Bushwick Book Club performs songs inspired by Mx. Justin Vivian Bond’s Tango
February 28, 2013 @ 8:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Mx. Justin Vivian Bond’s Tango: My Childhood, Backwards and in Heels serves as the inspiration for the original songs that the Bushwick Book Club performers will debut at the Bureau on Thursday, February 28, at 8 PM.
The Bushwick Book Club is a series of new music inspired by literature. Each month, local songwriters plumb the depths and scrape the ends of a chosen literary gem to create thatrare and beautiful thing – a new song. All songs are then displayed, spread wide, in one hour. It’s an hour-long orgy of book-related songs and book-inspired food and drink. If that doesn’t sound indulgent enough, I don’t want to know you, you sick, sick bastard.
Featuring performances by Susan Hwang, Ellia Bisker, Natti Vogel, Dan Fishback, Justin Vahala, Stacy Rock,Davi Cohen, Santiago Venegas, Hilary Downes, and Jonathan Wood Vincent.
SUSAN HWANG is a New York performer, musician and songwriter. She performs her original music as a solo artist as well as with her band The Relastics. She’s also one third of New York’s favorite accordion/cello/bari-ukelele power trio, The Debutante Hour. Susan founded, curates and hosts The Bushwick Book Club – a monthly series of new music inspired by literature. For more information and performance calendar, visit susanhwanglalala.com.
Ellia Bisker is a songwriter who fronts the indie-rock-meets-cabaret band Sweet Soubrette and performs in the duo Charming Disaster. She also sings backup with Stacy Rock, co-hosts the Super Fun Variety Show (coming up at the Living Theatre on Feb 24), and works behind the scenes at the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus. She is currently working on Sweet Soubrette’s third album, and is writing or recording a new song every day this month for Fun-A-Day.
Natti Vogel – Combining “the swagger of Jim Morrison with the honky-tonk piano of an old-timey saloon” (WeLiveInBeijing.com), 25-year-old “indie rock fusion virtuoso” (New York Press) Natti Vogel is not above “throwing your own overpriced cosmopolitan in your face from behind his piano” (the Onion). Possible side effects include re-evaluation of music and your self (“Natti Vogel is an artist who can transform you” – Diane Taha of Associated Content, “Natti Vogel and his band do a wild part-vaudeville, part-pop, part-classical act that made me think about what music does” -the Brothers Frank).
Photo by Allison Michael OrensteinDan Fishback‘s major theatrical works include The Material World (2012), thirtynothing (2011) and You Will Experience Silence (2009), all directed by Stephen Brackett at Dixon Place. Time Out New York called The Material World “the best downtown musical” in years, and named it one of the top ten plays of 2013. Fishback curates and hosts the queer theater series La MaMa’s SQUIRTS. As a singer-songwriter, and with his band Cheese On Bread, he has toured internationally and released five albums, including his latest, The Mammal Years (2012). Fishback is currently an artist-in-residence at Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania.
Hailing from the bright lights of Dallas, Justin Vahala is a Brooklyn-based musician and performance artist. Justin’s unicorn folk is a blend of country, Americana, and straight up Lilith Fair realness. For links to Justin’s music, upcoming shows, and innermost thoughts, check out his website: www.justinvahala.com.
Stacy Rock has toured the country several times playing hundreds of shows in support of her debut album, One Way Home. She has been compared to a baffling variety of artists including Tom Waits, Feist, Jeff Buckley, Regina Spektor, Aimee Mann, Stevie Nicks and even Queen. Gabriel Levitt of Brooklyn’s Jezebel Music wrote that her live performances are “unequivocally enchanting”. She is a two time award winner of the AscapPlus Award for accomplishments as a songwriter and was the resident piano player at NYC’s Monkey Bar for two years. She recently fan funded an EP through the great platform of Kickstarter. It is currently being mastered and soon to be released. Also an actress, Stacy has appeared in numerous theatrical production through out the United States. She was a principle player in the cult film hit Murder Party and recently wrapped a film with Eve Plumb called Blue Ruin. www.stacyrock.com
Davi Cohen is a Bushwick-based actor, singer, dancer, writer, producer. She’s performed in some large venues with Taylor Mac and the SITI Company, donned head-to-toe fetish wear as a mime/acrobat for the San Francisco Opera, and given birth to a live lobster by self-caesarean on a very tiny stage in Ditmas Park. She also helps organize the Pop-Up Museum of Queer History and is a founder of the New York Abortion Access Fund.
Santiago Venegas is a singer, songwriter and performer from Bogota, Colombia He has performed previously in Erin Markey’s Puppy Love: A Stripper’s Tail (P.S 122, 2010), Justin Vivian Bond’s Re:Galli Blonde (A Sissy Fix) (The Kitchen, 2010) and most recently in Viva Ruiz’s Immigrantula (Moma PS1 2011). Santiago studied Fashion Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology. He enjoys knitting, crocheting, stressing about environmental deterioration, and immigrant’s rights!
A native of Portland, Oregon, Hilary Downes knows how to ‘just put a bird on it.’ Hilary successfully integrated front lawn dance performances, piano recitals and auditions for high school musicals with her long-time residence in New York City, and allowed her love of music to reign. To date, Hilary has co-written and recorded three albums with Brooklyn stalwarts, The Snow, and continues to perform with them live. In addition to regular gigs in the New York area, The Snow have also performed in Los Angeles, Scandinavia and Russia. C. Gibbs, Les Bandits and Bad Reputation are among the other artists Hilary collaborates with – sometimes as volunteers at the New York Methodist Hospital. Hilary is a writer, world traveler, multi-linguist, and a practitioner and teacher of both yoga and martial arts.
Jonathan Wood Vincent is a composer/pianist/singer who straddles chaos and order, confusion and calculation, imagination and sensation, art and torture, dream and sleep. Listen to more at jonathanwoodvincent.bandcamp.com
BGSQD
SUSAN HWANG is a New York performer, musician and songwriter. She performs her original music as a solo artist as well as with her band The Relastics. She’s also one third of New York’s favorite accordion/cello/bari-ukelele power trio, The Debutante Hour. Susan founded, curates and hosts The Bushwick Book Club – a monthly series of new music inspired by literature. For more information and performance calendar, visit susanhwanglalala.com. 
