Mon. March 24th
2003: Nora Keyes and Dame Darcy
Come celebrate the opening night of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (http://www.torontocomics.com) with live performances by
two of goth/experimental musics most intriguing performers. Nora Keyes will be
performing operatic music for ghosts accompanied by an organ. Dame Darcy (www.damedarcy.com) will
be singing sea shanties and murder ballads with her singing saw, banjo, and
autoharp. Sure to be a bizarre and memorable occasion. At the Vatikan, 1032
Queen St. W. Doors 9pm, $5 advance/with TCAF pass, (available at The Beguiling,
601 Markham St.). More at the door.
True performance artist NORA KEYES shares lead vocal duty in The Centimeters, a
group who has the distinction of being voted L.A.s weirdest band, and having
one of their CD¹s produced by long-time fan David J of Bauhaus. David J
liked the band so much, he invited them to tour with Love and Rockets.
Independently, Nora Keyes is also an artist and dollmaker, currently on a solo
tour and planning a solo release for the near future. Quite famous for a solo
piece she would play at Centimeters shows, a cabaret organ accompanying a
cackling soundtrack she insists you sing back to her, it only made sense to
gives us more. For this tour, she is performing operatic music for ghosts.
Mandra: Living in L.A., do you pay any attention to pop culture?
Nora Keyes: Not really. But I guess I 'm aware of girls showing butt cleavage
and guys dressing like they fell out of a trailer. That stuff is really hip in
L.A.. I find it disgusting. Deplorable!!
M: Is there room in our culture for an art-based vision of music,
meaning,music that begins with words and form, not image as we see in
popculture?
NK: Not in America.
M: How do you feel about the description of you as a cult artist?
NK: I don't really think of myself as an artist or musician. I feel weird
calling myself those tittles. It's like calling yourself a "Legend" I
read that in France, if you write poetry, only someone else can call you a
poet. That's how I feel about calling myself an artist or musician. It's only
for someone else to say.
M: Where do the ideas for songs like We Want GMO¹s come from?
NK: Greg (of The Centimeters) wrote the GMO's song. It's about potatoes spliced
with pig genes being sold at 7-11.
M: What inspired you to start making dolls?
NK: They are kind of incarnates of pictures I draw.
M: You have one very special doll
NK: I had a very special doll named Lilly. She was alive. I'm not crazy, other
people thought so too. She was made out of a root head I found deep in the
woods. I left her in my car one night. I lived near skid row at the time.
Somebody broke into my trunk and stole her. When I discovered her missing the
next morning, I lost my head. A couple of cops were giving a jay walker a
ticket near where I was parked. I ran over to them and said, "I've been
robbed!" They took a police report on Lilly. When they asked for my ID it
turned out that they were both born on my birthday. I took this as a sign that
Lilly would be recovered. I made signs, walked all over downtown L.A., peered
into homeless peoples possessions, asked seedy characters who were selling
watches on the corner if any one was trying to sell a doll, made a police
drawing, and talked to a detective. I turned up nothing. The only thing that
came out of losing Lilly was every time I would see the pair of cops that took
the police report I would yell, "Birthday Cops!". They would smile
and wave back. They would also let me jay walk. Even though a few years have
passed since Lilly's disappearance, I have not given up hope. I know we will
meet again.
DAME DARCY recently released her first illustrated collection of short stories,
Frightful Fairytales (Ten Speed Press). She is also a musician and doll-maker,
and is well known as the sole creative force behind the old-fashioned comic
book Meat Cake; living Pez dispensers, dancing wombs and all. The characters of
Meat Cake all appear in a Paper Doll Fun game on Darcy¹s web site,
www.damedarcy.com. Her musical endeavours are as original as she is, with her
instruments of choice being banjo, singing saw, and auto harp, and her musical
content being sea shanties. Did I mention that she sings these songs dressed as
a mermaid?
Mandra: What inspired you to start making dolls?
Dame Darcy: I've been making dolls my whole life. The ones I make now I started
making after giving one to my boyfriend for his birthday. He suggested I start
selling them and I've made about a thousand since 1995.
M: Can you tell us about the doll that is considered your familiar?
DD: Her name is Isabelle, a French Boudoir doll from 1927 we found each other
on our birthday in 1995 (that was a big year apparently).
M: What inspired you to start writing and illustrating Meat Cake?
DD: I have always wanted to have an animated TV show. I won a scholarship to
the San Francisco Art Institute and majored in film while studying animation. I
began self-publishing Meat Cake when I was 18 because it was the best I could
do on a low budget and still get the ideas for my animation across.
M: Do the Meat Cake characters have real-life counterparts, people
you¹ve encountered in your own life?
DD: Every one I draw I meet. Everything I draw comes true figuratively or
literally.
M: Were there any comics growing up that inspired you, or any writing
(I¹m thinking maybe the Brothers Grimm!)?
DD: I did love fairytales and my Mom would read them to me alot. As far as
comics I had a couple Tales from the Crypt issues from the 60's an old guy gave
to me and my brother. I liked Pippi and Alice when I was a kid as far as my
literative tastes. I'm writing my new book ŒGasoline¹ in the vein of
Flannery O'Connor meets Phillip K Dick
M: What artists or artworks interests you?
DD: My favorite artist is Aubrey Beardsley, I also like the French illustrator
Granville. Bosch is incredible, but I also like the pre-Raphaelite paintings
and da daism and German expressionism
M: Your stories inFrightful Fairytales¹ often have a hopeful,
optimistic quality. Is romance and truth as important to your life as it is to
your writing?
DD: Definitely yes, Its harder to come up with a happy ending and I enjoy
challenge,
M: How do you describe your music?
DD: Sea shanties and murderballads
M: Why did you choose Banjo and Singing Saw as your instruments of choice
for solo performance?
DD: I started playing banjo when I was 9. My Dad taught me. I was named after a
murder ballad and one of the first songs I learned as a kid is a sea shanty I'm
performing on this tour. Singing saw as more of a cabaret instrument a poor
mans¹ theramin.
M: Why did you choose to appear on Blind Date?
DD: Because I now live in Hollywood and I'm doing the "Hollywood
thing" by using their stupid mass media I don't care about to promote my
career as an artist.
www.damedarcy.com
interview by mandra,
march 2003
|
