ON the Beat | A Catty Week at the Lobero, Irish Springing, Symphonic Cinematics

This edition of ON the Beat was originally emailed to subscribers on March 14, 2024. To receive Josef Woodard’s music newsletter in your inbox each Thursday, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.

It’s been a catty week at the Lobero Theatre, at least in name. Two powerful shows, from the uniquely charismatic Cat Power and the post-post-modern cabaret singer and dryly hilarious mold-breaker Meow Meow, appeared in that hallowed hall on back-to-back nights, as if by design. Their connection to matters of felinity are diverse and open to interpretation (qualities of sensuality by one’s own terms, stealth, detachment, purr factors?), but both artists own their own turf, artistically and attitudinally.
        
Of course, Cat Power’s current project and persona, channeling Dylan with her album/actCat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert drew her fast-track sell-out crowd from both her strong cult throng and those lured in by the Dylan link (see review here).

Meow Meow (an Australian, born Melissa Madden Gray, and with links to David Bowie, Pina Bausch, Pink Martini, and many other situations) defied all easy descriptions in her comic performance art/expert vocalist taking on Weimar Republic agenda. More officially, the show’s title goes thusly: Sequins and Satire, Divas and Disruptors: The Wild Women of the Weimar Republic. For one thing, at least in my experience, she became the first performer in the Lobero’s 150-year history to actually crowd surf over the heads and with the willing hands of her audience. That was the show closer. She opened the show by mock-complaining that the crowd didn’t throw her flowers upon arrival, restarting the show after handing out flowers to the front row, to be lobbed in her general direction.
        
In other performance art–lined moments, she sang while being slowly twirled on a rotating platter (with the Lobero’s trusty technical director Todd Jared doing the twirling honors), and later staged an elaborate scheme by which five male volunteers (including Indy arts editor Leslie Dinaberg’s husband Zak) were outfitted with sanitary gear and hoisted our heroine high, on cue.

But to over-emphasize Meow Meow’s theatrics and deconstructionist antics does an injustice to her greatest talent as a strong and knowing purveyor of song. In this context, much of the material, by Brecht, Weill, Eisler, and other Germans of a certain era, came persuasively to life through her gifts and her flexible trio. As if an early tip-off to more contemporary inklings, she opened with a Laurie Anderson piece.
        
In short, Meow Meow wowed the crowd with her elastic bundle of talents — wonderful singer, subversive deconstructionist, Marxist comedienne (as in the Brothers), funky acrobat … and more.

By whatever force of serendipity, in a week surrounding International Women’s Day, concerts led and commandeered by women seized the concert calendar spotlight with unusual force and grace. Aside from Cat Power and Meow Meow, Friday’s official day found the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at the Granada Theatre, led by Nathalie Stutzmann, the only current female music director of a major orchestra, while Sunday’s Campbell Hall fare featured the local debut of the commanding new country/bluegrass/etcetera star Sierra Ferrell. Women ruled our stages, and the beat goes on.

Going to the Movies/Symphony

It’s official: the Oscar parade has finally blown through town, with Oppenheimer blasting the competition in a predictable (and to some of us, undeserved) sweep. At least Tarn Willers’s and Johnnie Burn’s sound award for the stunning (literally) The Zone of Interest and Emma Stone’s rightful accolade for her Poor Things tour de force stand out as just awards. But, alas, the miraculous Barbie was mostly stuck in its fallow dream house (although the Ken army dance sequence on Sunday night may have the show’s finest hour). Where’s the justice there? Santa Barbara has an annual and fairly deep stake in the Oscar sweepstakes and award season circuit, thanks to the intense focus on Oscar hopefuls appearing at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. By the time the actual event rolls around, we’re ready to get on with our lives, already.
        
Hollywood and Oscar aren’t through with us yet. This weekend, the Santa Barbara Symphony throws its hat in the movie ring with a program dubbed “An Oscar Celebration!” (note exclamation point). Adding juice to the occasion is a triumphant return to The Granada Theater, which went dark for a couple of months due to water damage, and the sight-and-sound pact of orchestral arrangements onstage and actual film clips on screen. Guest conductor Constantine Kitsopoulos fills in for SBS maestro Nir Kabaretti.
        
Program-wise, the focus is on classics of old, including Miklos Rozsa’s Ben-Hur score, Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s The Adventures of Robin Hood, Max Steiner’s Gone with the Wind, and the great Bernard Hermann’s memorable score for Citizen Kane. Speaking of Oscar nail-biters, in 1941, the rightful Best Picture contender Kane was elbowed outta town by How Green was My Valley, one of many transgressions imposed by the Academy. But we digress, slightly.

Relax, enjoy the sensory experience in orchestral real time, just add popcorn.

Irish Sounds, Smiling

Although the popular local sensation known as the Folk Orchestra of Santa Barbara has been known to go globe-trotting and genre-trotting, with tireless founder-leader Adam Phillips devising new programs each time out, one clear home turf is Irish music. With poetic and calendar-based logic, last weekend’s program was called simply “Irish.” Nuff’ said.

As heard in the embraceable ambience of Trinity Episcopal Church (one of three performances over the weekend), Phillips’ program for his 30-ish musician-strong orchestra was expectedly diverse and yet unified. The menu ranged from traditional Irish jigs, reels, ballads, and waltzes to an arrangement of U2’s “MLK” and the local-ized terrain of his original “Mission Creek,” which he wrote for his wedding. Among the featured performers were harpist Laurie Rasmussen, accordionist extraordinaire Brian Mann, and fiddlers Devynn Quarles and Nicole McKenzie (also the concertmaster).

The orchestral forces sometimes winnowed down to small groups, including a now officially splinter group, The Waymakers. Incidentally, you can catch The Waymakers at least twice on St. Paddy’s Day, at Fig Mountain Brewing in the afternoon and scooting up to M. Special from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Phillips hinted that a third giglet may sneak into the brogue bro-y picture.
        
On the upcoming FOSB calendar in 2024: “Greatest Hits” (May 10-12), “The Sixties” – that country unto itself — on September 21 and 22, and another natural home zone, “Celtic,” November 9 and 10.

TO-DOINGS:

Speaking of subtle yet powerful female singers at the Lobero this month, don’t miss a chance to catch the return of Madeleine Peyroux to the venue, on Sunday, March 17. Now 50, she made a strong impact with a supple and understated sound, often compared to Billie Holiday, with her 1996 album Dreamland, followed by other critically-acclaimed albums Careless Love and Half thePerfect World. Locally, her memorable shows have landed at the Arlington, the Santa Barbara Bowl (on a bill with Lyle Lovett) and also the Lobero, an ideal setting for her intimate poetic touch. The upcoming show will feature songs of old, and from a forthcoming album.

Camerata Pacifica continues its chamber music season on Friday at Hahn Hall, this time out with music of Brahms, Schoenberg and Arvo Part.

“Tales from the Tavern,” continues to exert its lure to the Maverick Saloon, with Joe Pug arriving at Santa Ynez’ Maverick Saloon on Wednesday, March 20.