Scream Blue gets Funky

My favorite Irish poets have put out a short album – Belfast Sun.

The titular song immediately puts you in the mood with its opening bars, which you know will reappear and you’ll be singing along with by the end. This number has a kind of late 60s, early 70s funk vibe, with a heavy bass carrying you along. In fact, they all do. Perhaps this should be heard in a dimly lit, smoky little underground joint where crowds lounge around on couches. And I mean this in a good way.

The other numbers are similarly evocative of images of the masses, whether its a kickback to the spoken word over music and a slower, more languid piece contemplating revolution and rising up (“Breaking the Back…”,) or in a soft melodic tone which seems like a love song, and in fact is in a way, if you don’t listen to the words like “you won’t beat me down…” in a sort of tribute to the power and influence (good and bad) of celebrity.(“Cassius”)

Finally, I was excited to hear “Don’t Fuck with Sonny” as it’s the one I picture with an audience up on its feet, beating along with the rhythm using their home made percussive instruments. This too has that heavy bass background, which really ties all these numbers together. It’s exciting to see the experimentation with new styles and forms. Not surprising. The minds that put this stuff together are rarely idle and often hungering towards their next subject.

For this album, as with any SBM work I find my self immediately swaying to the rhythm, and only then do I start to catch some of the words:

“I can’t stand the rain”

“beat that nigger down”

and perhaps a new favorite:

“I hear Smokey say ‘You won’t beat me down and you won’t make me sing: ‘Tears of a Clown’”

And, as with all SBM works – it makes contemplate my world and my neighbor. So if art makes you think, and music brings people together….I’d say this is quite a nice little package.

I want more, please.

http://screambluemurmur.bandcamp.com/album/belfast-sun

Fame and Hot Lunch

Late last night we caught a showing of the classic movie Fame on some cable station. I’m a sucker for this movie because it all feels too real. I can’t recall exactly when I first saw this movie, but it couldn’t have been too much longer after it had come out – maybe I saw it at some second or third run movie house. It came out in 1980, the year I turned 13. I was only beginning to dabble in performing arts, but because the soundtrack to this film became so popular and so well known, by the time I was on stage and eventually studying theatre I couldn’t help but feel invigorated and inspired by the songs, themes and storylines. Virtually all of the 1980s were my high school and college years, so any coming of age movie from that decade has a place in my heart, I guess.

The kids in this movie hardly look like kids, of course, and  in the beginning section of the movie when they’re auditioning for the performing arts high school I was taken back to my auditioning for college acting programs  (something I look back at and wonder how I managed to do it the way I did – it was awful, I think.) But these kids are so naive and wide eyed and hungry, you can’t help but root for them.

Their first day of their freshman year they’re told things like “acting is the hardest profession in the world”.

My first day of freshman year at college, at the beginning of our first acting class, my teacher said, “you’re going in to a profession that doesn’t need you, doesn’t want and from which you’ll never make a living. You’ll likely do more acting in the next four years than you’ll do professionally the rest of your life. So if you’re not sure you want to do this, you should leave now.” Of course, no one moved. (There were a little over a dozen students in that class; two of us graduated.)

Montgomery says to Ralph: “All anyone ever promised you was seven classes a day and a hot lunch. The rest is up to you.“

Right there, that’s truth. I was thinking what happened to these kids (in the movie)? Where did they end up? Might be an interesting sequel to find out, but  besides the fact that most sequels are disappointing, the destruction of dreams might be too depressing a topic.

Lee Breuer and his Gospel

Back in my undergrad days I was lucky enough to go to a school who brought in guest artists from around the country. It was a varied group of theatre artists, mostly directors and actors. Some of the names were bigger than others. A couple times the names were frankly huge. A few were demi-gods of contemporary theatre, one of which was Lee Breuer.

At the beginning of the semester when it was announced that he was to be our guest artist for a week I didn’t really know much about him. I had heard of Mabou Mines, the company he helped form, but I didn’t know enough to know who was who. The week he spent with us is all a blur. I think it was a blur back then too. Regularly scheduled acting, voice and movement classes were cancelled for the most part. All acting majors spent several hours a day in a workshop mode, doing monologues and scene study, discussions of theatre, character development, script development, etc. It was a smorgasbord of theatre geekdom.

About a year later, back home in Chicago, I got to see my first Breuer production:  Gospel At Colonus at The Goodman. I, of course, had to see it and it did not disappoint. Combining the classic Greek story with some modern touches and supporting the whole thing with gospel music then tossing into the cast the Blind Boys of Alabama, and it’s not surprising that every single person in the gorgeous theater were up on their feet during the last number as if it were some rock concert.

To this day it remains one of the top five theatrical experiences I’ve ever witnessed.

When I moved to Minneapolis many years ago I was intrigued to learn that one of the earliest productions of it had been done at the Guthrie. A friend purchased a poster from that production and gave it to me as a birthday gift. It hung on my wall for many years. (In fact, it was there until very recently when it was only taken down for remodeling.)

The other day I saw an online ad for the Ordway. Gospel at Colonus has been revived and will be in the Twin Cities again. Complete with the Blind Boys of Alabama.

I’ll be there.