The Classical
It all started when I won a first press of DOA's The Prisoner 45 on eBay, (first press distinguished as a rubber stamped "D.O.A" in red on a black and white sleeve, versus the printed letters on the later pressings). Happily, I discovered that said seller lived in town. Too cheap to pay postage, I emailed the guy and asked how we might hook up. Long story short, seller was none other than one Dave Ferguson famous/infamous owner of the CD Presents record label. Last time I'd met the guy was over ten years ago when my buddy Jim Brick and I had driven up from San Jose to his warehouse to buy copies of the AVENGERS LP jacket that had been intended for the GO label. CD Presents had gotten into some legal scuffle with GO and subsequently issued it with a different jacket altogether. But that's another story and another era. Currently, he is all about non-profit and his non-profit organization, IFUC (Institute For Unpopular Culture), has noble intentions: to fund the out there artists of this beautiful city.
In fact, Dave pointed out, he had this happening that he thought I should check out. He had had this concept of symphonic interpretations of punk and new wave songs. He had already gathered a few kindred groupings (in the "quartet" and "quintet" variety that you find in the hoity toity world of classical) who were working up their repertoires, and the happening, held at the Facility 3 art space in Potrero Hill, was where they'd make their debut.
After some tete a tete with cool artists (Margot Knight proved herself particularly interesting with a set of tripped out surrealistic photographs)and minds blown by Kerry Laitala's experimental films, the strains of strings bowed and tuned creaked their way into the aural landscape, which up to then consisted of the THE VILETONES being blared out of the monitors. A double taking moment to be sure.
While somewhat spottily rehearsed (which matched the punk ethos anyways), the first group, a string quartet named Q80, lurched into X's" We're Desperate". Lacking the staccato drum spasms of DJ Bonebrake, the arrangement was smoothed over as far as punk goes, but the shared Exene/Doe vocals were played out via the two violinists to satisfying effect. Next they tackled ENGLISH BEAT's "Rotating Heads", which translated pretty well, as surprisingly so did their MINOR THREAT's "It Follows", which took on a totally different vibe. The ferocious singleminded simplicity of the original was transformed into a complex multi-voiced think piece. My brain cells organized themselves into hydrogen atoms. They finished their brief set with THE PIXIES' "Dead", largely a failed experiment, and the B-52's "52 Girls".
John Gluck's arrangement of DEVO's "Uncontrollable Urge" was next up, performed by a half-dozen-membered wind ensemble. What made the original great, with Mothersbaugh's spastic and organic vocals ("Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!") as a counterpoint to the mechanized and repetitive backing instrumentation, was turned upside down. Gluck had the vocals sweetly played out by a lone piccolo, like an little bird flitting about in a meadow scene. Shocking.
Finally, the over the top antics of one Aaron Seeman stole the rest of the show. After a somewhat tepid arrangement of TELEVISION's "See No Evil", an unnamed string quartet was joined by Seeman, who also goes by the nom de plume "Duck Man Do", to do his arrangement of the DEAD KENNEDYS signature piece "California Uber Alles". While the instrumentation provided easy listening, Duck did a vocal performance that was a warble for warble spot-on Jello. As if that wasn't enough, he followed that with a solo accordion set, playing a bunch more DK tunes ("Kill The Poor", "Forward To Death", a totally killer version of "Drug Me") interspersed with bad 70's drivel (anyone remember Dan Hill's "Sometimes When We Touch" ?). Perhaps we'll see him next fronting a reformed DK's on their reunion tour and quest for renewed record sales. Thoroughly engaging stuff.
Ferguson hopes to coalesce these combos and eventually build a full fledged orchestra who will play all this sort of stuff. Bleed for me!
--Henry Yu --
Maximum Rock and Roll
