Jade Nouvelle-Orleans Review 30 March 2009

Jade Liquers Absinthe has had a near mythical status over the past 10 years.  Literally meeting the oft-imagined archetype of mad scientists retro-engineering original absinthe with modern technology, the Jade portfolio of absinthe has had a very difficult birth.  Through government stalling, fluctuating business relationships,  frequent beating of the piñata of popular absinthe myth - the drinks affectionately known to many as Breaux’s Brews (after Jade’s founder Ted Breaux, scientist, absintheur and chiselled Val Kilmer look-alike) is subject of a tale I’m sure that will be told by a skillful raconteur still to come.  Unfortunately many of us involved in the proto-revival are not at an arms-length to the Jade story.  Many were recipients of early clandestine versions, some were avid supporters, some hardened critics.

Even fellow editor Mr Maxwell and myself were subjected to hours of consuming an early version of Jade in a steamy Bangkok summer at the infamous ‘Chateau Jade’ where some early distillation development occurred by the proprietor - but I assure you dear reader that we were there for the good company, Thai food and absinthe, not the dominatrixes in cat suits.  (But they certainly helped the atmosphere of decadence).

That brings me to the actual tasting of Nouvelle-Orleans….

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Adelaide Fringe Review - Shakti: Classical Hindu Temple Dancing, 21 March 09

Our closing review for the Adelaide Fringe (and what a festival it has been - kudo’s to all the hardworking organisers), touches on many diverse points, and for me sums up something of what the Fringe is about.

Shakti is a bit of an enigma.

Of combined Indian and Japanese heritage, this dancer represents a fierce alchemical polarity, the yub-yum if you will.  Her performance of Classical Hindu Temple Dancing represents one extreme balanced against another perfomance of hers in the Fringe, an adaption of Oscar Wilde’s play on Judean Princess, Salome, (a performance of which I am now kicking myself over for not seeing).  The latter performance, Salome, projects raw sensuality, human, physically manifested in an earthly domain, grounded.

The Hindu Temple Dance however wears a more conservative veil, seemingly more restrained.  However the energies invoked are in fact no different, no less potent and transformative, just channelled differently - the key difference is that these dances were originally were reserved for the Gods themselves.  There are striking parallels to traditions such as Vodou where there is a saying “You are not praying if you are not moving your feet”.

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Die Roten Punkte - Adelaide Fringe, Bosco Theatre, 17 March 2009

Have you ever wanted to think the worst of the White Stripes in a dirty Perez Hilton sort of way?

Now you can get your chance by indulging in the eurotrash high-jinks of Die Roten Punkte (which actually translates as the Red Dots – geddit?!? – and not a homage to John Lydon as you might badly translate if you only know your German from repeats of Hogan’s Heroes or reading subtitles of Inspector Rex).

This show is ultimately about therapy.  Certainly for our brother and sister act, Otto and Astrid, who through the therapeutic powers of drum and power chord written songs come to grips with family tragedy, alcoholism and suppressed incestory tendencies.  But maybe therapy for myself also, causing one to reflect upon ones younger formative musical years?

Our protagonists explore the fringes of straight edge and old school punk, Nick Cave-ish poetic indulgence, EBM/Eurosynthpop and yea verily, Bavarian beer hall songs.  I have to admit a guilty familiarity to the various musical phases one passes in one’s ‘yoof’, and scarily so I seemed to identify with the show with more irony then should probably be permitted.

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Adelaide Fringe Review - CW Stoneking @ The Spiegeltent, 15 March 2009

Society loves a personality that is seemingly bigger than the frame in which it is carried  – individuals with a specifically tailored functional reality that invites a response from peers and public.  They are not necessary fictional, but rather an amplification of select traits of real individuals, and executed such that the character is self-sustaining and independent. They truly have a life of their own.

This is of course nothing new.  Artists and intellectuals have been indulging in literary creations as living breathing expressions of the Self for centuries  - authors such as Giacomo Casanova being an adept at exaggerating his own adventures, and his character being all the richer for it. But how many of them can truly use Casanovas reflective self-epitaph “I have lived”?

The personality under scrutiny tonight is Mr CW Stoneking, the son of noted playwright and poet Billy Marshall Stoneking.  If there are any inherited sins of the father, then it is the ability to tell a tale or two.  His songs are back stories. A musical biography.  Ship wrecks off the coast of West Africa, apprenticeships to Hoodoo root doctors in New Orleans, the life experiences of this Warrnambool warbler are the foundation for his style of Hokum Blues.  While Hokum is an oft used a synonym for fabrication – his voice and style are real, and by extension, CW Stoneking the Bluesman is real.

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Serpent Dancer - Nexus Cabaret, Adelaide Fringe - 12 March 2009

Fringe shows can sometimes be a bit of a risk – the event can be a prelude for an artist to test material before polishing a show to the standards that might be demanded from a performance that was less of a showcase affair.

With that in mind I’ve agonised a bit over the following review of Serpent Dancer, in that I see it as a performance with real potential and some flashes of creative cleverness.  And while the mistress in the main, Flavella L’Amour, delivers as the sensuous siren with serpentine companions around her neck – I almost felt she had an albatross also hanging there, dragging the performance down.

Cyclone Flavella hits the mainland

My opinions have been tempered by the thoughts of a companion with a background in lighting and production who accompanied me to this performance.  He had some takes on the performance that escaped me initially, and on reflection those observations are quite valid and worth including.

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Adelaide Fringe Event Review - 7 March 09

Do Tibetans experience death any differently to the rest of us?

Short of dying somewhere on the Asian continent at the hand (or should that be hooves?) of a rabid Yak, it is perhaps somewhat easier to ponder these questions through a profound dance/theatre performance of the key Tibetan work known (perhaps erroneously) in the West as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, more accurately named Bardo Todel - Profound Dharma of Self-liberation through the Intention of the Peaceful and Wrathful Ones.

Our psychopomp in this exploration as part of the Adelaide Fringe is Sun Li Tsuei and her ShangOrientheatre company.  Originally from the provinces of Qing Hai and He Nan in China, she emigrated to Taiwan and studied Tai Chi, Chi Gong and meditation.  In the early 80’s she traveled to Europe and studied mime under the master, Marcel Marceau, and also worked with master of physical theatre, Jacque Lecoq.

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Musicians can come in two particular flavours.

There are recording artists who perform. And performers who also record. The ability to truly entertain can often be more the domain of the latter, and sometimes sadly lacking in the former. Thank god Amanda (Fucking MacKinnon) Palmer is the consummate performer.

But before I degenerate into an overt ramble on her performance last night at the Governer Hindmarsh in Adelaide, I want to pay particular praise - and raise awareness- to her “opening act”, a key member of her touring troupe, the ubiquitous Zoe Keating. One time member of cello-rock ensemble Rasputina, also ex- of psychadelic instrumentalists Tarentel, and accomplished performer in her own right, Ms Keating set the tone and musically dictated the prelude to the evening’s convivialities.

Zoe Keating and her amazing loop’n'thing’o’strings

Wielding a cello and a bank of sampling/looping pedals, she folds layer upon layer of neo-baroque sentimentality, electro-experimentalist sensibility and improvisational inspiration.  Within 10 minutes of her performance I left temporarily to go back to the merchandise desk to buy her album One Cello X 16: Natoma.  I don’t think I have done that before with any artist.

Pour one absinthe, press play on your multi-media interface of choice, and listen. Seriously.

Back to Ms Palmer, freshly resurrected and back out of hell, following her many little deaths at the hands of Neil Gaiman.

The demonically divine Ms Palmer and her cenobite minions

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