Guest review: The Very Worst of The Tiger Lillies

The Very Worst of The Tiger Lillies
Memo Music Hall
18 June 2017
tigerlillies.com
one night stand

Guest reviewer: Jack Beeby 

SM: I had a holiday (Japan is simply the best and I discovered Takarazuka Revue, who have ruined music theatre for me as much as Tokyo trains have ruined public transport), and Jack Beeby saw The Tiger Lillies while they were in town for one night. I remember how much I loved them the first time I saw them (and still do) and was a teeny bit jealous.

The Tiger Lillies

JB: The Tiger Lillies, international peddlers of peril, returned to Australia for the briefest of tours, including a one-night stop at St Kilda’s Memo Music Hall, to showcase the most sordid morsels of their 28-year canon in The Very Worst of The Tigerlillies.

For those who are yet to be indoctrinated into the band’s modest yet impassioned throng of followers, The Tigerlillies (in their current incarnation) are Adrian Stout, Jonas Golland and Martyn Jacques. Together they wrangle an impressive array of instruments, including a double bass, saw, guitar, theremin (Stout), customised drum kit (Golland), home-made electric ukulele, piano, and a sparkly green piano accordion (Jacques). Fuelled by Balkan-inspired time signatures and fiercely shrill vocals, these musical miscreants dispense a unique brand of grotesque punk cabaret, which has earned them a global cult following.

Through their songs, The Tiger Lillies almost exclusively conjure stories of human suffering and vice, often laced with macabre cautionary morals and told with visceral imagery that is most definitely not for the weak of stomach. Although the sadistic content and unflinchingly vivid depiction of these tales will certainly prove to be confronting for some, the group’s thoughtful composition, musical skill and theatrical delivery imbues each piece with an artistry that is wholly captivating.

The first act of The Very Worst solidly situates itself in the bygone world of ill-fated European carnivals, of ethically-barren sailors and transients, opium dens and brothels. Within this landscape, the group spin tales of desperation and devilry, of victims of extreme abuse and the perpetrators of horrific crimes. The content of this first act does not vary an awful lot. The pervasive energy of the set is slow and subdued and, while each story is its own work of narrative art, words like ‘corpse’, ‘whore’, ‘pimp’, ‘beat’ and ‘drugs’ are recycled from song to song with an almost tiresome regularity. With so much content to draw on from their 28-year catalogue, I found the lack of texture in this first set a little disappointing.

When the band return for the second act, we are treated to a selection of their more high-energy morality fables about religion, mortality and the bleak disaster of the human experience – songs that showcase the aggressive nihilistic passion and fierce musical punch for which they are so beloved and notorious.

Together, the three band members are a gaunt and gruesome visual spectacle. Their uniform of white grease paint and conventionally gentlemanly attire casts them as a chorus of grotesque phantoms, who find playful nuance in their strong individual characterisation – Stout is seedy and skeletal as he lurches over his upright bass; Golland is endearingly mournful as the group’s pallid percussionist; and Jacques is some kind of demonic clown, unleashing a howling falsetto that somehow manages to take over his entire elastic face.

While overall the energy of this performance seems a little more subdued than those of bygone decades, The Tiger Lillies’ deft musical skill and masterful talent for rich and evocative storytelling remains one of contemporary cabaret’s most wicked delights.

PS from SM: I still want "Getting Old" played at my funeral.

Songs from Shockheaded Peter and Other Gory Verses (July 2009)

Songs from Shockheaded Peter and Other Gory Verses

The Tiger Lillies
29 July 2009
the Arts Centre
The Playhouse, the Arts Centre

Songs from Shockheaded Peter and Other Gory Verses is a night for Tiger Lillies fans. As a ‘best of’ with favourite moments from the last 20 years, it was adored by the fans, but seemed to miss the Tiger Lillies new comers.


One of the side effects of popularity and success is playing in bigger venues. The Brechtian-punk trio have played theatres all over the world, but until now, Melbourne has only had the privilege of intimate venues. Although it was lovely to see the trio framed in a proscenium with pretty lights and lots of arty fog, the gap between stage and audience was difficult to break in the Playhouse and it’s just wrong to watch this group without a drink in hand.

This distance wasn’t for lack of trying on the stage, but it was strange to watch them getting sniggers instead of guffaws and almost disturbing to sit amongst an audience who didn’t all think that they are wonderful. I’ve seen The Tiger Lillies a few times and this was the first time I’ve ever felt that the audience weren’t with them and in on the joke.

The active alienation of Martyn Jacques’ white faced, falsetto-singing character is from Brecht. We need the slight distance to hear what he is saying and empathise with the characters he is singing about, but this night didn’t have the enough moments when audience and performers connected.

The ongoing issues with the sound mix didn’t help. The music sounded rich and inviting, but the vocals and the lyrics were often lost. There were too many times when the only people laughing were fans predicting the joke. When the extremity and irony of their lyrics are missing, the songs come across as smutty and obvious. Without the clear context of the complete lyrics, a song like “Kick a Baby” makes no sense and is far more disturbing than it really is. In ‘Lust’ the only clear words were ‘cock’ and ’tit’, which turned painfully black song about nothing ever being good enough into an uncomfortable cross between an episode of ‘Are You Being Served’ and ‘Deadwood’.

The show settled after the interval, but the most wonderful moments of the night were reserved for the encore when it was Martyn, Adrian and Adrian with their fans. It’s no secret that I am fan (if I could choose to one last performance in my life it would be a toss up between Einstein on the Beach or a few hours of The Tiger Lillies) – so I loved every moment of the evening, but Songs from Shockheaded Peter and Other Gory Verses lacked the spark and the connection that make this group one of the most original cabaret performances around.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Interview: Martyn Jacques

Martyn Jacques: The Tiger Lillies
Interview
July 2009


Celebrating 20 years of Brechtian-punk, The Tiger Lillies begin their Australian tour of Songs from Shockheaded Peter and Other Gory Verses on July 24 in Sydney, before visiting Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane and Darwin. Anne-Marie Peard spoke with founder Martyn Jacques about his inspirations and his quest for originality.

Like anything truly addictive and mind altering, The Tiger Lillies are an acquired taste. Often described as debauched, macabre, obscene and sordid, their inspired punk cabaret continues to defy genre and balances on a summit of originality that many aspire to, but few dare reach.

“The mainstream for me is just utterly depressing and dull. I’m not interested in that kind of world”, said founder Martyn Jacques. “If you’re not trying to do something in some original, unique and exciting way, then it’s just not worth doing at all – for me.”

Jacques (vocals, accordion and piano), Adrian Stout (bass and saw) and Adrian Huge (percussion, kitchen utensils and toys) began their rejection of the seen-it-all-before in 1989. Their brief visit to Australia is part of a world tour celebrating those 20 years since their formation. After Australia, they go to New Zealand, Edinburgh, Prague, Budapest and New York. And that’s just the next month! Not bad for a band who spent the first few years playing in “tiny bars and wine cellars”.

Jacques explained his early ideas. “I found this old beaten up accordion and thought I’ll sing in a high voice (because I could always sing in a high voice) and I’d already been playing the piano for 15 years … My earliest inspirations were people like Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weil, and The Threepenny Opera, and people like Jacques Brel and Edith Piaf and I thought of just mixing these things together … and brought in some Billy Holliday and blues and just went for it really.”

Fans embraced their unique vision and masterful musicianship and the bars were soon “filled with drunken fans”.

“We were trying to be original and develop an original style and an original sound and hoped that this originality would lead to us becoming successful.”

Broader success came as the “arty farty” set began to notice the crowds and soon the depraved trio were appearing at arts festivals and playing in theatres. The result is an ever-growing mass of fans who are very proud to be called members of The Tiger Lillies’ cult.

For Tiger Lillies’ virgins Jacques explained, “We’re entertainers. We try to actually amuse people and make them feel happy at the end of the evening, but we do it in a rather difficult and challenging way.”

The challenge that can quickly slap an unsuspecting patron in the face is that Jacques’ haunting falsetto voice sings about freaks, violence, death, blasphemy, addiction, bestiality and all possible combinations of the deadly sins.

Imagine if Brecht had written a Carry On film – as a musical – and Ken Loach had been asked to direct it. The resulting “Carry On One-Legged Transsexual Crack Whore” begins to scrape the surface of the images and wonders that emerge on a Tiger Lillies’ stage.

“We cover subject matter that is a bit dark and quite strange but a little bit more twisted and more perverse than your usual TV violence. We like unusual directions with strange characters and things.”

Characters like Masturbating Jimmy and Aunty Mable (an old, transsexual whore with a plastic leg) are very hard to forget. As are favourite songs like “Banging in the Nails”, “Cancer”, “Piss on Your Grave” and “Hamsters”.

The shock is turned up to eleven, but Jacques said, “I’d hate to perform and have everyone leave depressed.” The unexpected joy of The Tiger Lillies is that out of the putrid and rotting remains of their stories emerges an experience that is remarkably positive. It is challenging to describe how a song about kicking little babies down the stairs is rib-crackingly funny; perhaps by showing us the worst in the world, they are daring us to see the best.

The twentieth anniversary tour show is Songs from Shockheaded Peter and Other Gory Verses and features songs from ‘Shockheaded Peter’ and ‘The Gorey End’ – two of their most “commercial” albums (Jacques added the inverted commas) that are somewhat “nicer” (I added the inverted commas) than the likes of ‘Farmyard Filth’ or ‘The Brothel to the Cemetery’.

Shockheaded Peter started as a puppet theatre show that went on to win an Olivier Award. It was inspired by Heinrich Hoffman’s tales of naughty children who come to gruesome ends. Hoffman’s books are “sort of the Alice in Wonderland of Germany”, says Jacques, and the album is “a kind of absurd and ironic collection of songs based on this book ... (about) children dying doing innocuous things, like sucking their thumb and getting their thumbs cut off or walking along looking up into the sky and falling into a river and dying.”

The Gorey End is based on original works by underground writer and illustrator Edward Gorey, best known for his A-Z picture book of children meeting grisly ends, but Jacques insists that this album isn’t also about children dying, but simply about “people dying after doing fairly innocuous things, but they tend to drink gin and are prostitutes and things.”

Jacques meeting with the legendary Gorey sounds like a story from a Tiger Lillies’ song. Jacques said, “He was a fan, he really liked us and so he sent me this big box of unpublished manuscripts and asked if we’d like to do a show together. So we were going to do a show together, but unfortunately just before I was going to meet him, he died.”

As a fan, no doubt Gorey would still have been thrilled with the result. The Gorey End was also nominated for a Grammy for the Best Classical Crossover Album, as the other collaborators were the celebrated and influential Kronos Quartet. Kronos have spent the last 30 years expanding the range and context of the string quartet and are well known for their work with minimalist composers like Philip Glass, Terry Riley and Steve Reich. As Jacques said, “They are very game and are up for doing unusual and strange things.”

The Tiger Lillies world is unusual and strange, but one that still shakes the complacent and continues to fight the utterly dull.


You can listen to more of this interview the podcast of Joy 94.9’s The Outland Institute.


This article originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

A Suicide for Winter

A Suicide for Winter
The Tiger Lillies
August 4 2008
North Melbourne Town Hall

If I have bar for measuring great cabaret, it’s The Tiger Lillies. If I have a bar for measuring great comedy, it’s The Tiger Lillies. The inspired punk cabaret of A Suicide for Winter continues to defy genre, as it draws new comers into the (alleged) Tiger Lillies cult.

Melbourne joyously revels in regular visits from the UK based trio. (Songwriter, singer, accordion player and piano player Martyn Jacques, bass/musical saw player Adrian Stout and percussionist extraordinaire Adrian Huge.) Many cabaret artists claim their  dark, ironic and so naughty influence, but none dare copy as this trio balance on the summit of originality.

A Suicide for Winter mixes old favourites with a new selection of Deadly Sins (anyone currently in Edinburgh can see all seven sins in their new show). No hamsters, sheep or giraffes with sky-high vaginas were defiled in this display of harmonious musings, but the wonderful Huge took a poo joke to a level that would make a poo-obsessed toddler blush, and, I am surprised, that this is the first time I’ve seen Jacques play the piano with a rubbery sex toy.

White faced, be-suited, ponytailed and a little bit pudgy Jacques doesn’t try to be a lead singer. The glorious melancholy of his music seeps into your soul and gently squeezes your heart until it bleeds. His castrati-style vocals channel the distorted libidos of every true castrato, as he reveals a world of sordid violence and desperation that would break the most calloused heart – but you’re far too busy laughing to care.

Perhaps if Brecht had written a Carry On script (Carry on One-Legged Transsexual Crack Whore) and Ken Loach was asked to direct, it may come close to the images that flow from Jacques’s mind – but it would still feel like The Sound of Music in comparison.

If the content of A Suicide for Winter weren’t so extreme, it would just be smutty and dull. As the world is united in its worship of young, lycra-clad people with no body fat and IQs the size of a competing rhythmic gymnasts waist (listen to them being interviewed), it’s a comfort to have ‘the best freak show in town’ acting as a much needed counter balance.

PS.  If I ever have a funeral, please play ‘Getting old’ by The Tiger Lillies, even if it does result in some walkouts.

Photo by Andrew Attkinson

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Winner - What I Liked in 2008.