Downtown Live

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Go To: Real Burlesque • Mad Scientist

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Real Burlesque

by Maggie Golston

he imminent arrival of internationally-renowned burlesque starlets the Fluffgirl Circuit augurs any of a number of possible futures. Is it the proto-fascistic Berlin-in-the-30s kind of glee with which we run to our smoky cabaret? (In this case the Surly Wench is appropriate host to this poor man’s follies.) Are we sinking into midsummer doldrums so deep that we have conjured a troupe of talented Canadian lasses to cool our jets? That’s more like it… Is it about darn time to see some real talent that needs no pole or spandex thong reclaim the blue nightclub stage? Oh yes, it is.

Launching their Jungle Exotica tour - complete with tikis, fire dancing, and coconut bras - the Toronto-based Fluffgirls hit Tucson Friday, July 22. Their press calls the current show “a volcanic eruption of excitement” and promises comedy and music in addition to the striptease that alone would earn the price of admission.

The art of burlesque has seen a resurgence in the past decade. By burlesque, real burlesque, the Fluffgirls mean theatre rather than the kind of dancing found in any of a number of gentlemen’s clubs on Miracle Mile. In fact, the art of the classic burlesque dancer and its country cousin, carnival girl shows, date back over a century. Through the years, productions became increasingly bigger, and outfits grew skimpier. By the 1980s, pole-spinning all-nude revues had essentially pushed out any vestige of the traditional burlesque.

The Fluffgirls are committed to the revival of classic, classy striptease; in fact, it’s in their mission statement. The girls toured extensively throughout North America and the U.K and Germany on 2004’s World Domination Tour. Women on a mission, they have returned to the road this summer like the carny gals they are.

As for whether it will be a sausage party, I can promise that I’m going, and I’m bringing my girls with me. The Surly Wench is always a great time for us girls, anyway. Plus, even the most cynical among us is bound to find lots to look at, laugh at, and love. My guess is they will have some great outfits to covet, as well as some moves to crib. Get an umbrella in your drink and I’ll see you there!

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Mad Scientist

by Maggie Golston

hen the House of Bush takes away all of the funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and everything we hear is an ad for empty calories or whatever content the empty-calorie-slinging-megacorporations deem inoffensively vapid and consumption-inducing, where will we ever find poetry? Or real emotional honesty, crafted songwriting, passionate delivery?

My privately-funded dollar’s on Richard Buckner, the closest thing to a troubadour our generation’s got. By troubadour, I refer to the historical, minstrel kind, and not preening, prancing 60s-70s pop idols like Donovan, much as I adore them, too. Buckner eschews any non-organic theatrics, but a live Buckner show is somehow theatrical. Playing several guitars by a tweaking of effects recalling a mad-scientist, Buckner doesn’t sing his songs so much as live through them. Buckner’s unique ear and sense of plot allows for a merging of songs into a cohesive, coherent block whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Buckner’s 2004 release, Dents and Shells, was partly tracked here in town at Wavelab. A moody record in a moody catalog, this latest release is, however, both brighter and more accessible than most of his previous work. Buckner’s unique guitar work is certainly in fine form, as is his uniquely narrative voice. Buckner previously recorded an album (2000’s The Hill) of turn-of-the-century poet Edgar Lee Masters’ monologic poems, Spoon River Anthology. The pairing might seem unlikely until one examines the sense of narrative foci both Masters and Buckner employ. And the exercise is not merely intellectual; these are beautiful songs.

Richard Buckner performs Wednesday, July 27 at Plush, 340 E. 6th St. Tickets are $8 advance, $10 day of. 21 and over show.

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