Christmas, Laurie Amat, Josh Kornbluth, Bob Ernst and Ruth Zaporah, Bermuda Schwartz, Janie Bob Scott, Zachary Barton, Pulp Playhouse, Improv Theater, Sara Felder, Deborah Gwinn, June, ... Keep your eyes open for further details, and support the Marsh.
Kitty Ultra Sound (click the name to go to the website)
A new chanteuse (one who is described at great and much better length on her own damn website) emerges over the horizon.
watch her space
Overtone Industries
Overtone started in the late '70s/early '80s and has since then had an uninterrupted commitment to developing new music theater. This mandate has resulted in such productions as the Emmy-winning Superstitions on PBS; Love In The Third Degree at the Magic Theater and in New York; String of Pearls (a collection of four mini-operas, including "Goddess of the Hunt" by me and Merle Kessler) which ran in SF, LA (garnering a couple of Drama-Logue awards) and at Carnegie Recital Hall in NY; the forthcoming double-header The Man Whose Brother Was Eaten By Wolves/The Woman Who Forgot Her Sweater; and the holiday confection It's A Pretty Good Life with book and lyrics by Kathleen Cramer and music mostly by me. Aside from the title, it's inspired more by A