Hilary Hulteen
Originally published in Anthem magazine Issue 24, Sept/Oct 2006
I didn't see it, but I imagine I could bank on there being a humid, tangible magic in the room when Billie Holiday played a small club. Now I wasn't there, but I'd give a finger to sit on a sticky floor next to Tom Waits' tapping boot, souped in cigarette smoke and ghosts. And before the discovery of the big screen, and Kerouac and gin joints and my own time on the road, there was a child's tireless, burning desire for the gritty, terrifying intruige of Mommy Fortuna's Midnight Carnival, the temptation to abandon the parents at a truck stop for a brambled trail to Robin Hood and his merry men, all laughter, adventure and absurdity, and big group dinners under the stars.
Unfortunately these are all follies of fantasy, and times past. Now we have DVDs and David Blaine; tours are podcast across the first world, fidoras are in fashion and the jig is up. Clearly no one told The Yard Dogs Road Show. Somehow managing a sun-stained conglomerate of vaudeville, side show, big-band shazam, and some saucy burlesque, the Yard Dogs suddenly prove that the real, rugged magic of the travelling stage show is actually alive and well. Wriggling like Waits looks like he must have, up through the Earth, all her trailer parks and highways and magnificent chandeliers, from the underground where all good stories begin, the Yard Dogs appear on stage in a blast of fire, looking like the lavish spoils of an inspired three-way between Jessica Rabbit, Jack Sparrow and Buster Keaton at a Mad Hatter's tea Party in Deadwood, South Dakota.
Formed in 1998, the original three-piece jug band eventually evolved into a thirteen-person collaborative cabaret, embarking on their first full-fledged tour in 2005, complete with sword-swallower, some sweaty brass, four beautiful women, a carny-bred chicken and a bus full of props. From desert Indian reservations to the Knitting Factories in both Hollywood and New York, they left audiences with the same sense: that they'd seen something from out of time, children left wide-eyed and fiesty, adults tongue-tied and inexplicably turned on.
Personifying a woefully forgotten artfrom, The Yard Dogs Road Show are rolling on down the highway, compulsively reaching right out and satisfying the fantasy: a yearning for entertainment like it used to be, soulful and absurd, mystifying and seductive, tangible and completely insane, a show not soon forgotten. Like Mommy Fortuna's meager magic turned a lion into a manticore for those who merely wanted to believe, so again are we able to be swept away with the truest kind of spectacle, a few sweat-stained humans on a teeny tiny stage, illuminating parking lots and theaters and the darkest of nights. Like fucking magic.
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e: Hilary@Hulteen.com | ph: (718) 608-4509
