A kind and lovely review for "Chelsea Madchen," the Nico tribute at the Cutting Room - come see it this Monday, 6/17, at 10pm. Willkommen. newyorkmusicdaily.wordpress/2013/06/14/tammyfaye/ Tammy Faye Starlite Plays Nico to the Hilt in Chelsea Madchen by delarue Tammy Faye Starlite’s chillingly evocative musical portrait, Nico: Chelsea Madchen has two more nights to run, June 17 and 24 at the opulently renovated Cutting Room (44 E 32nd St. just west of Park Ave.) at 8 PM. Tickets for both nights are still available as of today, June 14. This past Monday’s performance was as hauntingly sad as it was hilarious, illuminating the life of the iconic gothic songstress against a pitch black backdrop, both literally and figuratively. Much as Tammy Faye Starlite is best known for her searingly funny, spot-on political humor, she’s also had a lot of fun over the past few years leading snarky cover bands playing the Rolling Stones, Blondie and the New York Dolls. This revue is a step in a different direction, a distinctly tragicomic role that more than does justice to Nico in all her many guises: muse to scores of musicians and filmmakers, pop singer, darling of the avant garde, goth icon, hardcore junkie and existentialist. Tammy has Nico’s voice down so cold it’s scary. That brittle little vibrato, the wide-angle vowels and inescapable German accent are so perfect that, listening back to a recording of this week’s show, it’s as if Nico had risen from the grave. In a more or less chronological narrative whose doomed foreshadowing never relents, the story and the songs trace the grim, self-defeating path that led her there A fascinating mix of both obvious and obscure material from throughout Nico’s career gets a surprisingly lively interpretation from a first-class art-rock band: Dave Dunton on piano, Rich Feridun on guitar, Keith Hartel on bass and acoustic guitar, Craig Hoek on sax, flute and trumpet, Ron Metz on drums and Tammy on harmonium. In between songs, Jeff Ward plays the role of a befuddled Australian dj trying to keep an interview – clearly set in Nico’s later years – on the rails. Tammy has the research down just as much as the accent. Via dialogue constructed from actual Nico interviews and conversations, along with some deliciously ribald improv, a little audience-baiting and a fourth wall waiting to be smashed to bits, Tammy creates a portrait that’s as stunning in its verisimilitude as its depth – and sordidness. One minute Nico is articulate and philosophical, the next she’s bashing Jews or fixated on an unseen adversary. The proto-feminist wishes she’d been born a man. For someone who time and time again perceives herself all alone in a hostile world, there always seems to be a guy lurking nearby. Gloom and doom notwithtanding, there’s a light flickering inside: this Nico is funny! Her putdowns of the men who ran through her life, from Dylan, to Iggy Pop, John Cale and Lou Reed among them, are hysterical: the latter is “a usurper of souls…like a cat.” All this and more makes her all the more tragic, the girl who had everything and ultimately wanted to be nothing. Tammy’s wardrobe harks back to the early new wave/goth era Nico: many shades of black, scarf forlornly draping her shoulders, face ashen (although unlike her subject, Tammy does not mute her own natural beauty). While an air of apprehension lingers – Ward gamely if hopelessly trying to build a repartee with his subject – Tammy lets off steam with moments that seem to be completely off the cuff. This time out, one of them was an extended, rather violent Freudian interlude involving a flute. And the music is lush and diverse and sensationally good. Some of the obvious choices – Femme Fatale, which opens the show; I’ll Be Your Mirror; Chelsea Girl; All Tomorrow’s Parties; These Days (featuring some nonchalantly brilliant guitar work from Hartel) and Frozen Borderline (performed solo on harmonium) stick close to the originals. Others take unexpectedly rewarding liberties. The End shifts not into raga-rock but a snidely funky interlude. Nico’s pre-Velvets single, a cover of Gordon Lightfoot’s I’m Not Saying, has an almost alt-country feel. David Bowie’s Heroes is transformed into a roaring stadium rock anthem, My Funny Valentine into wrenchingly beautiful, elegaic chamber pop. The closing number, an unexpected treat. is so apt that it wouldn’t be fair to give it away here. Go see the show and find out for yourself, then leave, thrilled and haunted and wishing that Nico was still alive.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 20:45:05 +0000
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