This will be a work in Progress and
other bits that will be added to The Strange Walls repertoire......
http://www.myspace.com/androgynyintervention
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
The Strange Walls ...into the future
The Strange Walls ---
Into the Future.........
We, Jon Vomit and I started creating music under his previous band The Strange Walls from Maine in early 2004. We first started working with odds and ends from his previous work and mine . I had the idea to create a Grimm fairy tale set which would come into full being later that year. We never stopped at this concept ,as we moved into new realms we would have various underground artists helping us out making our live performances more than just an abstract music experience, but something like beautiful chaos and a cathartic experience all around...
We have a whole array of past work which has never really come into the light. Most of it is invariably left in a shoebox on 4track or some other form of live performance which has been kept by various people as entertainment for themselves. Realistically we are a live band that has never emerged from the underground New York setting from which i have come from along with Jon Vomit creating other music beforehand under his Strange Walls with others most famously Nick Bond who had died previous to me joining the band with Jon.
Now lets fast forward to 2008. Danya Yushkov previously of Valiant to Vile (staten isle goth band) and a back up singer Modera of previous vocal talent from her native Boston drag circuit. Danya is a extremely talented musician in all rights and plays guitar for the band as well as his new project Watcging Opposoms. Moera (Modera) helps out once in awhile with backing vocals and has helped us emencely as well as Jon's girlfriend Shaolin.
After the Fairy tales we have expanded into a band of eclectic covers and other intense songs written by Jon and author Gary Indiana(Rent Boy) has added to our repertoire. Our live performances have varied quite a bit over the past 5 years adding influences that are subtle but could be considered a variation anywhere from the Legendary pink dots, Dark Noise, Velvet Underground, Mekons ,Pogues or even the Dead Milkmen or Cure influences from which we do add covers from time to time to give a full blend of our background and the variations of themes that we always feel need to be injected into the mix for a bit of fun.The Strange Walls have also completed a rather successful adaptation this year of Poe's Dr. Tarr & Professor Fether which was received well with music by Jon Vomit and lead acting by myself the later was a bit of a stretch for me because i'm not a trained actor but the reviews faired very well for a off off broadway performance which should have been taken further than it was. We'll see what happens in the near Future and Beyond.......
Dan Drogynous 10.21.2008
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Friday, April 11, 2008
Dr Tarr & Professor Fether from 4/10 to 4/27 2008
THE SYSTEM OF DR. TARR & PROFESSOR FETHER
adapted to the stage by Candice Burridge and David Zen Mansley, with music by Jon Vomit.
Poe's classic short story to be staged with puppet theater and Goth Rock music.
Actor/puppet maker David Zen Mansley fashions a hand puppet for the production. Photo by Jonathan Slaff.
"The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether," Edgar Allan Poe's classic story of an insane asylum in southern France, has been adapted for the stage by Candice Burridge, David Zen Mansley and Jon Vomit and will be directed by Candice Burridge in Charles Adams-meets-Julie Taymor style, with dark, gothic imagery, a variety of shadow puppets, hand puppets and music by John Vomit of Strange Walls, a Goth Rock band.
Poe's reputation as a humorist stands secure with "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether." A traveler to southern France is invited to a lavish dinner in an insane asylum where a quirky staff is famous for its "system of soothing," which avoids punishment and seldom applies confinement to the patients, allowing them to dress normally and wander the grounds at will. The attendants "humor" their patients by never contradicting their fantasies or hallucinations. Rather, if a man thought he was a chicken, doctors would treat him as a chicken, giving him corn to eat. The method, however, is about to be forsaken in favor of "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether."
During an uncomfortable dinner, the staff regale the traveler with stories about patients they have known, like a lady who thought herself a chicken, a man a teapot, another a pumpkin, another a snuff box, etc. Amid this, Monsieur Maillard, the head of the institution, shares a remembrance of a lunatic who had once excited his fellows to rebellion. Suddenly the dinner is suddenly broken up and the asylum taken over by intruders whose feather coverings make them seem like orangutans. The attendants begin to act out in lunatic behaviors like the inmates they have been describing. It becomes clear that the head of the institution, Maillard himself, had lost his reason but not his wits, leading his patients into mischief. The lunatics had taken over the asylum, with the staff tarred and feathered.
L-R: Dan Drogyny, David Zen Mansley, Ilana Landecker. Photo by Jonathan Slaff.
Director Candice Burridge describes her approach as "everything cram packed with art," intending to provide "a more lush experience of where theater is" and citing as her influences the plays of Julie Taymor and the films of Tim Burton. She also cites a debt to German Expressionist films, upon which the play's shadow puppets will be inspired. She emphasizes that the story is a comedy. The principal characters will be "Adams Family"-ish and she will use puppets for the play's more whimsical characters. Hand puppets will be designed by David Zen Mansley and shadow puppets will be by Burridge. Experimental puppet lighting is by Jason Sturm. The dialogue of the play is as true to Poe's original as Burridge and David Zen Mansley could make it.
Ms. Burridge was born in Lafayette, Louisiana and received her BA in Puppetry from the University of Connecticut in 2003. She performs at the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater in Central Park as a puppeteer and is currently running "Pippi." At Theater for the New City, she is part of the regular production crew and is mask designer for Crystal Field in her annual Street Theater productions and "The Further Adventures of Uncle Wiggly: Windblown Visitors."
David Zen Mansley is both an actor and puppet designer. He has built miniatures for such films as Coppola's "Dracula," Tim Burton's "Ed Wood" and "X2 - X-Men United." In 1987, he built and designed the Pretorious "Resonator" for Stuart Gordon's film of H.P. Lovecraft's "From Beyond." He was part of Robert Skotak's Oscar winning FX team for the "Judgement Day" nightmare scene in Jame's Cameron's "Terminator 2." In 1988, he was named LA Weekly's Production Design of the Year for "Dracula Tyrannus" at the Globe Playhouse. As an actor, he has appeared in close to a hundred plays in roles from Claudius in "Hamlet" to Preacher Haggler in "Dark of the Moon." In 1990, he directed and played the lead in Shakespeare's "Macbeth" at the Celtic Arts Center in Hollywood for two and a half months and received a glowing review in the LA Times. He is the voice of the villain Agent Bishop on Saturday morning's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," where he also plays the demonic sorcerer Savanti Romero, Rat King and Kon, the Ninjitsu master of Spirit. In the upcoming animated series "Speed Racer," set to air this Spring, he plays the snide Professor Aniskov and the comedic henchman, Stan.
Jon Vomit grew up in Portland, Maine and moved to New York City eight years ago. He created Strange Walls, a band in the New York Post Punk scene. Since then he has composed scores for over a dozen underground films.
Shadow puppet design is by Candice Burridge; mask design is by Candice Burridge; hand puppet design is by Assistant Director David Zen Mansley; Production Manager is Adrian Gallard; set design is by Mark Marcante, lighting design is by Jason Sturm, costume design is by Susan Gittens; sound design is by Roy Chang; music is by John Vomit/Strange Walls. The actors are Performed by Dan Drogyny, David Zen Mansley, Ilana Landecker, Michael Sanders, Lissa Moira, Charles Battersby, Ellen Steier, T. Scott Lilly and William Abbott.
Some of the production's images are displayed on http://www.myspace.com/systemofdrtarr.
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