Life is a cabaret

The Dolls, the Rudds, d’Elf, and more shake it up this fall
By JONATHAN PERRY  |  September 13, 2006

060915_dolls_main
ONION PEELERS: A DVD shoot, a run at ART, and lots of touring are on the Dresden Dolls’ fall dance card.
The DRESDEN DOLLS, the Boston duo of singer/pianist Amanda Palmer and drummer Brian Viglione, have been crazy busy since the release, earlier this year, of Yes, Virginia (Roadrunner), and their autumn itinerary ensures they’ll be applying the pancake make-up well into winter. The Dolls’ current tours of Japan, Australia, and New Zealand carry into October, and they’re scheduled to swing stateside for a three-week tour in late October (no Boston dates are planned) with the Australian outfit the Red Paintings. Then it’s back to Europe for a two-day concert DVD shoot at the renovated London Roundhouse November 3 and 4 before returning home.

“Two days later, we start intensive rehearsals with ART [American Repertory Theatre] for The Onion Cellar,” Palmer says via e-mail en route to the Monsters of Spex Festival in Cologne, Germany. Although she calls The Onion Cellar a working title, lots of onions and the peeling of them, will indeed be involved. She describes it as “a workshop fictional cabaret that will run for 40 shows in December and January [December 9–January 13 at Zero Arrow Theatre]. The band will be on stage for the entire show, and the whole thing promises to be quite the bizarre spectacle.”

The Dolls have also managed to make a video with Panic! At the Disco, salvaging what Palmer calls “a just-kill-me-now fucking tour debacle. Though the tour was a relative disaster and their fan base didn’t exactly ‘get’ us, as they say in the biz, we loved the boys, and the two bands made a video to our song, ‘Backstabber,’ that features the Dresden Dolls and Panic! At the Disco trying to off each other in clever ways. It’s hilarious.”

Live a Little, the sixth full-length from the PERNICE BROTHERS, is due October 3 on the band’s Ashmont Records. Look for a fall/winter tour. ABERDEEN CITY hit the road this month for two months with Electric Six to celebrate the Dovecoat/Red Ink re-release of The Freezing Atlantic. They play the Middle East downstairs September 19.

The RUDDS aim for a late fall release of their follow-up to last year’s self-released Get the Femuline Hang On. The garage-soul outfit’s third album, tentatively titled Shakoo, is again being produced by frontman John Powhida and former Papas Fritas/current Rudds member Tony Goddess at the latter’s Bang-A-Sound studio in Gloucester. Word from Powhida is that the new material will include “rap, jazz standardesque tear-jerkers, rockabilly, soul rave-ups, jazz fusion, disco, hard rock.”

Push Stars frontman CHRIS TRAPPER is readying his third solo CD for late September on his own Starlit Records. Trapper recorded with producer Brad Young, who worked with him on last year’s self-released Gone Again, a collaboration with the Wolverine Jazz band. The Push Stars back Trapper on five tracks here; other guests include Newfoundland pop outfit Great Big Sea and the Cuban band Sonando. Trapper tours in support of the disc starting in late September.

1  |  2  |  3  |   next >
  Topics: New England Music News , Alternative and Indie Rock, John Medeski, Jim Diamond,  More more >
| More


Most Popular
More Information
ARTICLES BY JONATHAN PERRY
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   KEEPING IT CLEAN  |  February 05, 2008
    David Kilgour likes to claim he’s not a very driven fellow. At least not anymore.
  •   COVER STORY  |  August 29, 2007
    To any true vinyl obsessive, a rare musical artifact — and the story behind it — is often as compelling as the sound in its grooves.

 See all articles by: JONATHAN PERRY