twi-ny talks

TWI-NY TALK: BETTINA RICHARDS

Bettina Richards is celebrating twentieth anniversary of Chicago-based Thrill Jockey label

THRILL JOCKEY: 20 YEARS
Friday, September 14, Death by Audio, 49 South Second St., $13.50, 8:00
Saturday, September 15, Webster Hall Grand Ballroom, 125 East Eleventh St., $20, 5:30
www.thrilljockey.com

For twenty years, Chicago’s Thrill Jockey Records has been releasing some of the most exciting and challenging music around, from well-known bands and emerging up-and-comers, in multiple genres, often with highly sought after special limited-edition vinyl pressings. The label, whose wide-ranging roster includes such groups as the Sea and Cake, Oval, Eleventh Dream Day, the Fiery Furnaces, High Places, Future Islands, Tortoise, and Pontiak, was started back in 1992 by Bettina Richards, a major music fan who is still running things today. “Bettina is a shining light in the increasingly dark recording industry who still has an unwavering enthusiasm for discovering new music and championing the people she believes in,” notes David Halstead, who worked with Bettina at Thrill Jockey for many years and is now at Solid Gold in Brooklyn. “Her dedication to DIY music culture and her ability to make it work in today’s climate is nothing short of inspiring. Thrill Jockey never panders to the lowest common musical denominator, and she deserves massive amounts of respect for still wanting to take chances — even if she’ll never admit that ‘classic era’ Guided by Voices was nothing but pure genius.”

Richards and Thrill Jockey are celebrating their twentieth anniversary with a series of live shows around the country and in London. The tour stops in New York this weekend for a pair of concerts, Friday night at Death by Audio with White Hills, Guardian Alien, Man Forever, Dan Friel (formerly of Parts & Labor), and Rhyton, followed by Tortoise, Future Islands, Matmos, Liturgy, D. Charles Speer and the Helix, and the Black Twig Pickers at Webster Hall on Saturday. In between taking care of her twins and blasting black metal, Richards discussed Thrill Jockey and the state of the music business in our latest twi-ny talk.

twi-ny: How did you come up with the name Thrill Jockey?

Bettina Richards: In 1992, I was working at Pier Platters records store in Hoboken while living on the Lower East Side. I also was an intern for Todd Abramson, the head honcho at Telstar Records; as a side, he also books many clubs today, like Maxwell’s. Todd is not only a serious music geek, he is a big fan of some B movies, especially, it seems, of a more delinquent nature. At about the time that I was planning on starting the label, Todd showed me an especially funny preview for a film called Speed Crazy. In this film a few hooligans disrupt a small town by behaving in a simply terrible fashion, being loud, driving their hot rods too fast, etc. As I recall it, the voice-over proclaimed that three thrill jockeys terrorized Mercerville.

I was printing the jackets for the Zipgun single that I did, and I had found a really cheap printer around 42nd St. (This was in 1992.) They were very friendly and chatty on the phone; they kept saying they did not work with too many companies run by women. I really did not think much of it at the time. I went to pick up the sleeves and discovered that the printer almost exclusively printed VHS cases for pornographic films. They said, “Great company name! We do not have many people that print soundtrack records for their films.” So, good record label name — perhaps. Great pornographic film company name — for sure!

twi-ny: What were your initial goals when you started Thrill Jockey? Did you ever think it would still be thriving after twenty years?

Bettina Richards: My goals were pretty much what they remain today: Simply put, to release music we love, and to treat the musicians as equal partners in our advocacy. I followed the model of Dischord and Touch and Go, two labels that I admire. While we work hard to keep ahead of technology and to be creative thinkers in the way we approach the business of music, I never much think about Thrill Jockey as an entity beyond a few years into the future. So the short answer to the question would be no, I never imagined the label at twenty years old.

twi-ny: What does it take to be a Thrill Jockey band?

Bettina Richards: It is very hard to put that into just a few words, but I will try. I think a common thread among musicians we work for is that they would all be doing what they are doing regardless of who was listening, that they are willing to take risks musically, and finally that they always have a certain aspect of abandon in their music. From one of our newest artists, Black Pus, to one of our oldest bands still recording, the Sea and Cake, they are all-in and uncompromising.

twi-ny: How has the Chicago indie music scene changed since 1992? Who are some of your favorite signings?

Bettina Richards: Everywhere has changed since 1992, considerably. I really do not have favorites among the records that I have released. I really do love them all. I could tell you a story about each and every release. While the label owes its longevity, in large part, to our better known bands like Tortoise, Freakwater, Trans Am, the Sea and Cake, the Fiery Furnaces, Future Islands, Wooden Shjips, and Liturgy, we simply would not be the same label without Oval, Radian, Eleventh Dream Day, Pontiak, the Lonesome Organist, Barn Owl, Sidi Touré, Jack Rose, or Gaunt. To borrow some words from John Coltrane, “It all has to do with it.”

twi-ny: You mentioned before that you are equal partners with your artists. Does that 50-50 model still work in the digital online era?

Bettina Richards: Indeed it does — extremely well.

twi-ny: What kind of music do you listen to when you’re away from the office, relaxing at home?

Bettina Richards: I have four-year-old twins, so you will have to refresh my memory as to what relaxing is like!

There is very little difference between what I listen to while at work and while at home, even to what I play for my twins. So aside from the records that we put out, I play lots of records on the always exciting Drag City Records, Blackest Rainbow, Experimedia, Immune, and reissue labels like Monk, Four Men with Beards, and Mississippi Records. I have lately been on a real heavy bent playing a lot of Watain, the Body, Mutilation Rites, Krallice, and Hell. While that has been my most recent tear, it has been peppered with a healthy dose of Charlie Parr, Elektro Guzzi, Joe Bataan, Porter Ricks, Duke Ellington, Cat Stevens, and music from the early twentieth century from India and Pakistan. (Yesterday it was an early recording by Ali Akbar Khan). Been getting into those Fugazi live recordings that Dischord has been posting. Always close to my record player are Fleetwood Mac, Fats Waller, Wanda Jackson, the Jesus Lizard, Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, EPMD, and Neil Young.

TWI-NY TALK: DONNA MOORE

Former child star Donna Moore treads into cougar territory in new musical

COUGAR THE MUSICAL
St. Luke’s Theatre
308 West 46th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Previews begin August 10 prior to an August 26 opening, $39.50-$89.50
cougarthemusical.com

Cougars are hot hot hot these days, and the same can be said for Donna Moore. A stunning fortysomething single mother of two, Moore has revamped her two-person cabaret show about older women with a thing for younger men into Cougar the Musical, a full theatrical production that begins previews at St. Luke’s on August 10 prior to an August 26 opening. The NYU grad, who starred on the children’s television series Zoom back in the mid-1970s, has teamed up with Tony-nominated director and choreographer Lynne Taylor-Corbett to present the sexy story of a trio of older women (Brenda Braxton, Catherine Porter, and Babs Winn) who have the hots for a series of young studs with such names as Buck, Twilight Dude, Bourbon Cowboy, and Naked Peter (all played by Danny Bernardy). The perennially upbeat Moore, who battled Lupus after giving birth to her first child, is also an affirmationist who believes strongly in the power of positive thinking, telling herself such mantras as “I love and accept myself exactly as I am,” “I am forgiven as I forgive others,” and “I am connected to the flow of life.” Moore discussed Cougar, young studs, Lupus, and more in our latest twi-ny talk. (For a chance to win free tickets to see Cougar the Musical, go here.)

twi-ny: You were a cast member on Zoom back in the mid-1970s. At the time, did you anticipate a future in the entertainment business?

Donna Moore: I started performing when I was nine as a modern dancer and all I know is that something would happen when I would get on stage — like this free spirit that was my higher self would channel through me and a nine-year-old was transformed into an ageless, graceful creature. After Zoom, I always knew I wanted to continue to perform, but I think I was more concerned about survival from my childhood fame in a city public school (I was beaten up and threatened on a daily basis in junior high) to think about my future as a performer.

twi-ny: Cougar the Musical goes back to a cabaret you performed with Danny Bernardy back in 2007. How did it develop into a bigger musical with a full cast and crew?

Donna Moore: “The Cougar Cabaret” came out of a co-creation with R. K. Greene (who is now one of my “above line” associate producers). I had a cabaret show about my divorce that ran for a year called “The unBalancing Act” and the eleventh-hour number was a song called “The Cougar” that I cowrote with John Baxindine. It brought the house down every night, and one evening R.K was in the audience with Olson Rhodes (my current and wonderful GM) and they discussed how if I wrote a whole show about the cougar, how R.K would get behind me and coproduce.

“The Cougar Cabaret” came ran for one and a half years with my beloved Danny Bernardy. We each played three different characters. (I also played his Jewish mother from Boca who wasn’t too happy her son was dating a woman old enough to be her sister, “my older sista . . . it’s just wr-aw-ng!”) The show got a lot of buzz and there were a number of Broadway producers who said if I developed it into a larger book play they would get behind me. It took threes years (a number of separate book musicals and thirty songs later) and my partnering with director and dramaturg Lynne Taylor-Corbett [LTC] to turn the two-person, six-character cabaret script into a fully fleshed (no pun intended) four-person script.

In cabaret and stand-up, you can talk to the audience, tell it like it is, but I had to work painstakingly and determinedly to show the character development and not tell. I do credit LTC with helping me become a playwright worth her salt.

A trio of women have a thing for young studs in COUGAR THE MUSICAL (photo by BittenByAZebra)

twi-ny: What do you think of the whole Cougar phenomenon in general? What’s the difference between a cougar and a MILF?

Donna Moore: I’ll start with the easiest and then get deep on you: A MILF can be a cougar but a cougar cannot necessarily become a MILF. A MILF is required to be a mother and it’s incumbent upon the young men around her, who are friends with her teenage child, to desire this older woman, so it’s a “passive” term. A cougar is not necessarily a mom, and her cougar status has less to do with a young man desiring her as it has to do with the empowered woman desiring the young man.

I’ve been working on this project for eight years and have been interviewed by national magazines and newspapers as a “cougar expert” because of my cabaret show, lol, and there have been so many twists and turns but one thing that remains the same is my take on this cougar phenomenon. I believe the sociopolitical reason we are fixated on the cougar/older woman is that as a collective whole, we are yearning to embrace a more matriarchal system after a millennia of patriarchal dictation. And the “cougar” represents the medicine woman and the intuitive healer that older women used to represent in older societies. I believe that women have a chance to say “yes” to their innate sacred power and the access to that is to “embrace the sacred feminine” in all of us.

twi-ny: Speaking of sacred power, you are a strong believer in the healing properties of affirmations. Why do you think they work?

Donna Moore: I believe that life is holistic and metaphysical and that our experience is made up of mental, spiritual, and physical components that all exist as one whole. The thoughts you think create results, the context of which one thinks creates an attitude that serves well-being or shoots you in the foot, literally.

After the birth of my first child (who is turning twenty-two in November), I was diagnosed with Lupus, a horrible autoimmune disease where your immune system attacks your body and sees itself as a foreign threat. I was very sick, with horrible joint pain, unending fatigue, and depression. I had to crawl up the stairs and had no energy to do anything but sleep. I was only twenty-nine. I decided to take a spiritual approach and rid myself of my dis-ease. I refrained from any sort of gossip, I started to eat organically, and I submerged my consciousness with 100% positivity. I actively repeated affirmations of self-love and acceptance, ones that viscerally changed my state of being, and, happily, I was able to cure myself of Lupus. The ANA antibody is no longer positive, I was able to have a second child, and I have not experienced symptoms in over twenty years.

So yes, I believe affirmations are a powerful metaphysical medicine . . . or for those who may not be as a open-minded, it is a way to change your state into one that supports growth and happiness.

twi-ny: You are a vivacious fortysomething mother of two, prime cougar territory. Do you have any personal cougar stories you’re willing to share?

Donna Moore: I did date a man nine years my junior on and off for eight years. However, I never felt like I was older than he. . . . We were just two people who connected.

TWI-NY TALK: CATALPA FOUNDER DAVE FORAN

Dave Foran partied with Snoop Dogg at Vivo Rio last September and will do so again later this month on Randall’s Island

Catalpa Festival
Randall’s Island
Saturday, July 28, and Sunday, July 29
Weekend passes $179.99, day passes $99.99
www.catalpanyc.com

Dave Foran is hoping to achieve what no previous event promoter has done before in New York. Over the years, such outdoor music gatherings as the Fleadh, Lollapalooza, Across the Narrows, and All Points West have each failed to maintain a lasting presence, something the Dublin-born Foran is planning on doing with the Catalpa Festival. Taking place July 28-29 on Randall’s Island, the two-day inaugural festival boasts a diverse lineup of live acts, including the Black Keys, TV on the Radio, Umphrey’s McGee, Hercules and Love Affair, and Zola Jesus on Saturday and Snoop Dogg, Girl Talk, Matt and Kim, Cold War Kids, and Matisyahu on Sunday, among many other groups. In addition, Catalpa will host such special installations as Arcadia’s fire-shooting “Afterburner” and the Silent Disco Tent, where people can dance to wireless music beamed into their headphones. A former professional rugby player whose father was a promoter as well, the twentysomething Foran started his promotional company, Frisky, in 2010, with the goal of putting together “mind-blowing events.” The University of Sydney graduate recently discussed the genesis of Catalpa with us as the festival grew near.

twi-ny: What was the selection process like to come up with the roster of musical and visual artists participating in the festival?

Dave Foran: I didn’t want to pigeon-hole Catalpa in its first year and really wanted to create a diverse and slightly eclectic assortment of artists that I really feel had quite a bit of substance, their own style, and collectively a personality for the festival that I hope will be attractive. I did not set out to create a pop festival at all, but you do need some big names to get everyone interested. The Black Keys were my first-choice band for Catalpa. I really think they are amazing, and their recent explosion has been built on a solid foundation of developing a following year on year from creating incredible blues-rock; to me that is the epitome of what I would like Catalpa to represent.

Dave Foran started Frisky in 2010 with the goal of throwing “mind-blowing events”

twi-ny: How did the decision to hold it on Randall’s Island come about?

Dave Foran: There really are not that many large green-field sites in NYC that can hold a suitable capacity and which are tried and trusted. In my view it really is the best of the bunch. Governors Island is landlocked and a logistical nightmare. Liberty State Park is in Jersey and that has its own problems with getting people over there from Manhattan and Brooklyn; people don’t like going across that water too much!!! Liberty State Park is also an old landfill with terrible drainage, and I think that is where a lot of problems with All Points West came from, as they were very unlucky with the weather.

twi-ny: What is the most difficult part of putting together a festival like Catalpa in New York City?

Dave Foran: The hardest things I have found so far is trying to make noise about a new event like this in a place so busy and difficult to get heard like NYC. You either need to be very clever about it or be willing to shovel over huge amounts of cash to get your brand out there. Also, booking a first-year festival as a relatively minor event producer from Ireland is not easy at all. I am not Live Nation or AEG, and a lot of talking was necessary to get some of the big artists I wanted.

twi-ny: Over the years, New York City has seen a slew of outdoor festivals come and go. What do you think the key is to make Catalpa work where others have failed?

Dave Foran: I am aiming for Catalpa to have a much more eclectic, left-field, and experience-based slant to it than other regular bar and stage events. I really believe that what keeps people remembering a good festival is not just the live acts they saw but also the subsidiary experiences they had. I am trying to bring this heightened dimension to Catalpa through elements such as Frisky’s Church of Sham Marriages, where a pimp pastor will marry couples, groups, threesomes, whatever, in an outrageous ceremony. There are also things like the Silent Disco and the High Times Reggae Stage, surrounded by hammocks where famous HT writers will be giving speeches on related topics. There are a lot of art installations, various site artistry, the world’s smallest nightclub (you need to see this!) etc. In my view it is these elements which also give a festival a life of its own and ultimately lead to its longevity.

TWI-NY TALK — BRENDA ZLAMANY: 888

Brenda Zlamany and her daughter, Oona (far right), visit a police station in Dagangkou as part of their Taiwan journey; “Often in a new town the police station was a good place to set up the ‘studio,’” Zlamany explains (photo courtesy Brenda Zlamany)

888: PORTRAITS IN TAIWAN
Taipei Economic and Cultural Office
1 East 42nd St. between Madison & Fifth Aves.
Monday – Saturday through June 30, free, 9:00 am – 6:00 pm (9:00 -11:00 am Saturday)
212-317-7352
www.taiwanembassy.org
brendazlamany.com

Last summer, Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist Brenda Zlamany traveled throughout Taiwan with her Mandarin-speaking ten-year-old daughter, Oona, visiting thirty cities, towns, and aboriginal villages where Zlamany used a camera lucida to draw many of the residents, then made watercolors of them as she and Oona participated in the local culture. Brenda and Oona’s experiences are on view in the multimedia exhibition “888: Portraits in Taiwan,” which features oil paintings, behind-the-scenes videos, Zlamany’s sketchbooks, an informative, oversized map detailing their journey, and photographic projections of her subjects holding their portraits. The first part of her series “The Itinerant Portraitist,” the two-floor display is on view through the end of the month at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office on 42nd St. Zlamany, whose previous painting series include “Bald Artists,” “Tibetans,” “Infants,” and numerous animals, discussed her working process, her relationship with her daughter, and more, shortly after the exhibition’s opening reception.

twi-ny: How did the idea for “888” come about?

Brenda Zlamany: For fifteen years I’ve painted portraits of my artist friends. Many of us paint ourselves and one another. In some ways you could say we’re professional posers. Our gaze is external. Very look at me. In 2007, I took a trip to Tibet with my daughter during which I shot thousands of photos of monks and nomads with the intent of making oil paintings when I returned. When I hung the completed Tibetan portraits in the studio beside twelve recent portraits of American artists, the artists appeared to be reaching out to the viewer, while the viewer was pulled into the portraits of the Tibetans. This contrast between “external” and “internal” gazes seemed worthy of further exploration. Taiwan seemed a good choice for such an inquiry because its indigenous cultures are somewhat removed from Western ways of thinking.

I also wanted to work in a Mandarin-speaking country because my daughter, Oona, is a fluent Mandarin speaker and could be my interpreter. She is very sweet and outgoing. We worked as a team. People were interested in us as a family. This gave us access to remote areas. People showed us a lot of hospitality.

I set out to make 888 paintings in 90 days, a reasonable challenge of 10 paintings a day. I chose 888 because 8 is associated with prosperity in Chinese culture. I told people that if they took part in the project, they would get rich. That made it easy to convince people to pose.

twi-ny: What did you look for in potential subjects?

Brenda Zlamany: I looked for a wide range of people: young, old, diplomats, tribal leaders, policemen, firemen, teachers, artists, street cleaners, fruit sellers, doctors, and hotel workers. But I learned that what I looked for and what I found in my subjects were not the same thing. When you paint someone, you make discoveries. For instance, I was staying in a convent in an aboriginal village, and five Taiwanese tourists were also there. They were middle-aged women. At first I didn’t think they were as interesting as people from the village, but I decided to paint them anyway. In doing so I learned about the depth of their friendship by observing how they posed and how they responded to one another’s portraits. The experience was very moving.

twi-ny: Although you drew men, women, and children of all ages, the show features oil paintings only of young men. What was the reasoning behind that decision?

Two of Zlamany’s subjects pose with their portraits in “888” exhibit at TECO (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Brenda Zlamany: I was impressed with the beauty, grace, style, and directness of these young aboriginal men. There is so much creativity in how they present themselves. In many villages, one encounters them engaged in activities like break dancing, sports, computers, or just hanging out together. (The women of the same age are elsewhere and are nowhere near as self-consciously styled.) They have a lot of potential but are also at risk. And I identify with them. My life was like that early on, and I’ve been lucky. They are at the beginning of life, when there are so many unknowns. I wonder how it will go for them. But I understand this particular moment. It’s funny — as I painted people from cultures unfamiliar to me, I tried to figure out who in those cultures was me. It is said that all portraiture is ultimately self-portraiture.

twi-ny: Why did you choose to use the camera lucida?

Brenda Zlamany: The camera lucida is an instrument for drawing that was invented during the Renaissance. It enables the artist to view the subject and a superimposition of the subject on paper simultaneously. This allows for a more active involvement between the artist and the subject than does photography alone. The instrument demands direct observation, a rapport in which the subject can respond to the artist verbally or nonverbally and inform the work. For me, part of the electricity of portraiture is in the flip that occurs when the subject looks at the completed painting and becomes aware of the artist looking at him or her. We both reveal ourselves. The camera lucida enhances this exciting connection.

twi-ny: You traveled with your ten-year-old daughter throughout this journey. What do you think you learned about each other that you might not have known before?

Brenda Zlamany: I was amazed and pleased at how seriously she took her role as “head hunter” and interpreter. There were days when I thought I couldn’t make the goal, and she would set out to find great subjects to encourage me.

Because she’s fluent in Mandarin and I speak barely a word, we experienced a role reversal. Often I didn’t know what was going on as she negotiated for lodging, food, transportation. In this loss of power, I got to see what it’s like to be a kid who’s led around. I also got to see how she handles being in a power position. Mostly she was kind and fair. Although it could be frustrating for me.

We’d traveled as a team ever since she was an infant, so I already knew that she was cheerful, easygoing, fun, adventurous, and charismatic. People in Taiwan liked her, and this opened many doors. They were as interested in her as they were in the paintings.

But I discovered a major difference between us one morning when she woke up in tears and said “Mommy, we have no plan!” I replied, “We don’t need a plan. We have opportunities!” I was comfortable without a clear itinerary. One thing would lead to the next. She found that difficult to accept.

twi-ny: “888” is the beginning of your new series, the Itinerant Portraitist. What have you got planned for chapter two?

Brenda Zlamany: I’m looking for funding to travel to Southeast Asia to paint portraits of people, particularly girls, who are victims of human trafficking. Because I’ve discovered that there’s such a positive effect from “888,” I want to take it a little further and see if the work can actually make a difference in a situation where it’s really needed.

TWI-NY TALK: SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS

Southern Culture on the Skids will be serving up culinary delights at the annual Big Apple Barbecue in Madison Square Park

Friday, June 8, Maxwells, 1039 Washington St., Hoboken, 201-653-1703, $15, 9:00
Saturday, June 9, Big Apple Barbecue, Madison Square Park, free, 4:30
www.scots.com

For nearly thirty years, Chapel Hill’s Southern Culture on the Skids has been keeping southern culture alive, serving up its unique brand of rockabilly surf country punk on such records as Voodoo Beach Party, Dirt Track Date, Plastic Seat Sweat, Liquored Up and Lacquered Down, and The Kudzu Ranch. Its latest swampy, bluesy collection, Zombified (September 2011, Kudzu), continues the band’s wicked sense of humor and playfulness, featuring such songs as “Undertaker,” “Bloodsucker,” and “Idol with the Glowin’ Eyes.” Guitarist Rick Miller, drummer Dave Hartman, and bassist Mary Huff will be at Maxwell’s on Friday night, followed by a hotly anticipated free performance at Saturday’s Big Apple Barbecue Block Party in Madison Square Park. Miller recently filled us in on some of the band’s culinary plans for the weekend.

twi-ny: The Big Apple Barbecue is famous for its ridiculously long lines, and host Danny Meyer is perhaps equally famous for making everyone, including his relatives, wait on lines and get no special treatment. Do you have any idea what the food situation will be for you?

Rick Miller/SCOTS: I don’t know. We usually get a free lunch ticket and are left on our own to wander about. Hard to take a dip in the meat fountain before you play, though. Those smokey burps halfway into the set can slow a fellow down!

twi-ny: You’re from North Carolina, which will be represented by smokemaster Ed Mitchell and his whole hog. Is that where we’ll find you before or after your set? What other barbecue are you planning on checking out at the block party?

SCOTS: Oh yeah — in the Carolina Q is where we’ll be. When it comes to the other smoking meat — brisket is the ticket!

twi-ny: You’ll be playing to an enormous crowd on Saturday, most of whom will be covered in dripping sauce and stale beer and stuck on long lines away from the music area. Do you plan on tailoring your set to this very different kind of devil’s stomping ground?

SCOTS: Might start with “Come and Get It (Before It Done Gets Cold)” or “Too Much Pork for Just One Fork.” “Pig Pickin’” will be on the table as well, and of course “8 Piece Box” for the fowl fans. And for dessert we’ve got “Day Old Banana Puddin’.” Don’t forget to bring your wet naps and moist towelettes — it might get messy!

twi-ny: You have a smokin’ new album out called Zombified. What kind of southern food and drink goes best with it?

SCOTS: Deviled ham and moonshine!

twi-ny: You’ll also be at Maxwell’s in Hoboken on June 8, where you’ll be playing to a smaller but more SCOTS-dedicated audience. What have you got planned for that show?

SCOTS: We will prepare a rock-and-roll hot bar! A buffet of greasy grooves — the surf-and-turf sounds for downwardly mobile socialites!

TWI-NY TALK: RAQUEL CION

The Lounge at Dixon Place
161A Chrystie St. between Rivington & Delancey Sts.
Friday, June 8, free, 9:30
212-219-0736
www.dixonplace.org

Last Friday night, Raquel Cion packed the Lounge at Dixon Place for her latest show, Gilding the Lonely, billed as “An Evening of Cabaret” that explores being single in the big city. Accompanied by 3 Teens Kill 4 drummer Bill Gerstel and downtown pianist Lance Cruce, Cion, wearing a dazzling, form-fitting gown designed by David Quinn, goes through a repertoire of carefully chosen, mostly deep-cut ballads by David Bowie, Prince, the Rolling Stones, and Dwight Yoakam (!) while sharing personal stories about dating actors, being scarred for life by The Giving Tree, and needing to replace a lightbulb. Cion will be back at Dixon Place on June 8 at 9:30 for an encore presentation of Gilding the Lonely; get there early if you want to grab a seat.

twi-ny: You played to a packed house last Friday. Are you happy with how things went?

Raquel Cion: Very much so! It was a blast. The audience was so present. The Lounge at Dixon Place is such a great place to hone a show. Ellie Covan and her staff are very supportive of new work while giving artists such freedom. You work it out and just show up and do it. There’s a wonderful sense of trust in that. In 2010, I work-shopped another cabaret-esque show, Cou-Cou Bijoux: Pour Vous, in the Lounge. This past fall I ran into Ellie and she asked if I wanted to bring anything to the Lounge. I told her I had been throwing around some ideas for another cabaret and within a week we had booked the space even before anything on the creative side was created. Nothing like a deadline!

So, yeah, it was a blast. Working with Lance, Bill, and our amazing director, Hillary Spector, has been really great and, well, challenging. It’s NYC and we all have such packed schedules, so rehearsals were very limited. Bill did the first incarnation of the show this past December, so we had a context for the material. All of us come from such different backgrounds, stylistically and aesthetically. Bill’s a full-on kick-ass rock ‘n’ roll drummer but is incredibly sensitive to the emotional arc of the whole show and really provides a backbone to it. Lance comes from a more traditional cabaret background and has been valiant in dealing with much of the song selection, which required him to play by ear and make huge jumps between different styles of music and get them to flow together. Hillary and I come from the theater world. It’s quite the mix. So we had to find, and quickly, where those worlds intersected. I think those differing perspectives serve the show really well. Like with any show, you create your own language. Thankfully, the audience really could understand and connect deeply with our vernacular.

twi-ny: Your show deals with various aspects of loneliness. How do you think being lonely in New York City compares to loneliness in other places?

Raquel Cion explores loneliness in nontraditional cabaret show at Dixon Place (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Raquel Cion: Hmmm . . . I’ve lived some other places and uh, yeah, I think being lonely in NYC is different. Though loneliness is universal, no one is immune. But there is something about feeling lonely in New York that has its own particular flavor. Sometimes it feels like an everlasting gobstopper in how it can change flavor and how you gotta just suck it (up). We’re constantly in relationship with others, be they familiar or not. We’re so thrown together, and each one of us has such drive, be it personal, professional, or, hell, just getting on the train. The constant information of “others” for me can increase that feeling of loneliness. It’s perhaps that compare/despair thing that the twelve steppers speak of, that wanting that our wonderful but sometimes overwhelming city can set up for us or bring out in us. And it’s particular, what we want. Strangely enough, even though I have been wrestling big-time with these feelings of loneliness, I am fierce about getting time to be alone. I think that’s a New York thing, too. Carving out our particular world within the worlds of this city and, well, finding who can inhabit that world intimately with us isn’t the easiest thing to do, especially as one gets older. I don’t mean to sound trite, but I don’t think I’m alone in this.

twi-ny: You sometimes perform under your real name, Raquel Cion, and other times as your alter ego, Cou-Cou Bijoux. What are the differences between the two?

Raquel Cion: When I speak of Cou-Cou Bijoux it’s like she is her own person. She feels that way. To backtrack a bit, I’ve always loved to sing but was mostly an apartment singer. Yeah, it encompassed much more than the shower. Cou-Cou Bijoux was created with Katherine Valentine for her show The Va Va Voom Room. Coming as I said before from a theatrical background, singing from a character was much easier and got me singing in front of people. Which due to some horrible posttraumatic-college-voice-class-syndrome hadn’t happened in a long while. Cou-Cou was that character that let me be a singer because she is a singer and, well, she’s also a hot mess, so as she would say in her French accent, “everything is possible.”

So singing as myself has been a process, one that is still revealing itself to me in beautiful and unexpected ways. I still approach song from an acting perspective; that’s where it translates to me. Telling the story. Connecting emotionally. Singing as me is still a bit terrifying but incredibly satisfying. When I was in the process of creating this show and was flipping out about its structure, etc., a friend of mine said, “Why don’t you ask Cou-Cou about it? She knows how to put a show together.” Okay, now I just sound schizophrenic.

twi-ny: Although you refer to the show as “An Evening of Cabaret,” it has a decidedly rock-and-roll aesthetic, with cover versions of songs by David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Tom Waits, and Prince, among others. What do those artists bring to the loneliness table?

Raquel Cion: Damn, you found me out! Yeah, it’s not a traditional cabaret. I don’t know if I’d know how to do that, actually. I’m a ridiculously huge Bowie fan. His voice, his music, his presence in the world — see, told you — just immediately comfort me on such a deep level. So, when I’m feeling lonely or pretty much any feeling, Bowie both sends me and grounds me. In terms of that “no one is immune from loneliness” thing that I mentioned, all these great songwriters are able to sink down into those feelings and we go with them. When choosing songs for the show, they broke down into a few categories for me: those songs that present a vision of happily ever after, those songs that drive you deeper into loneliness, and the songs where there’s an equanimity in regard to the very human experience of loneliness. The songs actually encompass a few styles; there’s pop, rock, R&B, punk/wave, country, and a show tune, to name a few. They’re some of the songs I love and turn to when I’m feeling lonely. I’m very moved by the quality of singers’ voices. I’m also a sucker for melody and a good modulation. If I connect to the sound of someone’s voice, that’s pretty much it for me; I’m in and in for life.

twi-ny: Who are some of the other artists that have influenced you?

Raquel Cion: Wow, there are so many influences. Did I mention Bowie? (Tee hee.) Seriously, the list is endless and can go from things like Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam to Vladimir Nabokov. I’m a bit of a magpie.

twi-ny: Is it possible to be covered in more glitter than you were last Friday night?

Raquel Cion: As I said, I’m a bit of a magpie. I love sparkly things! But to answer your question, yes, yes, yes! There can always be more glitter. Just ask a Dazzle Dancer.

TWI-NY TALK: JACK FERVER

Jack Ferver’s latest show, TWO ALIKE, examines the plight of abused queer youth (photo by RicOrnel Productions)

JACK FERVER & MARC SWANSON: TWO ALIKE
The Kitchen
512 West 19th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
May 17-19, $15, 8:00
212-255-5793 ext11
www.thekitchen.org
jackferver.org

“Jack’s an extremely, if obsessively, dedicated creator,” says composer and sound artist Roarke Menzies of dancer, writer, and choreographer Jack Ferver. “There’s an exacting quality to what he makes.” In such works as Rumble Ghost, A Movie Star Needs a Movie, Swann!!!, and I Am Trying to Hear Myself, the New York City-based Ferver has explored obsession, gender and sexuality, the cult of celebrity, the American dream, and the creative process itself through an inspired mix of text, music, movement, and humor. His latest piece, Two Alike, a collaboration with visual artist Marc Swanson that features an electronic score by Menzies, is a solo performance that examines abused queer youth from the perspective of both a child and an adult. Originally a copresentation of the nonprofit DiverseWorks Art Space and the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston, Two Alike is now being presented at the Kitchen May 17-19. We corresponded with the amiable and personable Ferver shortly after meeting him at New York Live Arts, where he was seeing his friend John Jasperse’s Fort Blossom revisited 2000/2012.

twi-ny: Two Alike arrives at a time when the abuse of queer youth and bullying in general is front and center in the news. How did the show come about?

Jack Ferver: Marc and I met in 2008 and he saw some of my work (he has pretty much seen all of it by now) and told me he loved it and I did a studio visit and fell in love with his work. It opened a dialogue for us about how we make our work, why we make our work. Of course, that question led back to our childhoods, which seemed to be the best first collaboration. As I worked on the piece, however, the lonely quality of being in a room by myself for hours every day brought up all those early fantasy acts from a very isolated childhood. I was intensely abused by my peers growing up and it was lonely and terrifying. I created worlds by myself to escape and/or confront what was happening to me. And so that early quality of “play” came up and out as I worked on the solo. It was organic and honest and indeed does come at a good time for me to say something about this issue that I feel strongly about as an artist.

twi-ny: At NYLA last week, we spoke briefly about the It Gets Better Project and the responsibility LGBT adults have to LGBT youth. What do you see as the critical issues in that dynamic?

Jack Ferver: What I was talking about was hope, and when you get to have it. Children get to have hope. I had to believe there was somewhere better I would get to when I was a child. I wouldn’t have survived if I didn’t have that. However, I don’t believe in hope as an adult. Adults need to be in reality. Children are killing themselves as a result of ignorance and hatred. Adults who have suffered as children may not be doing so well themselves. That’s the reality. As adults we are responsible, so what are we going to do about it?

Ferver collaborated with visual artist Marc Swanson on TWO ALIKE (photo by Marc Swanson)

twi-ny: We were at NYLA to see John Jasperse’s remarkable restaging of Fort Blossom. Both of you regularly challenge audiences in the way you explore issues of gender identity and sexuality. Would you agree?

Jack Ferver: I can see that. I donʼt function in categorical thought. Martha Graham (my dance mom) quotes Empedocles in [her autobiography] Blood Memory: “For I have been, ere now, a boy and a girl, a bush, a bird, a dumb fish in the sea.” Artists are the stomachs of society. We digest the indigestible. That means we explore all terrains. Gender and sexuality roles are assigned or taken in hopes of a sense of self, as a branch of the ego. And the ego begins with “Me, not me.” As an artist I make my work so that people donʼt feel as lonely as I have felt. Therefore my work expands into something more akin to “I am you.”

twi-ny: You have a wickedly delicious sense of humor. Where does that come from?

Jack Ferver: My mother.

twi-ny: You have playfully skewered such popular films as Poltergeist, Notes on a Scandal, and Black Swan. Do you have plans to take on any other movies or pop-culture icons?

Jack Ferver: Actually, I leave a few days after closing Two Alike for the MANCC residency to start work on All of a Sudden, which I am creating with my dramaturg/associate director Joshua Lubin-Levy. It is loosely inspired by Tennessee Williamsʼs Suddenly Last Summer and explores the similarities between the artist/dramaturg and the patient/therapist relationship. It will go up in 2013 at Abrons Arts Center. Of course, it was a play before the film, but having played Cleopatra this past year [in Me, Michelle], I feel I am being haunted by Liz in some way.