Chadbourne's orderly chaos

Avant-garde artist opened up the KKKmart last Sunday in the Cat

A chaotic convergence of musical traditions took place Sunday night at the Cat, brought about by Eugene Chadbourne and his collaborators, Joee Conroy, Steve Good, and Norman Minogue. The quartet tested and blurred the boundaries between such disparate forms as bluegrass, jazz, punk, horror movie music, and experimentalism reminiscent of the 1950s and 60s.

The "horror" component of the show was introduced in a composition of Chadbourne's entitled "House by the Cemetery." This set opener began with the ambient interplay of guitar, clarinet, cello, and that essential instrument of horror movie music, the theremin. As it unfolded, some of the musicians switched instruments; the piece culminated in spasmodic bursts of synthesizer and drums underlying frenzied squeals from the guitar and clarinet.

Underneath this apparent disorder, there remained a sense of something strongly intentional and calculated. Chadbourne's stage manner reinforced this impression: in the most intense moments of the piece, he seemed to alternate between states of self-absorbed intensity and extreme self-consciousness, occasionally casting knowing and conspiratorial glances at the audience.

After a rather intense and adventurous beginning, Chadbourne filled out the remainder of the first set with songs in more traditional styles, displaying impressive ability on guitar and then banjo while Conroy accompanied him on mandolin. Most of these songs explored ground somewhere between Delta blues and ironic folk protest music. However, Chadbourne never suppressed his own eccentric tendencies: at any given moment in a relatively conventional song, he could launch easily into bursts of improvisational fury. He proudly displayed his penchant for genre-bending in the final song of the first set, a rendition of the Dead Kennedys' "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" set to a traditional bluegrass melody.

Following an intermission during which he sold tapes (packaged in old food boxes and socks) from a table on the stage dubbed the "KKKmart," Chadbourne began the second set with a banjo solo. Gradually bringing the other members of the quartet back to the stage, he played highly individualized versions of pieces including Ornette Coleman's "Bird Food" (which, Chadbourne claimed, was inspired by Oberlin cafeteria food, not by Charlie Parker as is usually assumed).

Towards the end of the second set, with the entire ensemble back onstage, the horror theme was reincarnated. Chadbourne's "I Talk to Death in Stereo," made use of short-wave radio in creating an eerie ambiance in which the musicians seemed to go through their own obsessive but somehow interrelated motions.

At times, the performance seemed to approach a deranged, all-out assault on traditional definitions and conceptions of music, at least on those which prevailed before the middle of this century. However, this impression was counterbalanced by the respect shown in Chadbourne's interpretations of jazz and bluegrass standards. Ultimately, this combination of reverence and irreverence produced a highly unique and compelling performance.

Oh, the Horror!: Eugene Chadbourne and his project Horror Part One terrified the crowd in the Cat last weekend. (photo by Kurt Beals)