The play is tonight. (The play has no name.)

The whole house is going. It’s just in the yard next door.

Dreaming of a Face Like Ours

By Prof. William H. Foster III (Fine Tooth Press, 2010; 100 pages).

This is another useful book of essays by Prof. William H. Foster III, who has a longstanding academic interest in the depiction of African-Americans in comics. Nearly a fifth of the book is taken up by “Do We Still Have to Be Black?—Comic Book Creators Discuss Racial Identity,” a transcription of a panel discussion Foster moderated at the 2005 Big Apple Comic Convention in New York City. The panelists include Trevor Von Eeden, Jamal Igle, Mark Morales, Alitha Martinez. It’s a wide-ranging discussion that delves into not just graphic-novelistic but social and cultural stereotyping.

 

Otherwise, the book mostly consists of Foster’s own insights and research, including nine installments of the Foster’s Freehold blog he had on the BlackSciFi website in 2005-06. There are two essays in which Foster deals with his own relationship, as an African-American and as a free-expression-devoted reader, to the n-word. He sees the controversial black character Ebony from Will Eisner’s classic The Spirit series as a positive portrayal of black culture for its time, and writes about telling Eisner so to his face. He has an interesting take on the mute comics hero Henry, whose strip did not denigrate or ghettoize black characters the way so many others have. He chronicles noteworthy and affirmative black strips like Tom Little’s Sunflower Street.

 

He brainstorms a handy list of Harlem-based comics characters with Lloyd A. Williams (from the 2006 book Forever Harlem). He comes up with ten solid comic-book biographies of “Black Women from History,” not to mention a slate of “Black Cowboys in Comic Books.”

 

He also meditates on the mortality of a black superhero which shared his name—William Foster DSc, PhD, aka Black Goliath—following the humungous hero’s death in a confrontation with a clone of the Marvel warrior Thor. I was privilege to edit Foster’s obit for the New Haven Advocate in 2007, and it’s nice to find it now in book form.

 

I’ve known Bill Foster for years know, have seen him speak a few times, and am impressed by his mastery of an ever-shifting, oft-overlooked yet vital niche of comics scholarship.  This book exhibits that range, but it also demonstrates the friendliness and generous nature of its author. Foster doesn’t browbeat you with facts or keep you at arm’s length with scholar-speak. He draws you in with big ideas and bright images. Like a comic book.

 

By Artie Capshaw

Harry joins the circus: Theater on the Air, the student-run “experimental” summer theater which takes over the campus’ Campbell Playhouse (not to ever be mistaken for Joe Campbell’s rock club) and adjacent Koch dormitory every summer, has decided to do The Third Woman as its season-opener, for the first two weeks of June…

This isn’t mere rock opera or pop-conscious theater. When the show—about a “Bohemian Star” with a “Hand of Glory” who’s having an onstage breakdown “In Search of a Ghost”—is done right, it’s indistinguishable from a show you might see at the Finch, only written down and memorized. The only bit of disbelief you might feel is that any band with songs as good as “Dead Candidate,” “It’s a Knockout” and “It’s in the Bag” in its set, not to mention “5000 Pengoes and a Kiss,” would never be as down and out as this play suggests. Even with that horse habit and the whole sex-change thing. There’s that musical-theater optimist in us coming out—we do so love a high-kick happy-ending number!

The director/star of this exciting enterprise, who’s insisting on calling himself Elusive Vermeer for the occasion but whom you’ve unelusively seen front and center at many an Orsons gig, says he’s going for rock purity, not theater trickery. So far, E.V says he’s got Harry from the Orsons to put the backing band together. Patience now, and exult that there’s something with a hard beat to do in town while the college is on break, the bigger venues wallow in summer nostalgia acts and the local bands swelter.

The Bullfinch asked No More Precious to play tomorrow, and the band arranged a whole night of “N” acts, with None Shall Escape, Night and the City and the NMP side project No Minor Vices. The nnnnnight’s billed as “Noble Noir Nite”… Back Pay, The Bang Bang Kids and Avenging Rider assault the collegiate senses (those not already dulled by cheap booze) at Hamilton’s… Luxury Girls and Lucky Boys, guilty pleasure pop, at D’ollaire’s. Pretend you’re bringing your niece, and just enjoy yourself…

Soup. Now we conquer soup.

The Meriden Daffodil Festival, the foremost and most diverse gathering of Connecticut music acts in the state (all wrapped up in a nifty outdoor festival/carnival), is just one week away.

Here’s the line-up. I’ve marked my personal favorites with an asterisk.

SATURDAY, APRIL 30

10:30-11:30 Chico & Friends (FT)

11-11:45- Freshly Squeezed (WS)

12:00-1:30 The Gonkus Brothers (FT)

*12:15-1:00- The Furors (WS). Ageless, legendary perk-pop duo.

12:45-1:30  Surge Chamber (BS)

*1:30-2:15  The Ivory Bills (WS). James Velvet’s songs, snappily played.

*2:00-2:45  The Frank Critelli Band (BS). Winsome and wise folk-pop songwriter.

2:00-3:00 The Church Street Revue (FT)

2:45-3:30- Eran Troy Danner (WS)

*3:15-4:00 The Manchurians (BS). Rhythm & blues that doesn’t disintegrate into meaningless jams.

3:30-4:30 River City Slim & The Zydeco Hogs (FT)

*4:00-4:45  The Stratford Survivors (WS). One of Connecticut’s earliest punk bands, reunitied.

4:30-5:15 Columbia Fields (BS)

5:00-6:00 Raise The Rent (FT)

*5:15-6:00  The Reducers (WS). Longlived punk-pop legends from New London.

5:45-6:30 Kicking Daisies (BS)

6:30-7:15  Echo & Drake (WS)

*6:30-7:30 Caravan of Thieves (FT). Eclectic guitar/vocal aggregation, ideal for festival gigs.

7:00-8:30 Jimmy Hat (BS)

*7:45- 8:45  The Stepkids (WS). The fest’s highlighted new young band, already on their way with an SXSW appearance this year and an album due this summer. Pop psychedelia, replete with light-show projections and danceable frolic.

SUNDAY, MAY 1

10:00-11:00 Tommy Lourdes (FT)

11:00-11:45 John Fries& The Heat (WS)

11:30-12:30  Just Friends  (FT)

11:45-12:00  691 (BS)

*12:15- 1:00 The Sawtelles (WS). Play-anywhere married duo who personify indie drive.

12:30- 1:45 The Michael Cleary Band (BS)

1:00-2:00   The River Street Band (FT)

1:30-2:15 Plume Giant (WS)

*2:15-3:00 Ticket To Ride (BS). The long-established Beatles tribute act Abbey Road has (with a new John Lennon) morphed into a similar act named for an earlier Fab era.

*2:30-3:30 The Shinolas (FT). Country band led by Hartford guitar hero Jim Chapdelaine and steel guitarist Eddie Iarusso.

2:45- 3:30  Heirlooms (WS)

3:30- 4:45  The McLovins (BS)

*4:00-4:45 The Zambonis (WS). They feel they is never an inappropriate venue or time of year for them to play their songs about hockey.

4:00-5:00  Sean, Kelli & Wayne (FT)

 

WS = Welcome Stage

BS = Bandshell Stage

FT = Food Tent Stage

The three stages are all within quick walking distance of each other in Meriden’s expansive Hubbard Park. For the Bandshell Stage, you sit on a spacious lawn. The Welcome Stage has bleachers, and the Food Tent is a vast circus-sized tent full of local organizations selling food specialties.

You reach the park by shuttle bus. Details at http://www.daffodilfest.com

We actually heard a Modern Madcaps tune on real radio! Not a college show, not a local AM talk show, not the backdrop to a cable sports show but genuine daytime FM, announcing who they were and everything. The song is “Stint,” the fraught relationship power ballad which the band’s longterm fans will know as “For a Stint.” The Madcaps remain spread far and wide—drummer Katnip and vocalist Audrey are still in high school, bassist.conceptualist Tommy and DJ Moe are at separate colleges a hundred miles apart, and the band’s recently added violinist Singh and keyboardist/producer Katrina live and/or study in a large Midwestern city with the band’s invaluable friend and illustrator extraordinaire Harvey…

A note from a reader who happens to have been in a class or two with an object of our recent scorn: “Why does Frieda Bettany’s behavior surprise you? She’s a performer at heart, and she expertly targeted two different audiences, academics and club kids, with basically the same material.” That’s true, but we still feel cheated. FreeBet update: Self-produced single “Dance! Dance! Eep! “ made the top ten of the college radio dance charts in its first week. She’s already signed to a major. And she’s weeks away from graduation…

No Bullfinch tonight—private party… And no Hamilton’s—shitty bands (One Crowded Night, The Argyle Secrets, Arkansas Judge)… And no D’ollaire’s—who would pay that outrageous admission price for never-that-good-when-they-were-bigger Beasts of Berlin, (with The Barefoot Mailmen opening, as if that will open your pocketbook).

Mar mastered the art of making macaroni. Says I inspired her.

[Christopher Arnott can’t stop rummaging through his old 45s.]

The Pills, Scooter Gurls (She’s So Faithful) b/w The Back of Your Head and Soft & Brown. Self-conscious ‘60s-styled mod/pop green-vinyl single by a Boston band that I saw a couple of times and which truly didn’t need to disguise themselves with all those skinny-tie trappings.

Reddy Teddy, Novelty Shoes b/w Goo Goo Eyes. A band from Winchester, Massachusetts, the suburb where I grew up, two towns over from Cambridge and about 12 miles from Kenmore Square, where Reddy Teddy became one of the early legends of the Rathskeller (aka Rat) proto-punk club. They did some recording and performing with my hero Willie Loco Alexander, but in the annals of rock history they are known as the band that was vying against Aerosmith for a record contract with Columbia. The band broke up in 1978 and lead guitarist Matthew Mackenzie died in 1988 at age 36. Reddy Teddy was too guitar-glorifying to be considered pre-punk, but their generally scruffiness, and self-deprecating songs such as “Moron Rock” definitely helped loosen up the Boston scene for the impending switch  from guitar picks to safety pins. This classic single has a B-side that would not appear on the sole Reddy Teddy album.

Jennifer Trynin, Happier b/w iKWIFLTB Down, B-side is better known as “I Know What It Feels Like to Be Down.” On yellow vinyl with ironic happy-face iconography on the cover art, “Happier,” which became a cool closed-circuit TV video which aired on MTV, was an unorthodox swift-and-shouty Trynin, who was always loud but usually more emotionally reserved and leisurely with her riffs. My high school friend Mike County played on this.

The Velvet Underground.  A  100-page square book that mostly consists of Velvet Underground lyrics printed in Italian and English (“I’m searching for my mainline” = “Sto cercandoi la mia strada maestro”), plus a discography… and a disc! The 7-inch 33rpm EP has a bootleg 1967 version of Ride Into the Sun on one side and covers of the VU songs Femme Fatale (by The Carnival of Fools) and European Son (interpreted by Subterranean Dining Rooms) on the flip.

Grand Passion, Negative Jesus b/w Ass Cat. Ocean-hugging angular rock trio that ruled the Mystic/New London axis in the early 1990s. “Negative Jesus” comes as close as fans could hope to capturing Grand Passion’s live exuberance and knack for suspenseful tempo shifts.

By Artie Capshaw

Dead Lewis doesn’t know how he feels about us describing his latest style assault, Teaspoon of Zest, as “a prank.” His show last week at D’ollaire’s went well, he says. The club’s asked him back.  The material was appreciated for what it was. He’s got a whole second set he’s ready to rock. Someone’s asked to record his version of “Zip Zap Zopp” as a single. He doesn’t want anyone to think he’s having them on.

So we officially rescind our characterization of the show as a sham. We get it now—Dead Lewis has sold out. Granted, he’s extremely good at these charades, and ToZ’s blend of pop and party rock is ideally suited to his campy swagger. Whether you hold your nose at his capitulation to club commerce or raise your mood-ringed fist in the air, you’ll want to see him again at Hamilton’s on two Saturdays from now. At least he admits he got the band name Teaspoonful of Zest from a recent column we wrote about Coat the Spoon singer Cody Fried’s grandmother’s lemon curd recipe.

Credible acts in readiness: The Art Youngs, Sunlight and Shadow, The Nimble Nickels and Four Dissenters Silenced by the Rope at the Bullfinch, following the rally on the commons (something about taxes)… The Silk Hats, Shots at Truth, The Joke is on You Baby and Over They Go engage the masses at Hamilton’s… The bold new ideas (maybe a decade ago) of Crime Against Art and Sketching Devils at D’ollaire’s, with opening set from well-connected locals Matrimony Hits a Reef.

Tried to make my own macaroni. Failed.