feed the dream/dresden dolls at the paradise

6.6.05

It was the first “hot” summer night in the city. Stoned off our asses, my friend CK and I cruised up Commonwealth Avenue on our way to the Paradise Lounge about 7:30 pm in my battered jeep cherokee. Windows down, White Stripes cranked, we slowed to a crawl as we approached the club and the throng gathered out front. We were “on the list”, but our plan was to have one of us jump out and “check in at the door” with the goal being of course to see if we could avoid standing in what appeared to be a mile long line (spoiled), thereby giving us time to park the car somewhere, further “amplify”, and maybe even grab a quick beer at the bar next to the club. No go - everybody in line was “on the list” too! And maddeningly, no one was going anywhere soon because there was some kind of power outage and the club was bringing in generators and dealing with potential disaster if the event, local music stars, the Dresden Dolls’ DVD film shoot, had to be cancelled and (god forbid) rescheduled. Disastrous because, once our minds de-fogged a bit and our eyes focused in on the visual array of performance artists, fans, freaks, photographers, videographers, devotees, archivists, media etc. milling about outside the club, the staggering amount of planning and passion and creativity and devotion that had gone into bringing the Dresden Dolls “vision” into manifestation THIS night, for THIS moment in time, to be recorded and documented for ALL POSTERITY, was…incredibly, heartbreakingly clear. What a sumptuous, delectable, curious feast for the eyes! What a stimulating, challenging, fascinating buffet for the brain! “What’s it all about??” “What, exactly, is happening here??” “What IS …ALL THIS??”…and finally, “holy fucking shit, I don’t know what it all means yet…but this is COOL!”.

The long wait turned out to be a funny blessing; there was a lot of time to “process” with other egghead types about the phenomenon we were witnessing. Maniacally busy creating my own new music, I had not seen the Dresden Dolls for years. But I had been savoring their rise to stardom through updates from friends and colleagues, and of course, from local media., savoring it and relishing it with the deep, slow, satisfaction one feels when true talent is matched with recognition, when something smart, profound, subversive, challenging and gorgeous is embraced by popular culture, and becomes beloved by many. It gives an aging rebel rocker like me hope when art/music as unique and original as what the Dolls create becomes “popular”. Indeed, the personal theater, the outrageous and unabashed self-expression that they encourage in people is exhilaratingly democratic. Looking at their fans, one can see what they as artists make clear: this belongs to you as much as to us! Take what we offer up and make of it what you will, or better yet, make your own! The ugly, the sacred, profane, the broken, the beautiful - we are all in it together! Punctuate it, take it out! Be it! Whatever you feel, whatever you see in your head, manifest it! And all of this visual/aural/intellectual stimulation swirled and combined to create a drama of archetypes on that stretch of dirty urban cement as old and familiar as any common fairy tale, as the myths that seem to live in our DNA. This human impulse to create theater, the ancient human need to be “seen” and witnessed for the unique individual life forms we each are, and to come together to share it, is absolutely unbridled in the fans and supporters of the Dresden Dolls (as local artist Scott Cahaly observed). And what a thing it is to behold! For there is glory in it! But there is also pathos in it. There is tremendous beauty, and perilous vanity. There is the opportunity at every turn for inspiration, and the insidious temptation of mockery. Complex, stunning…silly….I couldn’t take my eyes off the crowd! And all this, before a single note was played…

Inside the club, the circus continued. CK and I were mesmerized by a tiny china doll of a girl with raggedy ann hair who conducted a slow motion tea party with a real china doll at a tiny white table with chairs. And on and on. Performance artists performed. French girls in fishnets and stilettos offered up French kisses for free. Amanda and Brian came and went, being interviewed by Christopher Lyden, and joining others on stage for a series of short theater pieces. At last. The Dresden Dolls. Quivering, hushed, adoring anticipation. Then finally, them, just the two of them, Amanda and Brian, on the stage, behind their instruments, and the first, fiercely delicate notes of the music they were about to share, no, assault us with, no, incite us with, no, caress us with, no, inspire us with, no, shatter us with! No, batter, bang, beat, kiss, fuck us with! Until, by the end, it was all of these things and more: a musical experience of such vicarious, voracious intensity, that I felt as if I had just had the best, most loving, most brutal sex
imaginable, all night long…the kind of sex that heals because its aggression is mixed with tenderness, humor and grace, the kind of sex that surpasses fantasy because one is learning from the other, and transcends oneself at last…the kind of sex that is, can only be… a gift from the gods.

There is so much more I could say, especially about Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione. But I can’t, don’t want, to over-think it. To span the reach of the human heart, to release the self destructive impulses, to express our greatest anguishes, to make the grandest gestures, to weep and yet laugh in the face of loss, to lay bare our obsessions, to capture and caress what one could crush and destroy.. this is the job of great rock and roll and classical music alike. And this, in my humble, musically naive, intuitive opinion, is what the Dresden Dolls do, without peer.

Bed headed, delirious, changed forever, CK and I walked out of the Paradise holding hands. Lit our cigarettes. Smiled knowingly at each other. And headed home.

Feed the dream,

Linda Viens
Somerville, Massachusetts
www.cosmic-trigger.com