Shocking! Mink Stole is ‘warm, gentle and surprisingly normal’ CD delivers a theatrically emotional, quiet cabaret set BY TRAV S.D.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
O
ver the course of her long career, Mink Stole has been associated with many shocking projects. But the big shock about her new CD, “Do Re Mink,” is how tasteful it is. After all, her frequent collaborator John Waters wrote the book on bad taste — literally (it’s called “Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste”). So I think I can be forgiven for expecting the album to contain punk music, something sort of Patti Smith-like. Or perhaps some sort of
big tacky parody. One can easily picture something along the lines of Tracey Ullman’s 1983 hit song and video, “They Don’t Know.” But while Stole’s most famous screen characters can best be described as monstrous, in real life she comes off as warm, gentle and — a most surprisingly — normal, a sort of Baby Boomer Shirley Jones. Compared with my preconceptions, “Do Re Mink” is what I would describe as a quiet cabaret set. It’s not without funny nods to her famous persona, though. Tunes include the theme song to the Waters film “Female Trouble” and an anthem to Bal-
Mink Stole’s CD is a tasteful treat.
timore by Randy Newman. Most of the tracks are jazzy and piano-based, and like I say, quiet, with a brushed drums kind of mood. Mink’s voice is lovely, relaxed and theatrically emotional. Almost all of the songs have some kind of ironic edge, subtly juxtaposed with her straight-faced renditions, which must go over like gangbusters in live performance. One of the highlights of the record is her French language version of the 1966 Sonny and Cher classic “Bang Bang (I Shot My Baby Down).” But the best new find of the bunch has to be a tune called “No Nose Nanook,” a mock lament about an Eskimo girl with a very special handicap. It seems this is the Mink Stole record fans were expecting after all. “Do Re Mink” can be purchased by visiting minkstole.com ($15, $25 for an autographed copy).
Just Do Art A JOHN WATERS CHRISTMAS From having doggie doo for dinner to fending off the unwanted advances of a giant lobster, John Waters has a knack for making bad taste feel good. Of course, in Waters’ capable hands, there’s a big difference between celebrating bad taste and elevating what’s just plain distasteful. You need look no further for an example of that than the nearest “Housewives” reality show. Their trashy,
train wreck shenanigans are far less appealing than the Baltimore filmmaker’s self-proclaimed “celluloid atrocities” in early works such as “Multiple Maniacs” and “Pink Flamingos.” Waters’ up-for-anything drag collaborator Divine may be gone — but the renegade aesthetic they cultivated is alive and well, and placed under a tree that’ll be toppled if Santa doesn’t deliver on those coveted cha-cha heels (see “Female Trouble” for the priceless context of that reference — a scene based on an incident from Waters’ childhood, when the holiday tree fell on Grandma). Create some precious memories of your own, by attending “A John Waters Christmas.” Performed only twice this December, the filmmaker, essayist and bane of the Catholic League’s existence will “cruise into town on his sleigh full of smut, spreading yuletide cheer and lunacy.” That boils down to, we’re told, an evening in which the troubled Waters discusses everything from his “compulsive desire to give and receive perverted gifts to his religious fanaticism for Santa Claus to an unhealthy love of real-life holiday horror stories.” Fri., Dec. 13 and Sat., Dec. 14. At Stage 48 (605 W. 48th St., btw. 11th & 12th Aves.). Doors 7:30pm, show 8pm. For tickets ($45, $99 for meet & greet), visit stage48.com/events .
DOCUMENTARY: ALL THE WAY THROUGH EVENING PHOTO BY GREG GORMAN
John “The Pope of Trash” Waters puts the “X” in Xmas, in his terribly inappropriate holiday solo show.
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November 28, 2013
“I have vivid recollections of the food program they had for men really debilitated by the illness during the horror years of it all,” says Mimi Stern-Wolfe of Middle Collegiate Church’s efforts during the height of the AIDS crisis. Reacting to the loss of many creative contemporaries, Stern-Wolfe channeled her experience as a pianist, conductor and teacher into a new effort — and in the process, became an activist and producer whose Benson AIDS Series (founded in 1990) keeps alive the memory, and the music, of local composers lost to AIDS. “I could see the outreach they were doing,”
PHOTO BY DUNCAN HEWITT, COURTESY OF TA-DAH! PHOTOGRAPHY
BY SCOTT STIFFLER
L to R: Reverend Jacqui Lewis, Ph.D, pianist Mimi SternWolfe and director Rohan Spong (whose documentary “All the Way Through Evening” screens on Dec. 1 at Middle Collegiate Church, then opens at Village Cinema East on Dec. 6).
says Stern-Wolfe of Middle Collegiate’s AIDS ministry, “and it seemed like a good fit with what I was trying to say with the concerts.” On December 1, as part of Collegiate’s World AIDS Day Art & Soul worship celebration, Stern-Wolfe will be on hand to once again play a few solo piano works from the Benson series repertory. The service will also include a screening of Rohan Spong’s “All the Way Through Evening.” The Australian director’s acclaimed musical documentary looks at SternWolfe’s longtime (and ongoing) efforts to collect, archive and perform the moving final compositions of her friends. Before the film screens, the service will feature music from members of the Middle Church Jerriese Johnson JUST DO ART, continued on p. 21
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