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.
Bourbon Princess frontwoman MONIQUE ORTIZ releases her solo debut, Reclining Female, October 3 on her own Obskur Vudu label. The singer/bassist says it was recorded at home, “without the use of computers or fancy equipment, and with all instruments played by me.” Meanwhile, the C.O.3, Ortiz’s project with ex-Morphine/Twinemen saxophonist Dana Colley, are at work on an album at Hi-N-Dry studios. “It’s much louder, heavier and more raw than Bourbon Princess or Twinemen,” reports Ortiz. “It’s more stripped down, and nasty as hell.”
In other Hi-N-Dry news: mandolin whiz JIMMY RYAN, singer-songwriter royalty DENNIS BRENNAN, juke-joint blues noisemakers SCISSORMEN (led by Phoenix contributor Ted Drozdowski), and the shape-shifting roots collective SESSION AMERICANA all have albums due. Those from Ryan and Brennan will include both studio and live tracks. (The second half of Brennan’s two-disc package will be all live.) The Scissormen celebrate the release of When the Devil Calls . . . with an October 13 show at the Lizard Lounge. In a departure from his alt-country outfit, DAVID CHAMPAGNE (half of the wisecracking husband-wife roots duo the Heygoods) is releasing a download-only EP of indie-electronica pop through Hi-N-Dry.
MUCK & THE MIRES’ latest, 1-2-3-4, has been picked up for national release by the California-based Dionysus Records. They celebrate at the Abbey Lounge October 6 with RADIO KNIVES, who’ve also just been signed to Dionysus and are releasing Cursed, their debut CD, the same night. Both bands play Jake’s Bar in Providence October 7. The countrified chamber-pop outfit VINYL SKYWAY have finished sessions in San Francisco and are mixing their sophomore album for an October/November release.
Now I Understand, CLUB D’ELF’s debut studio album, is set for release this month on Accurate Records, and Mike “Micro” Rivard and company will play a CD-release show October 12 show at the Lizard Lounge. The disc includes contributions from John Medeski, Duke Levine, David Tronzo, and Reeves Gabrels. Beatings singer/guitarist ELDRIDGE RODRIGUEZ is aiming for a late-October/early-November release of his debut solo CD, This Conspiracy Against Us, on the band’s Midriff Records. The as-yet-untitled debut from the noise-pop outfit LA FACCIA BRUTTA, who include members of the Beatings and Pending Disappointment, is also due out on Midriff in November.
