Dear Music Insiders,
Eric André has been around LA, so you may know him from your local Trader Joe’s, indie coffee shop, or carwash line. Or, you might know him from the Eric Andre Show on Adult Swim. This week, he visited KCRW. Clad in a Zoloft sweatshirt, Eric André brought tales of Cher and his 14k gold grills (turns out wearing them does feel like having braces — but way worse) as well as the music of Sade and “Weird Al” Yankovic, as he tore through Morning Becomes Eclectic last Friday.
Photo by Rommel Alcantara
His whirlwind, hilarious hour-long Guest DJ set with Novena Carmel also covered the live orchestral debut of his new project BLARF, a symphonic heavy-metal mashup experience: Film Scores for Films That Don't Exist.
My intrepid KCRW colleague, Tohar Zamir, is a longtime Eric André obsessive and made a pilgrimage to Zipper Hall to see BLARF live. And he came back with much to report… so I’ll let him take it away. Behold, below the fold: Tohar’s review of BLARF.
Reborn as BLARF, Eric André Takes a Page from Zappa’s Sheet Music
By Tohar Zamir
The connection between comedians and musicians is well-documented. Sometimes they hybridize, and the chimeras emerge, like the highly talented Fred Armisen, Reggie Watts, or Carrie Brownstein. What’s more rare, in my estimation, are individuals who push the boundaries in both directions. Such is the approach of Eric André, the artist currently known as BLARF, following an uproarious symphonic debut.
It’s impossible to talk about the absurd, unique, compelling nature of the BLARF performance without contextualizing its setting. Zipper Hall is an unassuming institution, sitting kitty-corner from the Walt Disney Concert Hall, home of the famed Los Angeles Philharmonic. Having parked beneath it, I found it was impossible to get to André without paper signs in windows reminding me of the omnipresent symphony conductor, Gustavo Dudamel. This was the temple of the contemporary.
This tone of conventionality is why I was unprepared for how forward-looking André’s work was. I had heard the lead single, “What’s For Dinner,” and while impressed, I thought that I had figured out his gimmick. I was certain that the orchestral compositions would reflect the comedy for which I already lionized him, where his skill was a melange of the absurd, serious, and the surreal. To that point, “What’s For Dinner,” (the second song in this live set, after an introduction to “Chariots of Fire”) swerves from somewhat conventional to a piece loaded with sludgy thrash-metal guitar and blast beats. Instead, André’s oeuvre ended up sounding incredibly sincere. The third song, “Stars Without Light,” did not wink; it was shifting, alien, and moving. Throughout that song, the André we know to be a cavalier comedian (who, one song prior, had poured a Modelo tallboy into an audience member’s mouth) was veiled… superseded by an intense and dedicated musician.
Photo by Drake Konishi
The fourth song performed, “Jazz Anthem,” was perhaps indicative of how André was approaching the work. Beginning as something baroque and string-led, it was then bulldozed by an eruption of hard bop across the stage; André unleashing a jazz quartet firing off up-up-tempo. The saxophonist played both his tenor and a soprano (like Morphine’s Dana Colley, but playing the repertoire of Ornette Coleman), while André stepped off his perch and, shoulder-to-shoulder with the double-bassist, produced a contrabass of his own. I was fully engaged, frantically whipping my head with the drummer’s snare cracks. Finally, André impressed by fading the remaining orchestra back in, playing the same refrain as before, this time overtop the rubber-burning jazz band. I was pleasantly reminded of Charlie Haden using similar techniques on the 1970 record Liberation Music Orchestra... and wondered if André had admired his avante-jazz progenitor.
Orchestras are known for performing the repertoire of composers other than their conductor — it’s safe to say that that has long been the norm. So, it would reason to think that André’s incorporating works beyond the BLARF discography should register on par with seeing an LA Phil performance featuring the music of John Williams.
But my experience was quite the opposite; there was something intangible, something that I have difficulty pinpointing, that gave the impression of a band performing covers. Maybe, I would posit, it was the supermassive draw of André’s personality that suggested that we were invited to hear these pieces from his perspective — from inside his head. The selections were methodical and aspirational: portions of the 2001: A Space Odyssey score, iconic Ennio Morricone fare, and tongue-in-cheek, near-meme-status works, like the theme from “Chariots of Fire.”
Photo by: Donald Nguyen_03
This works because André is unflinching in incorporating his humor. Some audience gags, like miming the strangulation of some lucky front-row spectators, played to ameliorate the fantastically tense score underneath. A clip of André wailing on a piano with an axe was a heightened gag that evoked his generational Adult Swim program. But, as the title hints at, I was roused by the shared narrative between André and one of my favorite composers, Frank Zappa. Both had been highly successful in their previous art, guiding their epoch with edgy, cutting fare. Both were known for their humor (for Zappa, an unfortunate barrier preventing many from discovering the rest of his work). And both, as I saw that night, were capable of pivoting and delivering engaging and inventive pieces. André delivered on the promise of something fresh.
Unsurprisingly, the raucous night was punctuated by a sublime finale: "1812 Overture," the Tchaikovsky staple, intentionally performed by the players “like fifth graders,” in André’s own words. That meant something like the influential Portsmouth Sinfonia; atonal, amateurish, and really fun. André, faithful to the score, fired confetti cannons into the crowd. It made for a cathartic end to an intense show.
I look forward to more boundary-pushing contemporary classical from BLARF, and recommend seeing him perform live if you have the opportunity to do so — and would be pleasantly surprised by, well, a pleasant surprise. Encore!
Thank you for sharing this unique experience, Tohar! Encore indeed! Film Scores for Films That Don't Exist drops on Spotify tonight! Now on to the rest of the newsletter, where I'll share what I'm spinning this week, plus more KCRW music moments.
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xx, Anne
