Charming Hostess
Encyclopedia
Charming Hostess is a band that grew out of the Oakland avant-rock scene in the mid-1990s.
consciousness: both Jewish and African. Stylistically, Charming Hostess incorporates doo-wop
, Pygmy
counterpoint, Balkan harmony and Andalusian melody. Contemporary influences on the band include Meredith Monk
and Reinette l'Oranaise. The music often explores existing text and overlays the composer's (Jewlia Eisenberg
) own questions of authenticity, montage, and the effect of music on non-verbal languages.
The Bowls Project Album (Release Summer 2010):
Based on inscriptions from ancient Babylonian Jewish amulets, The Bowls Project, as Charming Hostess. (Tzadik Records
, Radical Jewish Culture, 2010) sings of mysticism and magic, angels and demons, and the trials and joys of love and sex. Especially audible are the voices of Talmudic-era women: their work, hopes and dreams. Weaving together Babylonian devotional songs, apocalyptic American folk music and a radical take on ritual power. Honored guests on 2010 The Bowls Project album include:
Marc Ribot
, Jenny Scheinman
, Megan Gould, Jessica Troy, Nils Frykdahl
, Dawn McCarthy, Ganda Suthivarakom, Boris Martzinovsky, Aaron Kierbel, and Nir Waxman.
The Bowls Project Installation & Sound Sculpture:
As a performance installation and interactive sound sculpture that takes place in a 40’ Catalan vault
designed by architect Michael Ramage. Featuring new music composed and performed by Jewlia Eisenberg and Charming Hostess, The Bowls Project is based on texts from ancient Babylonian amulets. The culmination of five years of research, The Bowls Project is scheduled to run June through August 2010 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
. An estimated 15,000 people will visit and interact with the installation.
The Bowls Project Background:
Bowl amulets also known as Incantation bowls
were common 1500 years ago in the area that is now Iraq. Simple bowls were inscribed with a householder’s secrets and desires and then buried under the doorway to protect the home. The bowl texts are about “secrets of the home”: love and intimacy, angels and demons, and the trials and joys of daily life. Audible in these texts are the individual voices of women from this period -their work, hopes, and dreams. These spiraled inscriptions are among the few existing records of female voices during the time and place of the Babylonian Talmud.
The 2002 CD (Trilectic, Tzadik Records
) explored the political/erotic nexus of Walter Benjamin
and his Marxist muse, Asja Lācis
. The 2004 CD (Sarajevo Blues
, Tzadik) sets Bosnian poetry by Semezdin Mehmedinović
as a form of love and resistance to the brutalization of war.
Their self-described genre is "Nerdy-Sexy-Commie-Girly". Charming Hostess is Jewlia Eisenberg, Marika Hughes, Cynthia Taylor and often Ganda Suthivarakom and Pameliya Kursten (all vocals).
sensibility (the women often wore mustaches while the men wore dresses). Early Charming Hostess music drew on women's vocal traditions (primarily from Eastern Europe
and North Africa
), and integrated them with American folk forms both white and black. Charming Hostess was founded in the fertile anarchy
of Barrington Co-op (aka Barrington Hall), and nurtured by the West Oakland arts community, along with other coeval bands such as Fibulator and Eskimo. Half of Charming Hostess was also in Idiot Flesh
/Sleepytime Gorilla Museum
. The final effect was of a hoedown where bodacious babes belted the blues in Bulgarian while a punk
-klezmer
band rocked out in accompaniment.
The genre of this incarnation of ChoHo is described by the band as "Klezmer
-Punk
/Balkan-Funk
". Recordings of Charming Hostess Big Band include "Eat" (Vaccination, 1998) and the new "Punch" (ReR, 2005) Charming Hostess Big Band was: Jewlia Eisenberg (voice, direction), Carla Kihlstedt (voice, fiddle), Nina Rolle (voice, accordion), Wes Anderson (drums), Nils Frykdahl (guitar, flute, saxophone, percussion), and Dan Rathbun (bass).
Current work
Today, the music primarily springs from three women with an emphasis in the body—voices and vocal percussion, handclaps and heartbeats, sex-breath and silence. The work grows from diasporaDiaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
consciousness: both Jewish and African. Stylistically, Charming Hostess incorporates doo-wop
Doo-wop
The name Doo-wop is given to a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that developed in African American communities in the 1940s and achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. It emerged from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and...
, Pygmy
Pygmy
Pygmy is a term used for various ethnic groups worldwide whose average height is unusually short; anthropologists define pygmy as any group whose adult men grow to less than 150 cm in average height. A member of a slightly taller group is termed "pygmoid." The best known pygmies are the Aka,...
counterpoint, Balkan harmony and Andalusian melody. Contemporary influences on the band include Meredith Monk
Meredith Monk
Meredith Jane Monk is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. Since the 1960s, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recording extensively for ECM Records.-Life and work:Meredith Monk is primarily known for her...
and Reinette l'Oranaise. The music often explores existing text and overlays the composer's (Jewlia Eisenberg
Jewlia Eisenberg
Jewlia Eisenberg is an American composer. As founder and bandleader of Charming Hostess she coined the term "Nerdy-Sexy-Commie-Girly" to describe her genre of music which spans an eclectic range of styles....
) own questions of authenticity, montage, and the effect of music on non-verbal languages.
The Bowls Project Album (Release Summer 2010):
Based on inscriptions from ancient Babylonian Jewish amulets, The Bowls Project, as Charming Hostess. (Tzadik Records
Tzadik Records
Tzadik Records is a record label based in New York City specialising in avant-garde and experimental music. The label was established by the eclectic composer and saxophonist John Zorn in 1995; Zorn is the executive producer of all Tzadik releases...
, Radical Jewish Culture, 2010) sings of mysticism and magic, angels and demons, and the trials and joys of love and sex. Especially audible are the voices of Talmudic-era women: their work, hopes and dreams. Weaving together Babylonian devotional songs, apocalyptic American folk music and a radical take on ritual power. Honored guests on 2010 The Bowls Project album include:
Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer.His own work has touched on many styles, including no wave, free jazz, and Cuban music. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notably Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and composer John Zorn.-Biography:Ribot was...
, Jenny Scheinman
Jenny Scheinman
Jenny Scheinman is an accomplished violinist. Renowned as a jazz violinist, she has credits with artists in many genres. She has collaborated and played with Linda Perry, Norah Jones, Nels Cline, Lou Reed, Ani Difranco, Bruce Cockburn, Aretha Franklin, Lucinda Williams, Bono, and Bill Frisell and...
, Megan Gould, Jessica Troy, Nils Frykdahl
Nils Frykdahl
Nils Frykdahl is an American musician most known for his work with the bands Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and the now-defunct band Idiot Flesh. He has a bachelor's degree in music from UC Berkeley, which he received in 1989. He also is a member of the bands Faun Fables and Darling Freakhead, and used...
, Dawn McCarthy, Ganda Suthivarakom, Boris Martzinovsky, Aaron Kierbel, and Nir Waxman.
The Bowls Project Installation & Sound Sculpture:
As a performance installation and interactive sound sculpture that takes place in a 40’ Catalan vault
Catalan vault
The Catalan vault, also called the Catalan turn or Catalan arch or a timbrel vault, is a type of low arch made of plain bricks often used to make a structural floor surface...
designed by architect Michael Ramage. Featuring new music composed and performed by Jewlia Eisenberg and Charming Hostess, The Bowls Project is based on texts from ancient Babylonian amulets. The culmination of five years of research, The Bowls Project is scheduled to run June through August 2010 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is a multi-disiplinary contemporary arts center in San Francisco, California, United States. Located in Yerba Buena Gardens, YBCA features visual art, performance, and film/video that celebrates local, national, and international artists and the Bay Area's diverse...
. An estimated 15,000 people will visit and interact with the installation.
The Bowls Project Background:
Bowl amulets also known as Incantation bowls
Incantation bowls
Incantation Bowls, also known as demon bowls or devil trap bowls, are a form of early protective magic found in modern-day Iraq and Iran. Produced in the Middle East during the Late Antiquity from 6th to 8th century AD , the bowls were usually inscribed in a spiral beginning from the rim and moving...
were common 1500 years ago in the area that is now Iraq. Simple bowls were inscribed with a householder’s secrets and desires and then buried under the doorway to protect the home. The bowl texts are about “secrets of the home”: love and intimacy, angels and demons, and the trials and joys of daily life. Audible in these texts are the individual voices of women from this period -their work, hopes, and dreams. These spiraled inscriptions are among the few existing records of female voices during the time and place of the Babylonian Talmud.
The 2002 CD (Trilectic, Tzadik Records
Tzadik Records
Tzadik Records is a record label based in New York City specialising in avant-garde and experimental music. The label was established by the eclectic composer and saxophonist John Zorn in 1995; Zorn is the executive producer of all Tzadik releases...
) explored the political/erotic nexus of Walter Benjamin
Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual, who functioned variously as a literary critic, philosopher, sociologist, translator, radio broadcaster and essayist...
and his Marxist muse, Asja Lācis
Asja Lacis
Asja Lācis was a Latvian actress and theatre director. A Bolshevik, she became famous for her proletarian theatre for children and agitprop. In 1922 she moved to Germany where she got to know Bertholt Brecht and Erwin Piscator, who she introduced to Vsevolod Meyerhold and Vladimir Mayakovsky.In...
. The 2004 CD (Sarajevo Blues
Sarajevo Blues
Sarajevo Blues is a book of poetry first published in 1992 during the siege of Sarajevo by Semezdin Mehmedinović. Mr. Mehmedinović's book was translated into English by Ammiel Alcalay in 1998. Mr...
, Tzadik) sets Bosnian poetry by Semezdin Mehmedinović
Semezdin Mehmedinovic
Semezdin Mehmedinović is a Bosnian writer, filmmaker, and magazine editor.After studying Librarianship and Comparative Literature in Sarajevo, he worked as an editor of "Lica" and "Valter" magazines, which served as a voice of opposition to the ruling Communist regime...
as a form of love and resistance to the brutalization of war.
Their self-described genre is "Nerdy-Sexy-Commie-Girly". Charming Hostess is Jewlia Eisenberg, Marika Hughes, Cynthia Taylor and often Ganda Suthivarakom and Pameliya Kursten (all vocals).
Early work
The pre-2002 Charming Hostess (also known as Charming Hostess Big Band) was a rock band that embraced a genderfuckGenderfuck
Genderfuck refers to the conscious effort to mock or "fuck with" traditional notions of gender identity, gender roles, and gender presentation. It falls under the umbrella of the transgender spectrum.-Genderfucking:...
sensibility (the women often wore mustaches while the men wore dresses). Early Charming Hostess music drew on women's vocal traditions (primarily from Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
and North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
), and integrated them with American folk forms both white and black. Charming Hostess was founded in the fertile anarchy
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
of Barrington Co-op (aka Barrington Hall), and nurtured by the West Oakland arts community, along with other coeval bands such as Fibulator and Eskimo. Half of Charming Hostess was also in Idiot Flesh
Idiot Flesh
Idiot Flesh was a band formed in Barrington Hall, a student co-op at the University of California at Berkeley. They formed in 1985 under the name Acid Rain, and their demo album "We Were All Very Worried" was released as a cassette-only edition in 1987...
/Sleepytime Gorilla Museum
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum is an American experimental rock band, formed in 1999 in Oakland, California. The band fuses classical, industrial, and art-rock themes throughout their music...
. The final effect was of a hoedown where bodacious babes belted the blues in Bulgarian while a punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
-klezmer
Klezmer
Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...
band rocked out in accompaniment.
The genre of this incarnation of ChoHo is described by the band as "Klezmer
Klezmer
Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...
-Punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
/Balkan-Funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
". Recordings of Charming Hostess Big Band include "Eat" (Vaccination, 1998) and the new "Punch" (ReR, 2005) Charming Hostess Big Band was: Jewlia Eisenberg (voice, direction), Carla Kihlstedt (voice, fiddle), Nina Rolle (voice, accordion), Wes Anderson (drums), Nils Frykdahl (guitar, flute, saxophone, percussion), and Dan Rathbun (bass).