Sunday, March 26, 2006

Mini-Review:
Asylum Street Spankers

Ragtime with a modern twist, and a side of King Ranch Chicken

By Mike Orren

Press photo

The Asylum Street Spankers

DEEP ELLUM — A Saturday night Asylum Street Spankers Show at the AllGood Cafe is a layup -- highly skilled vaudeville-ragtime-blues-country-jazz with a wink and a nudge, combined with home cooking in an intimate, sit-down environment.

I haven't seen the Spankers in a couple years, and the ever-shifting lineup (around the core of Wammo and Christina Marrs) is skewing younger and sassier. The Spankers have three basic food groups: standards, original-traditionals and comedy/parody. This show skewed more to the latter than others I'd seen, hitting "Hick Hop," "TV Party," and "Beer" in the same set with a tune (from an upcoming Spankers childrens' album) positing that everything in the world is made of boogers.

The overall feistiness certainly seems to be a product of (relative) newcomer vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Sick, who gives Wammo a run for his money in the irreverence department -- No better evidence than a bluegrass rave-up of Nine Inch Nails' "Animal."

The Spankers are no novelty act, though. Every member of the band is a master of multiple styles and instruments. And as always, Christina Marrs wide-ranging and potent Bessie Smith-meets-Exene Chernakova vocals anchor the whole affair.

They have, however, dropped their defiant stance against microphones. Even so, they only use clip-on mics, and save for Christina, vocals are sometimes tough to make out, even the intimate confines of AllGood.

We noticed that the show had a definite theme of mixing the sacred and profane -- Gospel, drinking songs, sexual innuendo and blasphemy were the ingredients of the two-hour mashup.

The showstopping number of the night was a Wammo-led parody of "Tie a Yellow Ribbon," focusing on the Iraq war. The Spankers' version urged us to "Put a magnetic ribbon on your SUV," rhyming SUV with "complacency." It brought the house down.

And the King Ranch Chicken was, as always, sublime.

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