Charming Hostess
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| Charming Hostess | |
|---|---|
Jewlia Eisenberg, Cynthia Taylor, & Marika Hughes (L to R) |
|
| Origin | Oakland, California |
| Country | United States |
| Years active | 1999–Present |
| Genres | Vocal music Acapella Experimental Music Ethnic Music Jewish Music |
| Labels | Tzadik Records (formerly on Vaccination Records) |
| Members |
Marika Hughes Cynthia Taylor |
| Past members | Nils Frykdahl Dan Rathbun Carla Kihlstedt Wes Anderson Nina Rolle |
Charming Hostess is a band that grew out of the Oakland avant-rock scene in the mid-1990's.
Contents |
[edit] Current Work
Today, the music primarily springs from three women with an emphasis in the body--voices and vocal percussion, handclaps and heartbeats, sex-breath and silence. The work grows from diaspora consciousness: both Jewish and African. Sylistically, Charming Hostess incorporates doo-wop, Pygmy counterpoint, Balkan harmony and Andalusian melody. Contemporary influences on the band include Meredith Monk and Reinette l'Oranaise. The music often explores existing text and overlays the composer's (Jewlia Eisenberg) own questions of authenticity, montage, and the effect of music on non-verbal languages.
The 2002 CD (Trilectic, Tzadik Records) explored the political/erotic nexus of Walter Benjamin and his Marxist muse, Asja Lacis. The 2004 CD (Sarajevo Blues, Tzadik) sets Bosnian poetry by Semezdin Mehmedinović as a form of love and resistance to the brutalization of war.
Their self-described genre is "Nerdy-Sexy-Commie-Girly". Charming Hostess is Jewlia Eisenberg, Marika Hughes, Cynthia Taylor and often Ganda Suthivarakom and Pameliya Kursten (all vocals).
[edit] Early Work
The pre-2002 Charming Hostess (also known as Charming Hostess Big Band) was a rock band that embraced a genderfuck sensibility (the women often wore mustaches while the men wore dresses). Early Charming Hostess music drew on women's vocal traditions (primarily from Eastern Europe and North Africa), and integrated them with American folk forms both white and black. Charming Hostess was founded in the fertile anarchy of Barrington Co-op (aka Barrington Hall), and nurtured by the West Oakland arts community, along with other coeval bands such as Fibulator and Eskimo. Half of Charming Hostess was also in Idiot Flesh/Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. The final effect was of a hoedown where bodacious babes belted the blues in Bulgarian while a punk-klezmer band rocked out in accompaniment.
The genre of this incarnation of ChoHo is described by the band as "Klezmer-Punk/Balkan-Funk". Recordings of Charming Hostess Big Band include "Eat" (Vaccination, 1998) and the new "Punch" (ReR, 2005) Charming Hostess Big Band was: Jewlia Eisenberg (voice, direction), Carla Kihlstedt (voice, fiddle), Nina Rolle (voice, accordion), Wes Anderson (drums), Nils Frykdahl (guitar, flute, saxophone, percussion), and Dan Rathbun (bass).
[edit] References
- Hooper, Joseph. "Monk, Eisenberg and Banhart: Oh Me, Oh My, They're So Unusual", The New York Observer, 12/2/2002.
- Cowley, Julian. "Soundcheck: Jewlia Eisenberg Trilectic", The Wire. March 2002.
