Lovett/tuba) and Michael Cerveris (Todd/guitar) lead the 10-person Broadway contingent on this album-a production as dark and edgy as any fan of Sondheim’s ironic, unsentimental take on human nature could wish.
Sarah Travis has been Doyle’s musical accomplice for each staging reorchestrating the show anew-which can only be done after the show’s been cast.
Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd is his latest deconstruction, acclaimed in the West End and (currently) on Broadway. When you’re not singing, you’re the orchestra. theatrical producer John Doyle found this out when he hit upon the idea of condensing musicals simply by asking the cast to play instruments rather than hiring a separate pit band. Stravinsky knew this when World War I forced him to stop writing for 100-piece orchestras and led him to create the no-less-evocative The Soldier’s Tale for one speaker and seven instruments, and U.K. My sympathies to all artists competing for grant crumbs, but sometimes (if you’re clever) you can make financial constraints work for you. All tracks, down to Gruntruck’s freak-flag anthem “Tribe,” are crisper than a Bumbershoot elephant ear. The whole thing flows like a prized mixtape, with a penultimate finale bang by 7 Year Bitch’s Selene Vigil. Some artists (Tad, Love Battery) fizzled on major labels, and others (Andrew Wood, Stefanie Sargent) overdosed before they had the chance. There is a poignancy mixed with the bass wank. We begin with the Blackouts’ no-wave-y “Happy Hunting Ground,” then clang into “Mohawk Man,” as jammed by a barely legal Mark Arm, tongue set firmly in cheek.
SLEEPLESS IN SEATLE MUSIC SERIAL
Producer Colin Cobb has sent a still-smoking valentine from the days when Jack Endino was just a guitarist, Green River meant soda instead of serial killer, and Pearl Jam was but a glimmer in Malfunkshun’s eye. But nevermind, cob nobblers, because this is one of the comps that gets that grunge really began when Kurdt was but a babe in an Aberdeen manger. Despite still-sweating graphics from Charles Peterson and a typically informative-yet-clichéd essay from Loser author Clark Humphrey, the liner notes are a mess of superlatives, awfully yellow and faux D.I.Y, 10-point Courier-stylee. Sleepless in Seattle, Livewire’s 20-track ode to bygone lamestain days, flunks the first and slays the second. Postmortem grunge compilations are judged on two criteria: packaging (flannel? coffee beans?) and Kurdt (yes or no?). Sleepless in Seattle: The Birth of Grunge
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