MORE PICS FROM THE DEVO SHOW IN CLIFTON SPRINGS

Dan shows a tongue full of offerings from the ziti table.

DEVO at Northern Lights in Clifton Park, New York

Devo still looks like Devo but they're much older now. Their planetary crash test dummy appearance - robotic, geeky and punk - has matured into a nostalgic grandfatherly warmth, as familiar and fascinating as your favorite sci-fi flick from childhood.



The Northern Lights rock and roll club in Clifton Park, New York, wedged in a suburban shopping plaza between a Family Dollar store and a new-fangled alternative church, served ziti, hot dogs and sausages from a small steam table in the same room Devo took the stage. Somehow, steamed ziti and Devo just don't mix well.



Still it seemed a fitting environment for the return of a band who look like they emerged from the bowels of a chemistry lab. For the record, the server was hot, the hot dog was not.



A curved wall-to-wall video backdrop, typical of Devo shows of the past, projected psychedelic spud boy drama as they opened with the fiery anti-gun plea, "Don't Shoot, I'm A Man", off the recently released SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY. Mark Mothersbaugh's electrifying synth keypad delivered a spine-tingling ride up and down the musical scale.



Devo marched through their recording career with, notably, several songs off their acclaimed debut from 1978, Q: ARE WE NOT MEN? A: WE ARE DEVO!. "Jocko Homo" spirited the crowd into a marketing dream come true vocal chant, ("We are Devo!"), and the punkish "Mongoloid" gave the hopping audience a dizzying dancing beat. "Uncontrollable Urge", a primitive lust for sex, was raw and beautiful.



"Peek-A-Boo!" from OH NO! IT'S DEVO was as comically evil if a bit more thunderous than ever, with a bass line so heavy and deep I thought my knee caps were going to pop out.



"Gates Of Steel" and "The Girl U Want" along with the title track from FREEDOM OF CHOICE, were perfectly rendered and welcome reminders of a cassette tape I literally wore out back in the day. Their ten minutes of mainstream fame, "Whip It", a chart-topping ode to masturbation, was performed, unlike the rest of the show, without distinction. It was handed to the crowd like a salesman's calling card.



Cover songs, The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and Johnny Rivers' "Secret Agent Man" seemed reborn again with the former sounding positively calypso and "Secret Agent Man" losing a paranoid edge to a wizened resigned maturity - "They've given me a number, and they've taken away my name". "So what, who cares", the song seemed to say.



Musically the band was tight and disciplined and the vocals were as freakishly nasal as ever. They can still hop in unison and play guitar at the same time, and Bob Mothersbuugh's (Mark's brother) lead guitar was fast and fluid. Special mention must be made of younger by comparison drummer Jeff Friedl who led the beat so ferociously you'd think he wrote the music himself.



Booji Boy, a decadent and delightful Devo persona in mask, resembling a walking, talking deformed Kewpie doll, made his obligatory appearance at show's end, interrupting finale "Beautiful World" with a "personal" story about an encounter with the late Michael Jackson. Apparently, Jackson too thought it was a beautiful world. Booji Boy nearly shook a tear from our eye.



They tossed plastic energy dome caps into the audience, ($30 a pop at the Devo marketing table), shook pom-poms like grotesque cheerleaders, ripped the anti-contaminant uniforms off each other, and threw the shredded clothing into the crowd. Gimme, gimme eBay souvenir! They then continued playing in their underwear which was decidedly Devo fashioned.



They saluted, marched, hopped, and pranced all over the stage. There is little doubt these guys are eating their Wheaties. But mostly they rocked, as only a good mongoloid from planet Earth can.


This review was first published by the author at blogcritics.org

Todd Rundgren at The Tralf, July 16, 2010

A bartender in the crowded Tralf Music Hall where Todd Rundgren was moments away from taking the stage explained the sweltering heat in the building by saying the sun bakes through the unfortunately placed windows all day making it difficult for the AC to chill the room at night.

Right. Or maybe money dictates the level of that cooler. Baby, it was hot in there.

On stage, Rundgren joked about the warm, heavy air while dousing the sweat off his face with a towel as he and his band delivered a nearly 2-hour blistering guitar led set of blues-great Robert Johnson covers and rock-great Tundgren classics. We were treated to a bright and sunny "I Saw The Light" at show's end.

There were times when the four piece band, infused deeply in the breath of supreme guitar instrumental heaven, sounded as accomplished and tight as any live rock music I have heard in my lifetime. I know Rundgren is a great songwriter, producer and singer. I had forgotten he is also a great guitarist.

I swear, the next time I intend to tell the world how I felt about a Todd Rundgren show, via online review, I will take notes. On this hot summer night, I was too busy dancing and drinking warm beer to offer a comprehensive account of the evening. Is this a German import or a Bud Light?

I can tell you this - Rundgren cooled a hot room. And then sizzled it. "Soul Brother" was particularly soooooo fine!

Theatre Review: YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, The Chautauqua Theatre Company

The Chautauqua Theatre Company, on the grounds of the historic gated community of The Chautauqua Institution, best described as an intellectual amusement park, with lecture halls. libraries and an opera house, opened its 2010 theatre season on July 15 with the 1936 Pulitzer Prize winning YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, by George S. Kaufman and Moses Hart.

It's a madcap comedy featuring on-stage explosions that startled several of the opening night audience, ( I was counting the fire exits after the first firecracker went off ), and a frenzied police raid interrupting the general domestic mayhem occurring in the living room of the eccentric Sycamore family, a group of New York City oddballs who defy conventions of society and march to the beat of a different drum, or as is the case here, xylophone.

The Sycamores are a family free of strife, politically independent with a healthy distrust of government that leans towards a moderate socialist stance, a fashionable notion in Depression-era 1936. The patriarch of the clan, Martin Vanderhoff ( veteran actor Stuart Margolin ), refuses to pay income tax (doesn't believe in it ), and their home serves as a halfway house for idle and earnest dreamers. They lull their active days away in urban utopia with fanciful endeavors.

Penelope Sycamore (Kristine Neilsen ) is a playwright of eleven apparently unpublished plays boasting thematic titles like The War Play, The Religious Play, and The Sex Play. She became a playwright only because a typewriter was mistakenly delivered to the door. We are never certain of her play-writing abilities and she soon returns to another passion - painting Olympic decathlon discus throwers.

Her husband Paul ( Michael Bradford Sullivan ) wants nothing more than to perfect recreational fireworks, hence the explosions and billowing smoke coming from the basement door. Son-in-law Ed ( Brendan Titley ) plays classical compositions on xylophone when he is not accidentally publishing anti-government propaganda on his living room printing press. His wife Essie (Julia Ogilvie ) struggles valiantly to be a ballerina, with eight years lessons under her belt she leaps and bounds across the stage with all the grace of a balled and chained kangaroo. They are a decidedly wacky bunch.

The centerpiece of the elaborate and gorgeous living room set design by Lee Savage, is an aquatic tank of pet snakes. The snakes serve as a springboard for several sight gags.

Conflict arises when the normal and lovely daughter Alice ( Rachel Mewbron ), the oddball Munster, becomes engaged to her upper-class and wealthy boss, Tony Kirby ( Charlie Thurston ) whose family tree is as far away from the Sycamores as an oak is to a chia pet. The young couple arrange for the in-laws to meet at a dinner at the Sycamore home.

As situation comedy will dictate, the stuffy Wall Street devoted in-laws, in full dinner dress, arrive at the Sycamore home on the wrong night. For the Sycamores it's just another evening at home with bombs exploding and assorted lunatics running amok. It's a beautifully executed scene of comedic timing.

Overwhelmingly, the production is a jewel, helped mightily by Kristine Nielsen's delightfully zany portrayal of Penelope Sycamore, a character that hints at a genuine bipolar disorder when delivered by lesser actresses. Nielsen projects a joy for life with a scatterbrained, hurried pace and delivery as if she expects to uncover an escaped snake at every turn. She remains accessibly sane within the framework of her nuttiness and lays the groundwork for the over-the-top lunacy around her.

I loved Julia Ogilvie's bizarre attempts at ballet throughout the play. She spends most of her time high on tippy toes and flutters in and out the door like a confused but trained gust of wind. She is a constant comedic marvel and is clearly disguising an expert dance talent.

Carol Halstead, in the dual role of Mrs. Kirby and the visiting Russian countess, Olga, is superb as the stone-faced Kirby, and exceptionally so as the exiled countess. Her thick exaggerated yet perfect Russian accent is a tickle to the ear and her towering slighted persona as the once Russian royal forced to work for tips in a New York City restaurant, crowns this already colorful production in the third act.

Opening night jitters were apparent. There was a few jumped and dropped lines and the recovery was none too swift. A tall standing floor lamp fell over and members of the ensemble nearly halted proceedings to re-erect it, as if they were emergency responders to the fallen lamp. There was a tendency from the actors to project boldly into the audience as if attempting to engage us further. Need they be told their chemistry is engaging enough?

I don't know why YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1936. It's highly entertaining but still an elaborate bit of fluff. The lazy anti-government platform must have spoken clearly to the Depression-era audience who made it a colossal hit on Broadway. Today, in the care of this ensemble, it's a testament to the staying power of a tight and funny script. It's a rollicking night of good theater.

YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU plays through July 25 at The Chautauqua Institution in beautiful Chautauqua, New York.

this review was first published at blogcritics.org.

Music Review: Devo, SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY

Question: Are we not an '80s novelty act performing "Whip It" to die-hard fans on an endless reunion tour through Europe, Japan and Australia?

Answer: We are middle-aged Devo!

SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY, Devo's first studio album in twenty years is sure to darken the pupils of seriously affected de-evolution believers. Although every song seems a commercially infused variation on their big 1980 hit, "Whip It" the album offers enough sonic retardation - wobbling sheets of aluminum, computer sound glitches, spud boy yelping - to satisfy even the casual devotee. A strict adherence to '80s new wave - lots of synth keyboard and mechanic-like percussion - gives the album an impossibly organic sound like we never left the decade.



"Later Is Now" borrows the opening bars of The Who's "Baba O'Reilly" and gently steers into a Talk Talk melody that recalls the best of '80s radio. "Siren Ready" offers an adrenalin charged vocal track that sounds like a competitive driver weaving through traffic in downtown Afghanistan. "What We Do" has a guitar grind over a dopey, middle-aged view on mortality, ("eenie, meenie, minee, mo"), and "Sumthin'" is an addictive foot-to-the-pedal rocker with shaking wobbling aluminum presenting the state of democracy as a gilded jewel offering "something for everybody".


Often these songs are quickly digested and short on mental afterglow although the catchy rhythms of "Later Is Now" and "Sumthin'" have found a permanent home in my melody maker mind. You won't be chanting the moronic and militant "Jocko Homo" from their first album anytime soon again or pondering the state of de-evolution as a feasible scientific philosophy as these songs serve mostly as short punchy radio anthems.

Blame the commercial art of it on the tracks being voted for inclusion to the album by fans at the Club Devo internet site where a more radical song like "Signal Ready" didn't make the final cut. Devo remedied the situation by releasing three versions of the album - Standard Version, Song Study Version, and Deluxe Version - with different sequencing and exclusive tracks on each. A vinyl edition is due in July.

Devo have always been best considered an intellectual joke not to be taken too seriously and never to be dismissed as a passing novelty despite the anti-contaminant body suits, energy dome caps and a week's duty as co-hosts of "The Mike Douglas Show" in the early '80s, (John Lennon they are not). Their debut album from 1978, the Brian Eno produced Q: ARE WE NOT MEN? A: WE ARE DEVO! is a slaughterhouse pop masterpiece and remains one of new wave's finest moments. Since then their albums have been hit or miss and SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY mostly hits like a tireless energy bunny.

Theatre Review: I AM HAMLET, at the Subversive Theatre Collective

I AM HAMLET is part rock opera, part puppet theatre, and part cinema, yet it's still a staged working of Shakespeare's "Hamlet", as told by a jester. In this production, the Danish prince, suspecting his mother and stepfather of murder, struts to a nearby standing microphone and belts out a rock music song just about the time he'd be delivering an anguished soliloquy in a more traditional production.

His unfortunate fiance, Ophelia, clutches flowers and skips merrily across the stage, (picture Porky Pig's girlfriend Petunia at her most coy), and belts out her own righteous babe song as if in answer to Meatloaf's "Paradise By The Dashboard Lights", while gleefully shaking her tush in the direction of her forlorn lover.

Meanwhile, Hamlet's father's ghost appears, cued by spooky sound effects, dressed as if he assaulted the wardrobe rack at a Japanese Noh theatre production, and lip-speaks to a heavily produced taped recording. This bit goes on for some time. Derroch and Dan Death, the gravediggers, are tacky Halloween hand puppets animated by the only actor on stage. This is "Hamlet" performed by a single actor.

It may be true that the word, "ham", an actor who steals the spotlight, is derived from the play's title. In I AM HAMLET we watch an actor's subconscious anxiety while playing the role manipulate every aspect of the play, reducing all around him to insignificance.

Ophelia's father, Polonius, wearing a rubbery grotesque mask, has never before seemed such a genuinely funny character. The once martyred and righteous player is now a buffoon, and his death scene is a hilarious comedy only altered from the traditional play by a funny face.

Ophelia is no longer the delicate flower overpowered with depression, but a dumb blond who jumps into the river to allow Hamlet more freedom on the stage. The ghost, maybe Shakespeare's most towering character, looks as though he could be hosting a third rate children's television show on local TV. Only the Ham himself manages to gnaw the woodwork of earnest and limited acting. He's succeeded in eliminating everyone else from the stage.

The production is not simply played for laughs, although it certainly isn't serious Shakespeare either. Actor/performer Brian Morey and director Joe Siracusa have given us "Hamlet" splattered with a vaudevillian pop art. It may touch upon the profound but cerebral merit is soon swept away by the fine but sparse Broadway-like original music, (picture a small scale Shakespearean "Rent"), sung most exceptionally by Morey, and the sheer audacity of this foolish man delivering "Hamlet" as though his life depended on it.

If it does have meaning it may lie in the dead skull of the jester Yorick, ("Alas, poor Yorick"), who in this production should be grinning like a crazed jack-o-lantern. Morey glides through each scene with a magician's sleight of hand, creating a natural rhythm that eludes the absence of actors on the stage.

His King Claudius is a little heavy on the Peter O'Toole, and the production's "play within a play" jarringly projected on a movie screen and a bit long in the tooth, is such an abrupt change of circus rings you half expect a hot dog vendor to come hawking through the aisle. Still, this first-rate joke is a whole lot better than second rate Shakespeare.

I AM HAMLET plays at the Subversive Theatre Collective at The Manny Fried Playhouse, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays through June 5 in Buffalo, New York.

Music Review: Peter Frampton, THANK YOU MR. CHURCHILL

You want to party like it's 1976? Peter Frampton's new album, THANK YOU MR. CHURCHILL, has enough guitar riffs and musical hooks to rival the pleasures of his celebrated FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE album, still the fourth biggest selling live album in America. While CHURCHILL offers a more rocking COMES ALIVE vibe, it doesn't sound like yesterday's clunky 8-track and there's not a talking box to be heard. It's a breezy bit of serious rock and roll in the classic rock vein that fits nicely among the sons of grunge and teeny-bopper kiddie cocktail music that fills today's radio.

Not that you can expect to hear any of it on the radio even as "Invisible Man" from the album is currently the number six single on the classic rock best sellers list, (it takes a satellite radio connection to realize such a list even exists). It's a catchy Motown inspired rocker, think The Four Tops not so much The Temptations, that may lay evidence to what I've always suspected: Frampton is an unaccredited session player on scores of hit records - "I'm pulling the strings in the shadows behind the scenes. I'm keeping the beat, before you know it you'll be on your feet dancing in the street.", he sings invoking the pleasant beat of Smoky Robinson's "Tears Of A Clown".

It's a tight rocker but not as efficient a hit single as the cutesy titled "I'm Due A You", with a 'do-what-you-do-wah-do' lyrical atmosphere underscored by a foreboding darkness with happily infectious guitar riffs. Steely Dan at their most paranoid contemplative moments come to mind - "emotionally overdrawn, the check's in the mail, something is creeping across the lawn, my stalker's out of jail.".

While the title track seems an impersonal and clumsy sentiment, (Frampton claims he is thanking Churchill for ending WWII so his father can return and impregnate his mother, so he may be born, he may as well be thanking the milk man), "Vaudeville Nanna and The Banjole" is a soft spoken reminiscence of his first affair with a crude stringed instrument, a memory that serves as a nuclei to his life, longing for "guitars behind glass that I wanted to play". The seven minutes plus instrumental, "Suite Liberte" combines surf rock lullaby with blues guitar licks in a simple elegant invitation to every fledgling guitarist to pick up your guitar and play along.

Elsewhere the album rides a wave of competent rockers featuring Frampton's fiery and jagged playing, ("Road To The Sun" especially rocks), and testimonial ballads that find him an ever maturing lyricist forever embedded in rock culture.

Peter Frampton, legendary 16 year old guitar player of beloved British blues rock band Humble Pie, proven songwriter and hit maker, seasoned musician and sudden overnight sensation, time weary traveler of the humble concert trail, Grammy award winning composer of the 2007 rock instrumental, FINGERPRINTS, is still punching the clock of the music we love that is rock and roll. So who do you got to blow away on guitar to be inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

in reference to: Music Review: Peter Frampton - Thank You Mr. Churchill - Page 2 - Blogcritics Music (view on Google Sidewiki)