Being the high priest of goth rock, it would be safe to assume that Peter Murphy would be a dour chap.
As the vocalist and centerpiece of Bauhaus, perhaps the only alt-wave-goth band that ever mattered, Murphy unwittingly opened an avenue of rock and roll that has since morphed into industrial, New Wave, no wave, modern art rock, dub step, grunge and that opaque umbrella label, "alternative." Murphy and his band became the vortex of a whole new movement, musical as well as artistic (face it, Anne Rice's eternal vampire hero Lestat only makes sense with a Bauhaus soundtrack) quite by accident; school chum Daniel Ash insisted Murphy front his new band because he thought he had the right look for the job.
That was in 1978. Since then, Bauhaus has broken up and reformed at least twice, had classic star-making exposure from their peers (their cameo at the beginning of Tony Scott's 1983 vampire shocker, The Hunger, performing "Bela Lugosi's Dead" at the behest of co-star David Bowie); reformed as million-selling rockers Love and Rockets (without Murphy); partnered with Trent Reznor and his band, Nine Inch Nails (Murphy for a duet of "Warm Leatherette"); converted to Islam (Murphy); had comeback hits ("The Sweetest Drop" and "Cuts You Up" for Murphy); turned up in Twilight: Eclipse (Murphy's cameo was as "the Cold One"); and toured and toured and toured. At this stage of the game the likelihood of another Bauhaus reunion is hardly likely and Murphy, before a sold-out room at Reggie's, was obviously having none of that.
What he was having was an awful lot of fun and it may have had everything to do with this being the last date of the "Dirty Dirt Tour," an appetizer for his soon to be released Ninth (Musicwerks Records) and an accompanying bigger tour for later this year. Or maybe, despite the goth pedigree and all the gloom that supposedly goes with it he's a jolly fellow after all. "I'm 53, I'm balding, and I have tits...," which didn't stop him from spinning like an elegant top during "Crystal Wrists," sounding positively otherworldly on "Burning From the Inside" and "Subway" and despite this being the end of this tour, sounding full throated and silken on "I'll Fall With Your Knife."
Granted, he didn't bother with theatrics on the level of his entrance to a Bauhaus reunion show at Coachella years ago where he was lowered onto the stage hanging upside down while singing "Bela Lugosi's Dead" but he didn't need to. This show seemed to be for the die hards and the fans who had followed him for decades. "A Strange Kind of Love," "She's In Parties," and "Silent Hedges" seemed to be aimed at them and they ate it up the entire night. On the way out of Reggie's when the sky suddenly opened up and doused everyone in a hard rain, an older lady next to me commented to her partner, "It just wasn't the same as back in the day..." Maybe she didn't think so, but tell that to the full-figured black lace and velvet wrapped couple who danced there asses off from the start of the show until the very end who stood next to me the whole night.
"Art is my religion. You don't see the head wraps anymore because I am the head wrap..."-Erykah Badu in an interview in Peach Magazine, May 2008
If you were one of the 3 million happy owners of Erykah Badu's first two albums, Baduism and Live (both 1997), who were put off by the eccentricities of the third CD, Mama's Gun (2000, all on Motown Records), can barely-just barely-be forgiven. After all, E.B. was hailed as the "Queen of Neo-Soul" with her debut, but that label was just so much flapdoodle. Admit it, "neo-soul" was a reclamation of straight-up soul music after disco, hip-hop, and rap swept it aside. What E.B. presented wasn't "neo" or new, but a wild-ass hybrid of unrestrained soul, scat, jazz, rap, funk and a blast of personality-often in a single song-while doing it very very well.
Call her eccentric as you scratch your head while simultaneously shaking your ass to her grooves, but that's the adventure of her. If you thought the woman had gone completely out of her motherfucking mind with her video for "Window Seat"-where she got naked in broad daylight while strolling through Dealey Plaza, the sight of JFK's assassination-well, you couldn't say you didn't expect something unexpected. Unlike, say, Madonna, Gaga, or Britney, whose "shocking" gestures seem to have been co-hatched by a PR rep, E.B. seems to be coming at us with sheer sincerity coupled with a high art attitude.
The reality is that no medium, be it video or audio, can contain what E.B. is about, and the only way to get the deluxe package is live on stage for a full evening. Her show at The Venue was the perfect showplace and this near SRO crowd, liberally sprinkled with faces of all races and lots (I mean lots) of same sex couples walking in hand in hand were ready and happy to take in that deluxe package.
This show was a king-sized freak-out, a full-scale deep groove fest where E.B. let loose and wallowed in her, uh, eccentricities. Eschewing an opening act (which was wise) she got right into her bag from the get-go and wouldn't let up. "20 Feet Tall," melded into "On and On," then morphed into "...& On," into "Bump It," into "Apple Tree," into "Soldier" into "Love Of My Life," into "Kiss Me On My Neck" while E.B. kept taking the groove deeper while going apeshit with that voice and hitting insane crescendos. This was hardly a concert but a free flowing barrage of vocal art, building into operatic climaxes, thundering overlapped choruses, and abrasive hard edged funk. Also, E.B., with all her giddy clowning, bottomless emotion, and unbridled joy-this is someone who clearly loves doing her job in front of an audience-dragged the whole house into her stuff. Can it get better than this? Doubt it...
If native Evanstonian Ezra Furman wasn't so brazenly adorable, it would be far too easy to take him as a joker. However, there he is on the back cover of his new Mysterious Power (Red Parlor Records), standing before his crack band the Harpoons, all of whom look expressionless and serious while Furman's wide eyes and slight eager smile bring to mind an earnest Puck or a restrained Easter bunny-or both. Most of the time it's hard to decide whether this guy is playing pranks with his lyrics (they often have a cumbersomeness like blocks being forced into round holes) while his melodies have a perfection that reeks of genius. Genius? Did I say that? Yeah, I did.
Furman, a singer/songwriter with a vocal timbre that cracks like eggshells and a presence like an open-hearted puppy, gives the idea of guitar strumming troubadours an entirely new dimension. Also, with the Harpoons behind him (Joe Makkada on bass, Adam Abrutyn on drums, and Adam Langer on guitar), at different turns brutal, snarling or playful a band as there's ever been, Furman on Mysterious Power turns into a beast. After touring off and on for the last year and moving back here to Ravenswood, Furman and his Harpoons have created a sprawling epic of genuine romance ("Don't Turn Your Back On Love," "Fall In Love With My World"), brutal near punk garage rock ("I Killed Myself but I Didn't Die," "Bloodsucking Whore"), and beguiling, perfect art pop ("Portrait of Maude," "Mysterious Power")-and, yes, Mysterious Power is high comedy in all the unexpected places.
"Bloodsucking Whore," despite the title's implication is an over-the-top valentine worthy of Francis Bacon, a proposition where Furman's Romeo will do anything, just anything to win his lady so he can be her, ehhhh, bloodsucking whore. "I'll sell my body to take you out to the movies Friday night!!!," he yelped and his tortured conviction is so strong that it's impossible to doubt him. "Teenage Wasteland" encapsulates the confusion, brio and rage of being just under legal age better than any anthem since Alice Cooper's "I'm Eighteen" ("I don't give a shit/I'm gonna self-destruct/I don't see a problem with it..."), while "Too Strung Out" is all knees, elbows and fists and resembles a sonic brawl. "Hard Time In A Terrible Land" weds the current economic crunch to the indifference of the Almighty and transforms the world wide cash meltdown into a lurching biblical epic. My favorites on the CD, "Mysterious Power" and "Portrait Of Maude," with their swooping guitar chords and dreamy lyrical imagery, reconfigure romantic love into metaphysics and autobiography.
None of this implies that Furman played it safe at his Subterranean gig in front of a sold-out hometown crowd. Quite the contrary. In fact, after a particularly spectacular opening set by the Apache Relay, a band who spilled off the stage with mic stands and lead singers flying into the audience, I wondered just how Furman was going to follow that up being that in all the times that I had seen him he was so nice and polite. Well, this was the night that that opinion changed and it's obvious that Evanston is where they grow 'em wild. Furman, looking scruffy and ragged with his weeks-old mohawk, managed to make "Mysterious Power" positively glow with fresh plutonium. "Hard Time In A Terrible Land," thanks to Furman's harsh harmonica wailing, was particularly brutal and brought to mind Dylan at his most incendiary.
While dedicating "Bloodsucking Whore" to "all those in the audience who are in unhealthy sexual relationships," Furman got the biggest laugh of the night when the whole room erupted and he retorted, "...that response is a bit disturbing." "Whore," of course, is when the night went off the rails, with the whole room not only joining in on the joke but throwing it right back at Furman with gusto. Then, there were the surprises: a searing take on Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City" that melded into Furman's "Take Off Your Sunglasses;" a savage attack through "Teenage Wasteland" where Furman's harmonica playing and his and Langer's duel guitar attack sounded like a wall of bagpipes on a rampage and the evening's closer; a sweaty, dripping wet, Furman-in his sock feet all alone onstage-singing "Wild Rosemarie," a ballad of such sincerity and simplicity that it made it hard to ask for anything more. No, I haven't gotten over this and I don't think I want to, either...
