Weekend Reviews

Audience hits paydirt with live Lyrics Born

Music: Lyrics Born
Art: Wheeler Brothers
Dance: "The King and I"
Theater: "Marriage Is Forever"
Music: The Meat Purveyors
Music: Texas Early Music Project
Music: MDC
Music: Wild Basin Winds

Web posted: April 18, 2005

Fans of live hip-hop are like gambling addicts crawling back to a slot machine with one last quarter, convinced that this will be the pull that pays out. With atrophied sets, DATs over DJs, and MCs who are there for a paycheck and little else, live hip-hop seems devoted to finding new ways to annoy an audience that nevertheless keeps crawling back.

If it's the rare hip-hop act that is as compelling live as on wax, it's therefore far more astonishing to find a hip-hop act that might be still more interesting on stage than on CD. But Lyrics Born, aka Tom Shimura, might be that act. Without engaging in any sort of hip-hop revisionism — there were plenty of "throw your hands in the air" clichés — Friday night at Emo's, Lyrics Born displayed the same boundless energy that made him so compelling during last year's Quannum tour at Stubb's.

The key is his voice, a lively instrument which roughens up considerably when he's on tour. He also travels with a full live band, which has never worked in hip-hop quite as well as it's alleged to. But Shimura's beats are straight-forward and often largely sample-free, which translates well to a full band. With him is wife and backup singer Joyo Velarde, and their joyful couplehood is a touching thing to witness.

So it was too bad that Emo's was slow to fill and never came close to capacity. Shimura sweated charisma, bounding from song to song, from the anti-whine "Stop Complaining" to "Do That Damn Thing." Since it's his only hit, it was bold of him to park "Callin' Out" in the middle of the set, like it's just another song. Dude goes out of his way to show you live hip-hop's potential; he's the slot machine pull that hits the jackpot.
— Joe Gross

Art

SOMETHING FRESH WITHOUT MOTIF

Finally, a chance to see the Wheeler Brothers' work a) in Austin and b) uncluttered by all of the "Ulterior Motifs" hoopla. Sorry guys ... the "Ulterior Motifs" series of exhibitions is a rare and wonderful thing, but it doesn't exactly show your work in its best light.

Let me explain. Last time I wrote about the Wheelers' work, it was in the context of a huge group exhibition/art extravaganza they've staged for several years. I've seen two versions of this show (Numbers 7 and 8). The first "experience" was at its birthplace — downtown Lubbock. The second time I saw it was at the New Braunfels Museum of Art and Music. While the Wheelers are still at it with "Ulterior Motifs" (No. 9 opens May 14 in Lubbock), it appears the pair is making it on their own.

They also are making new art, aptly termed "fresh" and "fresher," and exhibiting at not one, but two venues: the recently re-emerged Gallery 68 and the Eastside Art Palace (formerly Eastside Artist Studio). Both are small, square-ish, white-walled spaces and they too, are fresh, but seem positively airy and open compared to Ulterior Motif's previous venues.

Brother Bryan's stuff varies in size, but recalls Robert Rauschenberg's big paintings from the 1960s. In Pop style, Bryan's work is bright and clean, with hints of photographic and silk-screening processes. He appropriates images from mass culture and art history, combining canonical nudes with Sonic signs.

Jeff's work also possesses a pastiche quality; however, his images have become even more complicated, as if his artistic alphabet is constantly under construction. A recently recurring figure is a bear-headed banjo player situated in various fantasyscapes that remind me of Hieronymus Bosch's hedonistic visions, but with a lighter feel.

The Wheeler Brothers' work has been called Texas-based contemporary, Texas Funk and even Tex-Mex. I'm pretty sure this type of imagery is no longer restricted to state boundaries, but after reading Jeff's phrases "Larger than Life" and "Wish You Were Here" repeatedly, the work's regional flavor diminished as bigger questions emerged.

"The Wheeler Brothers: Fresh" continues 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays and by appointment through May 6, Gallery 68, Flatbed World Headquarters, 2832 E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. (866) 477-9328) and 'The Wheeler Brothers: Now Even Fresher' continues noon to 6 p.m. Saturdays, 7 to 9 p.m. Thursdays and by appointment through May 6, Eastside Art Palace, 2109 E. Cesar Chavez St. 423-2063.
— Erin Keever

Dance

VIVA THE KING WITH DANCE

Think every kind of homage to Elvis Presley has been done? Think again.

Contemporary dancemaker Allison Orr expanded a short piece she had showcased previously into "The King and I," a campy and highly entertaining 50-minute tribute to the king of rock 'n' roll. Staged at the Elks Lodge, where tables were arranged nightclub-style, Orr and two other dancers, Karly Dillard and Theresa Hardy, were joined at times by the most wonderfully oddball assortment of male and female Elvis impersonators.

Following a basic biographical trajectory, Orr and company flashed slides of Elvis' life, made fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, gyrated to hits such as "Suspicious Minds" and "Blue Moon of Kentucky" and otherwise kept up a high-octane pace.

If the staging, slapstick and physical storytelling was spot on, the actual dance movement itself left something to be desired at times. But for a fantastic solo to "Hound Dog" by Hardy (she was pure electric, expressive motion), many of the moves seemed to do little to move the piece along or develop a narrative.

Still, Orr is a master entertainer, and "The King and I" delighted from beginning to end.
— Jeanne Claire van Ryzin

Theater

A GOOD MATCH OF WRITER AND DIRECTOR

Two Americans try to squeeze an online wedding into their busy professional lives. One's a doctor, the other a biologist, both trace their families to Mexico. Their plans for a no-frills ceremony are spoiled by two sets of parents and a grandmother, also a curandera, or folk healer, who conjures the couple's tangled genealogical tree in the person of sojourning ancestors.

Edit Villarreal's "Marriage Is Forever" coats an examination of Mexico's complicated ethnic and culture heritage with an audience-friendly domestic comedy. Although the Los Angeles-based playwright includes too many jerky transitions, attitude flip-flops and easy jokes (an Anglo who massacres Spanish; Mexicans who employ a common Spanish curse word), she contructed the bilingual "Marriage" with a firm sense of structure and a humane sensibility for all the characters.

Different Stages director Mary Alice Carnes previously directed Villarreal's "My Visits with MGM," and clearly brings a deep affection for the work to the Vortex stage. As the romantic duo, Jessica Medina and Jason Reuter contributed a contemporary freshness, while Rupert Reyes, Nicole Marosis, Rudy Sandoval and Kristen Marie Freeman played multiple roles with consistent flair. It was salt-of-the-Earth Laura Vela Grayson, however, who moored the action as La India Kasoutis, the curandera who calmly, fluidly conducts the genealogical healing.

This is an appealing comedy given an appealing production, one that reminds audiences that, not just the United States, but Mexico also is a nation of multiethnic paradoxes and pleasures.

"Marriage Is Forever" continues 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays through April 30. The Vortex, 2307 Manor Road, $14-$16 (pay-what-you-can Thursdays), 478-5282.
— Michael Barnes

Music

PURVEYORS OF HUMOR AND HEARTBREAK

Didn't reckon Hole in the Wall could contain The Meat Purveyors. When bountiful singer JoStanli Cohen took off her top to reveal a PONG T-shirt, potty-mouthed upright bassist Cherilyn Dimond — the Laurel to Cohen's Hardy — made a funny: "Jo, nice rack today!" Guitarist Bill Anderson added, "You're putting the 'P' in 'PONG'." Later, when thirsty Cohen called out for a Pilsner Urquell, Dimond couldn't resist: "She has to keep those things," motioning to her breasts, "well hydrated."

Self-empowering banter — recovering Deadhead Peter Stiles talks mostly with his mandolin — elevates the Purveyors' harmonic honky-tonk from roadhouse raucous to black-humored southern-gothic soap opera. The songs soldiered on with such snap, crackle and pop that a guitar on the wall split in half, neckless. (And part-time fiddler Darci Deaville wasn't even in "church," as one cowboy-hatted fan anointed the venue at show time.)

Hammering through a PA system so muddy at first that it sounded as if the Purveyors were selling their wares from a swamp, Dimond flapped her skinny arms and rocked like a sprung jack-in-the-box, so beehive-less Cohen, crouched and pumping her fists, could tear off lyrics such as "I buried my little sister last year"; "I've seen that bruise on the back of your arm"; "Don't be afraid to come home if it doesn't work out"; and "I saw you at the motel pool, you were with that fool, and you were laughing." It's a crime for people with lives riddled by such heartbreak, deception and violence to have great senses of humor.

At some point during the cover of Bad Company's "Feel Like Makin' Love," or Fleetwood Mac's "Monday Morning," which appears on the Purveyors' latest album, "Pain by Numbers," one could imagine a girl in the audience persuading herself immediately after the show to walk across the street to her dorm room, get on the school Intranet and find out just how hard it is to change her major from marketing to music.
— Michael Hoinski

Music

PATHWAYS TO A PERFECT PERFORMANCE

We have come to expect a good show from Daniel Johnson's Texas Early Music Project. But Saturday's program, "Pathways to Bach: Music in Germany in the 17th Century," was still surprising for the fragile and exalted beauty of the works programmed and for the TLC with which they were performed.

I have one very small complaint: It turns out that the only composers represented were Heinrich Schütz and Dietrich Buxtehude. Not titling the program "Pathways to Bach: Schütz and Buxtehude" suggests that someone was afraid that those last two names wouldn't bring out an audience. I beg to differ.

As a critic, I'm expected to note weak aspects of the performance. The preceding paragraph is about the best that I can muster. Yes, there were a few moments — not many — where the tuning wasn't perfect, but they were scattered across about 90 minutes of musicmaking. This live performance demonstrated excellence and beauty exceeding many commercial recordings in my CD collection.

The main work was Schütz's "Musikalische Exequien," music for a 17th-century Lutheran burial service. Of the two featured composers, Schütz worked in the Renaissance, and the "Exequien" and two other motets by him exhibited the more exotic atmosphere. Buxtehude, whom we tend to consider early Baroque, was represented by one instrumental piece and four motets or cantatas. In these compositions, Bach could be sensed looking over Buxtehude's shoulder.

Almost half of the 28 vocalists making up the full choir sang solos, so I can mention only the most memorable: brief solo appearances by Kathlene Ritch Brown; a limpid duet with the beautifully matched Jenifer Thyssen and Gitanjali Mathur; and several tenor solos divvied up between David Stevens and Christopher LeCluyse. The nine instrumentalists making up the reliable and colorful orchestra were unerringly led by violinist Laurie Young Stevens.
— David Mead

Music

MDC GETTING PUNKY AGAIN

Walking through the jampacked front room at the MDC show Saturday at Emo's, one couldn't help humming to one's self, "So this is '80s night, and the feeling's right, oh this is '80s night, oh what a night."

Hey, nostalgia is nostalgia; there aren't exceptions for hardcore punk bands that keep the faith forever, even if they can bring together young and old punks. Just check out the T-shirts that fans of MDC (aka Millions of Dead Cops, Multideath Corporation, and the brand new Magnus Dominus Corpus) were wearing. '80s college rock bands (Wall of Voodoo, the Godfathers) foreign hardcore acts (Gauze) obtuse lefto politics ("We Are All Palestinians"): It was all there.

And nobody can say MDC's singer Dave Dictor isn't still furious about the police (the obviously nuanced and thoughtful "Let's Kill the Cops") and punks who aren't keeping it real (no kidding, the song is actually called "Poseur Punk"). Originals guitarist X-con Ron was there to slash out the loud-fast-rules riffs and everything moved with old school fury, perfect for running into each other.

But with fellow Texas-to-San-Francisco transplants Verbal Abuse in tow, it really did feel like a tent revival with some old preachers back out on the circuit. VA's loose-limbed hardcore did the job as well, drawing on old chestnuts such as "Power Play," "I Hate You" and their theme song "Verbal Abuse."

All of which begged the questions that one always asks of punk: Is hardcore a sound or an attitude? A music or a way of life? A living genre or old news? As with most things in life, the answer is always up for debate.
— Joe Gross

Music

GOOD WINDS BLOWING TO NOBODY

The concert presented Tuesday by the Wild Basin Winds at First Presbyterian Church was one of those occasions when the questions inside my head alternated between "What were they thinking?" and "What are they thinking?"

The musical performance, considered strictly by itself, was really good. I can't fault the playing of any of the five members of Austin's only professional wind quintet. Nor do I believe there was any substantial lack in the preparation of Mathew Krejci, flute; Ian Davidson, oboe; Gary Sperl, clarinet; Daris Word Hale, bassoon; and Tom Hale, horn.

My first real complaint is about what musicians call "program building"— the pieces you choose to put on the program and the order in which you perform them. Here were four "contemporary" compositions, all of which I heard for the first time, and they were performed in an order nearly guaranteed to leave a negative impression. Jacques Ibert's "Three Short Pieces" was fun, but it wasn't at the end, where we might have left smiling. The Woodwind Quintet from 1948 by Elliott Carter, the dean of living American composers, was intelligently conceived and interesting, even fun of an esoteric sort. It was played first, where it was most likely to be forgotten.

What Richard Felciano's "The Colors of the Wind" lacked most was color — color in how he used the instruments at hand, and color in what the music said and did. John Harbison's Quintet for Winds had little variety of mood among its five generally unattractive movements, despite intriguing movement titles like "Intrada" and "Intermezzo."

The second real complaint is that, as at other Wild Basin concerts, there was hardly anyone there — mostly college students with notebooks who were probably enrolled in music appreciation courses. There are surely a couple hundred Austinites who would enjoy this who either aren't being reached by WBW's outreach or aren't being reached by the programs.
— David Mead