Last night Olivia's friend took us to a show, supposedly to see Ramblin' Jack Elliot. He was there, but what we saw was something else altogether: a terrible war-song revue called Nell Robinson and the Rose of No Man's Land.
War can make for great drama, theater, and music. Of course it can. It's a major aspect of the human experience. Just last month we saw Black Watch, which was very good. This one was not.
I knew we were in trouble early on when the stage was decorated with cut outs of a farmhouse and trees. And indeed, we were told that the show was actually a conversation being held in LA—"Lower Alabama"—about all the wars in which singer Nell Robinson's family had fought. I object, generally, to the idea that the southern states best represent Americana or some notion of the 'real America' but of course all a creator need do is somehow signal knowledge of the issues involved to alleviate potential problems. Robinson didn't bother though. We instead were treated to the usual bullshit family letters which are interesting only to Robinson and people of similar backgrounds, and then music of various sorts—"The Battle of New Orleans", some traditional songs, one about the Bonus Army, etc. Robinson, a local performer, affected a light Southern accent and basically decided that her family's story was the universal American story. As she explained in a recent interview, "Now we have stories from the perspective of soldiers, loved ones and parents, all the people effected by war and service." Sure, and as long as they're all white—uh, excuse me, "Scots-Irish"*—people from Alabama
One problem is that Robinson only has one tone—happy-go-lucky. Bluegrass tends to that, but vocal tone can carry a lot of information, and emotion. For example, "Blue Eyed Boston Boy":
The song's a lament. Note the plaintive quality of the voice. One should not clap and dance the Axl Rose serpentine dance while singing it. Not if one wishes to be taken seriously anyhow. And every song was more or less arranged in the same way, despite some being of eighteenth century vintage, and some, like "American Anthem" by Gene Scheer, being contemporary. The best song was Ramblin's Jack's version of "Drive On", but even that poor old guy seemed a little befuddled—he forgot some lines, didn't sit down when he was supposed to, and missed a number of cues. As the event was being taped for PBS, they redid a bunch of stuff. There's still time for him to change his name to Stumblin' Jack Elliot, I suppose.
Robinson has all the charisma of a substitute teacher. "Does anyone know what the Bonus Army was?" she asked—literally! Then she ruined this song:
And Maxine Hong Kingston read, very well I might add, a letter from another of Robinson's insipid relatives about the Bonus Army. This relation wished she had the power to turn off the lights illuminating some buildings by the Capitol to..."feed the hungry." *gasp* *choke* Then Robinson explained how the Bonus Army led to the creation of the GI Bill. And everyone applauded, I dunno, student loans.
It got worse when Robinson declared that she had a special personal gift for the vets in the audience. The show was a benefit for a local homeless vet outreach charity, but her gift wasn't some kind of monetary or in-kind donation to the cause. It was another song, this one with lyrics provided by an extremely mediocre poem she found in a letter from her grandfather.
That wasn't even the ultimate outrage. The aforementioned "American Anthem" was. Robinson asked her brother-in-law why he enlisted in the military, he bade her to listen to the song. Have you heard it? It's the dumbest piece of shit in all the world.
Robinson appears to be one of those musicians who is very impressed by music, was just wowed that her brother-in-law used music appreciation to express his commitment, and that eight years ago was what led her to develop this review. Eight years! Eight years, and the thing was still full of blown takes, wallpaper, a single jangly country-radio arrangement for every song involved, and sentimentalist glurge.
Ugh. Were I not with a friend of Olivia's, I would have walked out after the third song. To amuse myself, I spent most of my time wondered why aging punks, like John Doe (who was there, reading letters instead of singing or playing guitar) always seem to embrace the bolo tie once they near sixty years old.
*One of the best parts of Black Watch involves a soldier aping the American accents he heard from US soldiers sniffing around for swag. "Hi there! My great grand-pa was in the Black Watch back in Scotchland. May I trade for a real tam-oh-shan-TER?"
War can make for great drama, theater, and music. Of course it can. It's a major aspect of the human experience. Just last month we saw Black Watch, which was very good. This one was not.
I knew we were in trouble early on when the stage was decorated with cut outs of a farmhouse and trees. And indeed, we were told that the show was actually a conversation being held in LA—"Lower Alabama"—about all the wars in which singer Nell Robinson's family had fought. I object, generally, to the idea that the southern states best represent Americana or some notion of the 'real America' but of course all a creator need do is somehow signal knowledge of the issues involved to alleviate potential problems. Robinson didn't bother though. We instead were treated to the usual bullshit family letters which are interesting only to Robinson and people of similar backgrounds, and then music of various sorts—"The Battle of New Orleans", some traditional songs, one about the Bonus Army, etc. Robinson, a local performer, affected a light Southern accent and basically decided that her family's story was the universal American story. As she explained in a recent interview, "Now we have stories from the perspective of soldiers, loved ones and parents, all the people effected by war and service." Sure, and as long as they're all white—uh, excuse me, "Scots-Irish"*—people from Alabama
One problem is that Robinson only has one tone—happy-go-lucky. Bluegrass tends to that, but vocal tone can carry a lot of information, and emotion. For example, "Blue Eyed Boston Boy":
The song's a lament. Note the plaintive quality of the voice. One should not clap and dance the Axl Rose serpentine dance while singing it. Not if one wishes to be taken seriously anyhow. And every song was more or less arranged in the same way, despite some being of eighteenth century vintage, and some, like "American Anthem" by Gene Scheer, being contemporary. The best song was Ramblin's Jack's version of "Drive On", but even that poor old guy seemed a little befuddled—he forgot some lines, didn't sit down when he was supposed to, and missed a number of cues. As the event was being taped for PBS, they redid a bunch of stuff. There's still time for him to change his name to Stumblin' Jack Elliot, I suppose.
Robinson has all the charisma of a substitute teacher. "Does anyone know what the Bonus Army was?" she asked—literally! Then she ruined this song:
And Maxine Hong Kingston read, very well I might add, a letter from another of Robinson's insipid relatives about the Bonus Army. This relation wished she had the power to turn off the lights illuminating some buildings by the Capitol to..."feed the hungry." *gasp* *choke* Then Robinson explained how the Bonus Army led to the creation of the GI Bill. And everyone applauded, I dunno, student loans.
It got worse when Robinson declared that she had a special personal gift for the vets in the audience. The show was a benefit for a local homeless vet outreach charity, but her gift wasn't some kind of monetary or in-kind donation to the cause. It was another song, this one with lyrics provided by an extremely mediocre poem she found in a letter from her grandfather.
That wasn't even the ultimate outrage. The aforementioned "American Anthem" was. Robinson asked her brother-in-law why he enlisted in the military, he bade her to listen to the song. Have you heard it? It's the dumbest piece of shit in all the world.
Robinson appears to be one of those musicians who is very impressed by music, was just wowed that her brother-in-law used music appreciation to express his commitment, and that eight years ago was what led her to develop this review. Eight years! Eight years, and the thing was still full of blown takes, wallpaper, a single jangly country-radio arrangement for every song involved, and sentimentalist glurge.
Ugh. Were I not with a friend of Olivia's, I would have walked out after the third song. To amuse myself, I spent most of my time wondered why aging punks, like John Doe (who was there, reading letters instead of singing or playing guitar) always seem to embrace the bolo tie once they near sixty years old.
*One of the best parts of Black Watch involves a soldier aping the American accents he heard from US soldiers sniffing around for swag. "Hi there! My great grand-pa was in the Black Watch back in Scotchland. May I trade for a real tam-oh-shan-TER?"