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Reviews & Press
Links
to Full Articles
Some of the following
links will lead you to other web sites and some will lead to text below.
Most notable are the starred *** items.
[Like wow this needs severe updating & downparing. The Management thanks you for your patience.}
Selected Reviews of Recordings
***** Milwaukee Journal Sentinel review of Residue and concert preview
****Clouds and Clocks (Italy) review of Residue, plus Interview
**All Music Guide review of Residue
****All Music Guide review of Sports! Chips! Booty!
**Exposé review of Sports! Chips! Booty!, May 2000
Délire Actuel (Quebec) review of Sports! Chips! Booty!, February 2000
Splendid E-zine review of Sports! Chips! Booty!, January 2000
Bay Guardian review of Sports! Chips! Booty!, November 1999
*East Bay Express review of Sports! Chips! Booty!, October 1999
Rubberneck (Britain) review of Amy X Neuburg & Men's UTECHMA, June 1997
**Metro review of UTECHMA, September 1996 -- SCROLL DOWN!
***Musician magazine review of UTECHMA, September 1996
**Addicted to Noise review of UTECHMA, October 1996
Keyboard review of UTECHMA, August 1996
East Bay Express review of UTECHMA, April 1996
Information Sickness review of UTECHMA, December 1995
Information Sickness review of Hmmm cassette/CD Two Times Ago, December 1995
CD Review review of Amy X Neuburg solo CD Songs 91 to 85, March 1994
*****Keyboard review of Songs 91 to 85, December 1993
***33
Rebellions Per Minute (our favorite raving fan) insightfully reviews
Amy's three recordings
Otago Daily Times review (jpeg image) of Amy at Otago Festival of the Arts, New Zealand, October 2004
Village Voice review of "Residue" CD release show, Joe's Pub, NYC, March 2004
*****Electro-Music review of Amy's show at Roulette, New York, April 2003.
*****San Francisco Classical Voice review of "Other Minds" festival (with Amy solo performance), March 2003
**San Francisco Classical Voice review of "Electric Words" festival (with Amy solo performance), June 2002
***East Bay Express review of Amy X Neuburg & Men's "An Irish April Fool's Passover," April 1999
Bay Guardian review of AXN & Men's "Virile Vednesdays At Venue 9," January 1999
***Concert preview / "Residue" CD review in the New York Press, March 2004 -- SCROLL WAY DOWN to 3/7
Santa Cruz Metro critic's choice for Cayuga Vault performance, November 2002 -- SCROLL DOWN
Santa Cruz Sentinel critic's choice for Cayuga Vault performance, November 2002 -- SCROLL DOWN
**San Jose Mercury News feature on Amy's headlining performance at Women's Looping Festival, October 2002
SF Weekly critic's choice for Amy X & Men with Emeryville Taiko, September 2000
East Bay Express critic's choice for the St. Patrick's Day Show, March 2000 (link temporarily unavailable)
SF Weekly The House of Tudor column on "An Irish April Fools Passover," March 1999
San Francisco Chronicle Lively Arts column on "Virile Vednesdays at Venue 9," January 1999 -- SCROLL DOWN!
Selected Feature Articles & Interviews
**Clouds and Clocks (Italy) interview with Amy, May 2004
***Feature article on Amy/"Residue" in the East Bay Express, March 2004
**Blow-up (Italy) interview with Amy, December 1999
Blowup (Italy) article on Amy X and Emily Bezar, April 1999 (to be posted soon)
***SF Weekly feature article on "Virile Vednesdays at Venue 9," December 1998
East Bay Express feature article on "An Evening of Avant-Cabaret," June 1997 (to be posted)
**Electronic Musician Profile article on Amy X Neuburg, August 1996
Herb got reviews,
too!!
Amy X Neuburg and her supporting cast of players (who just happen to be men) have been roaming the San Francisco musical skyline creating miscellaneous chaos for over fifteen years [well, eight anyway -- a.x.n.]. It shouldn't surprise you that the group's roots lie in early eighties musical styles, which they have enhanced and mutated into more than just their own personal time warp. I had the privilege of seeing this line-up live last year performing most of these pieces, and they have translated well into their studio incarnations. The band's instrumentation is highly unusual, with the low end being held together by Micah Ball on Chapman stick, and Joel Davel on MIDI mallets and a wild motion sensor which you have to see to appreciate (but "Joel-o" gives you an audio example). Amy herself handles all operatic lead vocal duties and is a formidable chanteuse against the structural din, while her husband Herb handles all the quirky and sometimes Belew-ish lead guitars. Their impressive cover of Crimson's "Waiting Man" is a thorough workout which underscores the strengths of the ensemble. Plus the band can switch easily into a jazz blues mode, which indicates a penchant for quick changes in tone. Lyrically the group is topical and amusing, as on "Big Barbecue" -- a humorous take on the NRA -- and "The Shower Song" about the tribulations of cleanliness. Probably the two best pieces on the disc are "Naked Puppets" and "Tiny Little Bed" which relates the misfortunes of misunderstood thoughts. For fans who like a healthy blend of Kate Bush, Missing Persons, Devo and Zappa. [Jeff Melton]
East Bay Express -- review of Sports! Chips! Booty! by Amy X Neuburg & Men, October 1999
AMY X NEUBURG KNOWS WHAT MEN LIKE. At least she knows what her Men like, and serves it up on her band's new platter, Sports Chips Booty. Amy X Neuburg & Men have been perfecting their brand of electronic cabaret avant-pop for seven years, and set their madcap musicality loose on this Racer Records release.
Sports Chips Booty sounds like the soundtrack to an intriguing avant-garde rock musical, kicking off with "Big Barbecue," whose angular shifts from tropical marimba serenade to the explosive chorus ("Shotgun -- That's my kind of fun") sets the tone for the wild ride to follow. Guitarist Herb Heinz, Chapman stick player Micah Ball, pool boy J.T. Quillan III, and mallet man Joel Davel provide manly baritone backup, the kind of overblown testosterone-imbued intonations one makes marching in place with elbows akimbo.
"Naked Puppets" starts out as a trudging chant akin to Zep's "Kashmir" with clever lyrics in English and Yiddish ("Last night I saw Eraserhead; today I cut my hair / My movie tells me what to wear what to wear what to Wear"), becomes a polka, a klezmer xylophone solo, and finally dissolves into an art-rock puddle. "I Know You" masquerades as a suave cabaret song, with cocktail lounge scat, brawny C&W backup, noodling rock guitar, jazzy vibes and stick, tom toms and operatic ululations, and a cacophony of kvetching. "The Shower Song" is an oddly lovely if relentlessly goofy a capella number, setting Neuburg's coloratura soprano soaring over a barbershop babble of Men's voices, and "Tiny Little Bed" combines singsong nursery-rhyme melody and apocalyptic thunder. Also included are a herky-jerky cover of King Crimson's "Waiting Man" and a version of Brecht and Weill's "Alabama Song" that sounds like an opera diva and a barbershop quartet getting stinko on a 30th-century cruise ship.
Neuburg & Men will play next Saturday, October 23, at the Starry Plough, and this Saturday they'll share a CD release party at Broadway Studios in North Beach with Emily Bezar, who's been friends with Neuburg since both were aspiring opera singers at Oberlin Conservatory.
Rubberneck -- review of UTECHMA by Amy X Neuburg & Men, June 1997
Hoosegow, Mighty
Haco, Haco
Amy X Neuburg & Men, UTECHMA
One way or another, three albums of songs. Something I`m very partial to is "avant-garde` musicians playing more traditional genres: when acting for the right reasons, they usually bring a fresh, inventive perspective to the material (does anybody remember the Frith-Kaiser guitar duets of the Skip James numbers on Who Needs Enemies?).
Hoosegow [blah blah blah Elliott Sharp etc.]. Haco [blah blah blah he didn't like it much]. Oakland-based Amy X Neuburg & Men`s UTECHMA is an album I really liked. Accessible but deep, timbrally inventive, electronic/rhythmic but not stiff; nice songs, smart lyrics, well played, well sung. A lot of humour, too, and a clever role-playing which reminded me of Non Credo`s Kira Vollman, even if aesthetically different. Besides the usual instruments (guitar, bass, keyboards) Midi mallets and Don Buchla`s wireless Lightning offer variety. Too intelligent for mass consumption, but this is Rubberneck, right? Definitely a title which begs distribution. [Giuseppe Colli]
Though little known outside of San Francisco, Neuburg makes music whose dizzy mix of complexity, accessibility, and intensity are matched by few. For frame of reference, begin with Frank Zappa: Neuburg shares his fondness for percussive ostinati (the multiple marimbas of "Delirium"), and a willingness to segue from polyrhythmic snarls to straight-ahead riffing. She can bait a tune on the kind of hook that sinks and settles: "Into That Hole," with its synth peeps and drones, waterfalling guitars, and hypnotic whispered vocals, is a Cocteau Twins flashback, while the album's opening cut, "Chinatown," is a 9/8 tangle, with rhythms twining and loosening around dissonant guitars that blare like car horns in a traffic jam. On the title track, Amy rocks the rafters with a weird mix of Celtic pipe music, Nigerian pop, and film noir. Laurie Anderson would be proud.
But Neuburg's art is too diverse to be derivative. She has that rare gift of using sound and lyric to create a real sense of place. A techno-poppish tune, "Get That Camera Out of Here," stops suddenly, leaving a single synth tone hanging in the air; from this foundation Neuburg builds the next cut, "Fish," which seems to begin as the musings of a drowning victim. "That must be a police car 'cuz there's that sound/So I try to pull over but there's no ground," she sings over open space and chords that float like seaweed in the tides. Chaos and noise follow, but at the end we're left with a couple of wispy chords, an in-your-head guitar buzz, a water drip, and an affirmation that "I died laughing."
All this may seem a little pretentious, but Neuburg pulls it off with virtuosic aplomb. The Men -- guitarist and stick player Herb Heinz, percussionist Joel Davel, and keyboardist Tim Root -- ace her arrangements with humor and discipline, while Amy darts from synth to drums and lays down vocals which betray a theatrical sensibility. Now and then the band erupts in spasmodic improvisations called "Man Jams," which seem to function as catharses for those who find Neuburg's charts too confining. But the music works best when she holds the reins and challenges the listener to hang on. [Robert L. Doerschuk]
More Than a Mouthful
Try putting ketchup, bananas, cream cheese and fruit loops on your next hamburger! You can't really knock it until you've tried it and-- who knows?--after you do, you might not be able to live without it. That's where you'll find yourself with Amy X Neuburg & Men's Utechma. In fact, add 13 more toppings/fillings and you start to approach the diversity and indescribability of what Neuburg has to offer. This music begs to be listened to with a clean palate and a healthy appetite.
While no description is probably the best description for the variety that Utechma presents, it's tempting to at least try to pin-point the flavor as, oh, say, electronic cabaret avant-synth-pop with a fresh sparkle, hint of cinnamon and melon, and a clean finish. Take, for example, the opening track "Chinatown," which starts with an offbeat, King Crimson meets Stravinsky, punchy, loopy beat, rising with new textures and tensions every measure like an elevator headed for the 47th floor. Synth trumpets jolt and jut as Neuburg's calm cajoling vocal sets the scene: "I want to go live in Chinatown because the food's so good but you say, 'No, No, No, No. You're not Chinese.'" As it unfolds, the rhythmic and melodic disparities force a soothing uneasiness that mirrors a new sentiment revealed by the end of the song: "What I really mean to say is I want to go live in China and stay inside with you." But just how Neuburg arrives there from the beginning, both lyrically and musically, is what proves her to be such an incredibly unique and talented artist.
With a sort of Laurie Anderson-meets-Madonna attitude, Neuburg clearly draws from an intellectualized, cutting, yet humanistic voice. No doubt her experience performing with Pauline Oliveros, and with Robert Ashley's contemporary opera ensemble, and other experimental musical theatre has helped to set her apart from anything resembling mainstream pop music. In fact, somewhere along the way, Neuburg has picked up a severely enhanced ability to work with new sounds in new ways. Employing a four star cast in her four member group, and using super-techno-oriented instruments such as the Buchla "lightning" wireless midi mallet system, the Chapman stick, as well as drumKAT and malletKAT electronic trigger pads, they take turns providing beat, bass, lead and harmony parts in a dramatic electronic Broadway beach-party drum circle.
In the techno-calypso-pop tune "Delirium," in which drum, mallet, synth, and sampled sounds blend with full vocal harmonies as barely audible conversations pepper the background, the groups' musical prowess shines, tight as ever. "Into That Hole," presents a dreamier synth world not far from the Cocteau Twins, where the cyclic lyrics, like a slow motion waterfall, take you in deeper with every word: "Falling into your feather bed / Into the darkness into the fear again / Falling into your open eyes / Into the sunlight into the pool again". Not to be pigeon- holed, other ends of diverse spectrum live happily side by side on this 17-song CD, with tunes sprouting styles from the pop-tango "Tango", to the Broadway rock musical "My Empire", to the space oddity freeform "Humility". Throughout Utechma, the variety and disparity of flavors challenge even the "mature and open" listener. In addition, these are uniquely spiced by the downright zany and theatric (Monty Python anyone?) interludes from the "Men" who uniquely embody a geek-machismo with their funky, weird, and sometimes otherworldly musical contributions.
I remember an early performance of Amy X Neuburg & Men at a small club in San Francisco called The Hotel Utah in late 1994 in which, while facing off with a state-of-the-art sound system, I witnessed their techno-MIDI wizardry unfold in front of my eyes and ears. Like a ride on the Big Dipper, I knew I'd make it safely to the end as I sometimes wrestled to hang on, all the while unhappily missing memorable moments that flew by too fast in the mix. There was something so unique there, beyond entertainment, beyond music, beyond theatre. Gosh, I think this was "art!" And since that evening, it's good to know they've been able to rev up the engine with other performances throughout the area, including the Digital Be-In, The Climate Theatre, New Performance Gallery benefits, and the SF Weekly Wammies party.
Utechma is a living document of a growing and changing artist with unusual things to say and often very unique and capable ways of saying them. With her Men, Amy X Neuburg is able to serve up a multi-course feast with an intriguing blend of electronic, vaudeville, avant-garde, punk, synth-hymnal, world beat, pop, marching band music, and in often touching, humorous, sad, enlightening ways -- more than a mouthful! The last time I heard a combination of this many styles and textures was in the parking lot at the Rose Bowl Parade and, let me tell you, the two don't compare. Amy X Neuburg & Men is innovative and engaging, and well on their way to creating some of the most humanistic synth music ever. [Joshua Salesin]
Keyboard Magazine -- review of UTECHMA by Amy X Neuburg & Men, August 1996
I`m not sure how to describe this band, and that`s a good sign. Neuburg and her cohorts play rock with attitude, but we`re not talking power guitar strumming: The arrangements tend to be open and detailed rather than monolithic, and the band includes both Tim Root on keys and Joel Davel on MIDI mallets. (He doubles on Buchla Lightning, a wireless mallet system.) Neuburg herself does keys and drum programming too, and the guitar player doubles on Chapman Stock. "Money in the Sky" throws in a few bars of 7/8 to keep you off balance. "Herb Goes Downtown" recapitulates Captain Beefheart in 25 seconds. "Humility" presents Neuburg almost unaccompanied, singing an almost identical vocal part across several tracks over a background of subdued nightclub noises. The title track opens with a bagpipe dirge in which the men provide a yowling vocal drone, and then segues into a 3/4 Latin groove complete with a cheesy Farfisa organ break. Strange enough to leave you wondering, but by no means devoid of hooks. More! More! (Racer Records, 1-800-572-2375; Amy X Neuburg & Men, IS Productions, Box 3856, Oakland, CA 94609) [Jim Aikin]
East Bay Express -- review of UTECHMA by Amy X Neuburg & Men, April 1996
If strangely cerebral, electronic music is your slice of pie, Oakland`s own Amy X Neuburg & Men serve up an hour-long aural buffet that could easily be the soundtrack to an as-yet-unmade movie from the next millennium. While Neuburg and band synthesize a universe of sounds from cabaret to pop to worldbeat, describing them as eclectic would be an understatement -- Utechma is downright out there. The suave melody of "Money in the Sky" offers a momentary reprieve from the mayhem, and the album`s title track draws on catchy rhythms evocative of South African pop. Neuburg`s vibrant vocals tread creative territories, but unfortunately heavy-handed production often buries her efforts in gobs of digital muck. Studio overkill notwithstanding, UTECHMA will leave you anything but bored. [Mark Follman]
Information Sickness -- review of UTECHMA by Amy X Neuburg & Men, December 1995
Let`s get the obvious comparisons out of the way first, so that we don`t trip over them as we go. Amy X Neuburg is like Kate Bush at the milder end of her weird vocalisms, like Jane Siberry in her pathos of wounded-bird-in-the-gravel gentleness, like Tori Amos in the sensual thrusts of her purring and slurring.
Too bad there are so few female stylists to hold up as benchmarks, but with any luck, Amy will become prominent enough to be recognized as one herself. She writes odd, compelling songs filled with dadaist lyrical images, plays keyboards and drums, and arranges/performs it all with some equally outré cohorts. The Men are Herb Heinz (guitar, bass, Stick, vocals), Joel Davel (mallet and motion sensor instrument, vocals), and Tim Root (keyboards, vocals). On this CD, they display some of their talents in the five "Man Jam" snippets between songs, but mostly in the way that they realize Amy`s songs. "Into That Hole" and "Money in the Sky" are smooth melodic sweeps built from surprisingly simple materials. "Get That Camera Out of Here," constructed from little moving parts, has the same effect. "Tango" combines its eponymous musical form with a kind of crunchy disco by the end. "Delirium," pulled along by a bouncy marimba, works as a light-footed dance tune. Of the artier songs, some of the more remarkable moments come in "Humility," as Amy`s a cappella melody line splits and converges in processed threads of unheeding barroom ambiance, and "UTECHMA," which divides its time between an all-voice bagpipe ensemble, a Brazilian indie rock band, weird slippery slow blues, and the bleating ululations of North African women. The final track, "Hunger for Heaven," is a simple but riveting interplay of ascending figures on guitar and keyboard, behind lyrics that weep and reach for a happy ending beyond heroes and messiahs. And this CD from this band, while not that happy ending, is definitely one step closer. [Alan K. Lipton]
CD Review -- review of Songs 91 to 85 by Amy X Neuburg, March 1994
Performance +++ (of 4)
Sound Quality ++++ (of 4)
Amy X Neuburg is a sort of a new age Madonna, if you can imagine that. Over minimalistic, computer-generated soundscapes she vamps in a wispy voice: "This is not a photograph/This is not a movie star/The people really look like this." At times the music gains momentum and tumbles along like an overflowing brook with Neuburg`s vocals becoming nonsensical -- let`s call it techno scat. Other times a simple carnival organ accompanies Neuburg as her voice dips and soars in the realm of pure pop (Neuburg has a much higher and truer range than Madonna). There are some beautiful moments on Songs 91 to 85, but the extensive wordplay is stilted at times. [Dan O`Kane]
Keyboard Magazine -- review of Songs 91 to 85, December 1993
Neuburg`s talents as songwriter, singer, arranger, studio technician, and keyboardist distinguish this remarkable release. From "This is the last," an intricate a capella exercise in polyrhythms and accessible pop tunesmithery, Neuburg stretches to a sequence-driven recitatif, "Nothing," with staccato vocals skipping over a spiky synth pattern. No slouch on keys, she plays some lines on "Get you out" with a most peculiar lead texture -- analog synth with snarling animal sample? (Cut in 1985, this track forecasts the techno phenomenon with a frenzied clairvoyance.) A hypnotic quality permeates her arrangements -- not the stupor of new age but the more dynamic stasis of minimalist repetitions powered, as on "Keep us 2," by displaced accents and emphasized by sharp, low-budget, buzzy textures. Even on the sparer pieces, such as "It never ends," a restlessness underlies her languorous vocals and lazy, legato synth lines. If the world was fair, Songs would win this Bay Area performance artist acclaim as America`s answer to Kate Bush. No, even that isn't fair: Neuburg is a major player in her own right, a unique voice in the true sense of the word. [Robert L. Doerschuk]
San Francisco Classical Voice -- review of "Electric Words," July 29, 2002
Fine Mesh of Speech and the Senses
Vocal Art -- the term covers the broadest expanse of human expression, yet can pull the most diverse of artistic endeavors into a tight definition. It can imply communion among a comedian, a singer, a storyteller and a sound-effects specialist. And it's the best way to define the principles driving the latest installment of the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival. In "Electric Words," an aptly titled series which ran for six nights over the past two weeks, a collection of mostly local heavyweights presented their electronic take on the process of spoken language as art. The closing performance Saturday night presented four musical minds as perfectly matched in quality as they were individual in imagination.
Dean Santomieri's dreamlike recitation, A book bound in red buckram . . . would have worked as well on radio as on stage. His chilling, circular tale of a descent into madness and alienation was punctuated by random electronic scrapes against a video backdrop of slowly shifting abstract shapes. The elements cohered as the character in the story became the calmly seated narrator himself, pondering on his own mortality while a crackling fireplace emerged from the story to take its place on the screen. All that was missing was for the text he was reading to become the book itself.
For all its intellectual sophistication, there is a breezy quality of innocence to Charles Amirkhanian's works. Perhaps it's in his capacity to charm as well as innovate, most prevalent in a sure-to-become-a-classic Marathon, presented here by the composer with Amy X Neuburg as his left-hand echo. Despite skilful, clever performance, the stereo separation in the tiny room failed to provide the proper effect for this piece or its follow-up, Dutiful Ducks. His soundtrack to the abstract video Im Frühling by his partner-in-life-and-art, Carol Law, was symphonic in its creation of thematic textures with birdsongs and development of natural sounds as texture.
Laptop magic Eric Lyon's Second Skin was a reinforcement of the image of the modern-day electronic composer as an earnest wizard. He sat alone on a stage, hunched over a laptop computer, his only tool for creating sonic sorcery. In this case, the vocal art was a rambling, cutely foul-mouthed recitation by the composer's kid sister, twisted and harmonized and modulated out of all comprehensibility. Far from being a mere demonstration of the capabilities of sound-processing software (which is where much of this music can end up), this was a well-proportioned construction. It had layers of meaning as well as sound and a developing sense of direction. The payoff came at the end where the full recitation was heard clearly, the textural distortions and fragments floating around it like supporting instruments.
Amy X Neuburg was at her best that night, bouncing looped "You're welcome's" off of host Pamela Z's electronic "Thank you's," doing stand-up comedy with her electronics gear as straight man, and turning the whole mood on its head with tender sadness. In the field of vocal art, Neuburg showed perhaps the most well-rounded talent of the evening, equally gifted in singing, orating, cutting up, or making weird sounds. A comparative Luddite, her stacks of gear hulked next to the trim laptops of her fellow electronic composers. Yet she manipulated it with an interactive physical ease that seemed no less kinesthetic than the approach of a concert pianist and would have been lost on a PowerBook.
Not everything worked that night. Venue 9, for all the commitment of its staff, still seemed cramped and unpleasantly hot, and had little of the space necessary for the appropriate psychoacoustics. As capable and fascinating a hostess as Pamela Z can be, her moderating only increased the length of the program from uncomfortable to almost unbearable, particularly in the oxygen-depleted room. However, the performers pushed the right buttons and were far less self-indulgent than in previous festivals. This was performance art with a focus on the pleasure of the audience no less than the composer-performer, brought home at the end with a participatory crowd composition of electronic words and sounds. Zzzzzap! Kilowatt! Ohmm! Zzzing! [Thomas Goss] Thomas Goss is resident composer for Moving Arts Dance Collective, and is a member of New Release Alliance Composers, the Cabaret Composers Consortium, and sits on the steering committee of the Bay Area Chapter of the American Composers Forum. ©2002 Thomas Goss, all rights reserved, but you'll notice we have ignored that.
East Bay Express -- review of Amy X Neuburg & Men's "An Irish April Fool's Passover," April 1999
Inna-Haggadah-Diva, Baby
It sucks to be secular in spring. Once one outgrows the bunny business, there's not much to do but go to church, eat pig, lounge around under parasols, or hope to be invited to a seder. What's a godless lad of Irish and Jewish descent to do?
Happily, my neighborhood pub always has a barstool for Elijah. But the club was packed at the outset of the Irish April Fool's Passover celebration Thursday night, as assorted exiles caught a rare glimpse of Captain Zohar -- conceived four years ago as an improv project structured around kabbalistic numerology, but now a playful avant-rock quintet in only its second public appearance (the first was a Chanukah gig at San Francisco's Bottom of the Hill).
Though they couldn't get their giant menorah through the Starry Plough's door (and La Peña grabbed it during their set), composer/keyboardist/lead vocalist Brian Schachter and the boys cleverly strung their existing songs together into a rock opera describing the flight from Egypt (with blind bassist Josh Miele bearded up as Moses), and the tortured segues were amusing in themselves: "Pharaoh had TVs implanted in all the homes. Moses smashed the glowing idols to try to save his people from the horrible fate of bunny worship. Bunny worship!," Schachter boomed as the band launched into "Leave Me Alone Sweet Bunny," spattered with Twilight Zone keys, ominous thumping bass, and drums that at times almost carried the melody.
Captain Zohar incorporated elements of jazz and theater music and comically dramatic vocals into its jerky, polyrhythmic sonic labyrinths. "Tripping" opened with a Martin Buber quote and lurched into undulating keys, squawking guitar, and a melodramatic circus rap about boogying down the road. "Something is in the House," ostensibly a slaying-of-the-firstborn song, was a spastic, jazzy rock number with some high-speed rapping and goofy syncopated backup "hey-hey-hey"s, leavened with a hip-hop beat.
One plague not covered in the Passover mystery opera was the rash of technical difficulties that fell upon Brian Kenney-Fresno's set. In a jester's hat and flowery dress, the Chapman stick player opened with "Dark Loser Hole," a drinking song to the tune of "The Star Spangled Banner." Kenney's instrument -- an ungodly union of five-string bass and seven-string guitar in one big whomping blunt object -- was very interesting. With the exception of that opening number, his set was also very interesting, like splashing merrily in an intricate puddle of sound.
Kenney played what he described as a cross between Pat Metheny, June Taylor, and Idiot Flesh -- a jumbled amalgam of several songs, with the lyrics of one set to the tune of another, and vice versa. Next was a Residents-esque tale of a Fresno goatsucker, fraught with spacey reverb string scratching, synthesized harmony vocals, and squealy noodling. Kenney's urban legend series continued with a torch song about having his kidney stolen, and he closed with two poison-pen novelty songs -- one a tribute to the repetitive strains of ice cream trucks, and the other to Yngwie Malmsteen ("played" on a toy electronic guitar held against the stuck strings).
In a dark shawl, Amy X Neuburg lit candles and chanted in Hebrew against the steady hum of Micah Ball's Chapman stick and Herb Heinz's guitar. Her four yarmulked men then fell into a babbling din of repeated phrases ("I can't find my foreskin," "matzoh matzoh matzoh," "I'm really great, come worship me" [Actually it was "I'm really clean, I'm kosher clean." -- a.x.n.]), over which Neuburg sang, "Singing in the shower in the dark/ You can sound as good as me," a capella in a clear, gorgeous voice. With brawny backup vocals, a Chapman bass line, squawking guitar, and Joel Davel's four clattering MIDI mallets, Neuburg's sultry vocals and Yoko Onoesque keening hypnotized in "Tango," one of the songs that made me file the band under "electronic cabaret avant-pop" just over three years ago.
Neuburg's sederical set paused periodically for Pesach necessities like the eating of the cardboard, the drinking of the Guinness, the sacrificial yam, Heinz's "bitter Herb" kvetching shtick, and an ingenious grafting of the four questions of the Haggadah onto Kurt Weill's Alabama Song ("Why is this night different from all other nights?/ Oh don't ask why, oh don't ask why"), as Neuburg tapped her electronic drums and sang the Hebrew chorus in a lovely coloratura.
"You can interpret these songs religiously if you'd like," said Neuburg before singing a loungey blues with a disco chorus, her voice zooming from husky depths to trilling heights. [That was "I Know You."] Heinz set about dissecting his guitar as J.T. Quillan III spewed a long string of excuses and everybody engaged in staccato noodling on the petulant "Not What I Wanted" from Heinz's delightfully creepy recent CD Failure. The band played "a traditional Irish Hebrew drinking jig," gorgeously sung and playfully executed, welding a Jewish dance and Hebrew lyrics to an Irish jig.
"The great taste of Chicken McNuggets reminds us of how we suffered when we were slaves," Neuburg quipped [Herb did this part, actually] as we reached the eighth ritual pint of Guinness. Davel played an impressive air-vibes solo with a motion-detecting wand, and the Men zoomed through a tinkly torch song with cowboy backup vocals about a mall in Orange County; a cabaret-rock polka in English and Yiddish; a spastic, cartoony merry-go-round rock number closing with a bit of the dreidel song, and a wild funhouse klezmer encore -- making this night undeniably, magnificently different from all other nights. [Sam Hurwitt]
Electronic Musician -- "Profile" article on Amy X Neuburg, August 1996
Twisted Sister & Misters: Neuburg and Men wreak electronic havoc.
For many composers, the allure of creating electronic music lies in exploring new, uncharted realms of self-expression. These musicians use current technology to break from the molds of the past: they program new sounds, work in different tunings, and often abandon traditional song structures. On her new album, UTECHMA, Amy X Neuburg embraces the infinite possibilities of electronic music but does so with a knowing nod to the past.
Neuburg`s group, the Men, are a microcosm of her artistic bent for combining new technology with old roots. She sings and plays drumKAT, and the Men -- Herb Heinz, Joel Davel, and Micah Ball -- play a variety of electronic instruments, including Chapman Stick, Buchla Lightning, and malletKAT. (Micah Ball has replaced Tim Root, who played on the album.) Vocally, the Men are unleashed for what she calls a "Gilbert and Sullivan or Kurt Weill-type effect." They even have their own quirky and often riotous song snippets, called "Man Jams," that are sprinkled throughout the album. It`s certainly not a sterile, more-techno-than-thou approach to electronic music.
"This album has helped define the personality of the band," explains Neuburg. "We use a lot of humor, making fun of things like the concept of the Men. The cool thing musically is we all play electronic instruments, so we can trigger anything. We take advantage of our setup by switching bass lines around and having different band members play the rhythm and the chords. Herb and Micah both play Chapman Stick, which allows them to play either bass sounds or guitar sounds."
The result is a style that manages to be both understated and frenetically off-kilter. On many of the songs, Neuburg`s vocals are mixed at the same level as the instruments and backing vocals, ensuring that no one element stands out above the others. "It`s a very dense sound," she says. "True, it`s artificial and there`s a lot of production, but that`s my aesthetic."
Although Neuburg intentionally pursued a heavily produced sound, she admits that she took it a little too far on some occasions. For instance, as a beta tester for Digidesign`s Session 8 software, she had to learn the program inside and out. She got to know it so well, in fact, that she had a hard time knowing when to stop editing.
"By the time I mastered the software, I could edit my pieces so meticulously that I would just go crazy editing," she says. "If the Men sang a word that ended in a tee and all the tees weren't together, I would move them so they all lined up. I worked forever on things like that."
Neuburg mentions the track "Hunger for Heaven" as another example of her editing zeal. "I spent days editing my vocal part to make it sound like I never breathed while I was singing," recounts Neuburg. "I don`t think anyone else has noticed it, but when I listen to it, I feel like I`m going to suffocate."
As is the case with all artists worth their salt, Neuburg is picky about those subtleties that only someone intimate with the compositions would notice. She and the Men do a great job of creating an interesting interplay of music, technology, and humor. [Mary Cosola]
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