Yvonne Liu (yvonneliu@yahoo.com)
Thu, 17 Sep 1998 12:43:17 -0700 (PDT)
Yesterday @ Macy's at 34th St., Herald Sq.
there was supposed to be a presentation for the
Downtown Arts Festival:
"New York Originals"
@ The "New" Levi's Shop, Young Men's Shop
On 1 1/2, starting at 6 pm.
Six Musicians, including:
Byzar
Soundlab
Esthero
The Spirit Level
Warm ( I kidded him, "ha! I'm cool." )
Zoriah
Three artists, including:
Ian Baguskas
Juan Gomez
Kiichiro Muto
Five Filmmakers, including:
Patrick Cady, "Gossamer"
Anthony Cerniello, "Jaunt"
Ryan Kelly, "Bodies"
Fabian Tejada, "Equis"
Angela Robinson, "The Kinsey 3"
Boy, were the other spectators and I disappointed
when all live music performances were cancelled,
and the event turned into a media opportuni-fest.
Bleh.
Afterwards I was supposed to go to
the Spring 1999 CAKE Collection show
@ The Garden with Theresa Duncan's
"The History of Glamour"
and Music by Soundlab.
At the Festival Center/Ohio Theater,
66 Wooster St., Soho.
But I got *stuck* @ a stoopid artists' party
at Lot 61 (across the street from El Flamingo)
on West 21st Street.
It was a Levi's (tm) party,
with little blue and red Levi's tabs
stuck in the pretentious sushi rolls.
Bleh.
But I met a fun crowd of Chelsea boys,
and dished with them for most of the nite.
Getting too late to hear DJ Singe @ CAKE,
I tagged along with "The" festival coordinator,
Craig and Isabel (and this weird person, Elliot)
to see STEREO-TOTAL @ Bowery Ballroom.
"Likened to Cornelius and Pizzicato Five,
Stereo-Total perform an avant euro-pop
in German, Japanese, French & English.
With an infectious amalgam of technology,
absurdity and historical revisionism,
Stereo Total are a band not just to watch,
but to come and see.
"Opening are Guv'ner,
masters of dissenent cutsey pop,
and America's answer to the death of
indie-rock: Muckafurgason."
( I missed the opening acts. )
STEREO-TOTAL were the total bomb!
They were straight from the hip,
left your tongues-in-cheeks aching.
They opened with a cover of
Serge Gainsbourg's "Coleur Cafe."
They covered some bittersweet
German love songs.
And even did KC & the Sunshine Band's
"Get Down Tonight."
Using wazoo's, yahoo's, noisemakers,
a synth, a female drag king guitarist
decked out as a svelte Elvis impersonator,
and general kookiness,
I now have a new object for my affections:
STEREO-TOTAL !
At one point, for a song,
possibly "Ushilo sugata ga kilei"
they invited the P.S. 1 bar girl
up onto the stage to sing.
I particularly relished the French song
"Furore"
being about a girl fed up with infatuation with another.
( We've all been there, girls. )
"Miau Miau" was a song about a girl-kat upset
at a boy-kat when he came home @ 2:30 am.
( They provided song liner explanations
for the happily dumb American audience. )
Do we Americans not say "Meow Meow" instead ?
I liked "Johnny is the Man for Me," sung by the male.
And "Moviestar" and "Supergirl."
I saw only three bandmembers, not including
the Japanese P.S. 1 girl,
but according to their CD sleeve:
Brezel Goring: Piano, Organ, Guitar, Vocal
Francoise Cactus: Vocal, Drums
Iznogood: Bass
Angie Reed: Vibroguitar
I would definitely recommend their albums
on Bobsled Records (1998)
& Powerline Stereo Total.
Bobsled Records
POB 6407
Aurora, Illinois 60598
Anyway, afterwards I walked over
to Baby Jupiter to see Electro Foetus.
They raged as usual.
Now, I'm beat and spent
and will commence to pass the day
in a musical aftertaste stupor.
Yve.
___________________________________________________
I became politicized by the contemplative life.
Meditation is what brought me to political radicalization.
I came to the revolution by way of the Gospels.
It was not by reading Marx but Christ.
It can be said that the Gospels made me a Marxist.
-- Ernesto Cardenal (1976)
==
" A naked lunch is natural to us,
we eat reality sandwiches.
But allegories are so much lettuce.
Don't hide the madness. "
-- Allen Ginsburg (1954)
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