Try this on: “I refuse to be the same person I was when I was born when I die,” intones Amigo the Devil on his tune “Cocaine and Abel.”
Couched in heaps of wide-eyed insight and insanity, Danny Kiranos aka Amigo the Devil, is as serious as a suicide note with typos. Kiranos clearly has been reading Tom Waits’ mail or borrowed one of Nick Cave’s suits.
Musically, this man from Miami is straight-ahead folk.
From here his play with words and his play around with words takes it all to hell. Fans call it murder folk. Of which he is king. He wears the crown up on high despite the reference to darkness and murder.
It’s dark, I’m telling you, and Amigo the Devil plays it stark, not for one minute succumbing to the heartbreak in the songs and lyrics that read like a death knell or preamble to an obituary. Believe.
Amigo the Devil plays tonight at Photo City Music Hall, with guests Tejon Street Corner Thieves and Stephanie Lambring. Doors open at 7 p.m. Showtime is at 8 p.m.
An immersive experience
Performing at the Rochester Fringe Festival, the Velvet Noose is a multidisciplinary performance trio that plays with a sense of reality and truth, narrowly escaping eroticism.
I could dismiss it all with the questions they left unanswered, but the Rochester-based trio seemed to present the answers first.
First, it was the cat in the hat and all-white who as a mannequin served to unnerve the arriving audience clamoring for a ring-side seat at the Multi-Use Community Cultural Center.
The group didn’t come off as intentionally obtuse and presented a piece of classic theatre which included speaking backwards and merging it with an unconventional score. The Velvet Noose left it all for us to pick up so we could answer, or with quizzical affirmation and finger snaps, what did I just see?
There was beauty and sheer delight in the questioning looks on the audience’s mugs as they exited the venue with a sense of knowing and a proud understanding of The Velvet Noose’s Noose truth.
The group performs tomorrow at MuCCC. The show starts at 8 p.m.
H-Town Thrashgrass
When describing themselves or what genre encompasses them, or what genre they wish to encompass for that matter, bands are tempted to reach in and throw a “billy” in there or a “core” or thrash.
Bands who lead autobiographically with this as a wish sometimes miss the boat … but not in the case of Houston Texas’ punk folksters Days N’ Daze.
They describe themselves and their sound colorfully as H-Town Thrashgrass. It’s what they are, it’s what they do and what they have done since 2008.
Politically and socially charged, Days N’ Daze sports an acoustic-based arsenal like Jesse Sendejas’ banjo that he thrashes into a wicked blur and smoke swirling about the creamy charge of Whitney Flynn’s trumpet.
Geoff Bell joins in on the washtub bass along with the rat-a-tat percussive chop of Meagan Melancon’s washboard.
The band is leading the charge of this thrash with guests Bridge City Sinners, Crazy & the Brains, and Apes of the State on Oct. 18. Doors open at 7 p.m.
Frank De Blase is Rochester Beacon music writer.
Here’s a comprehensive list of live shows in and around Rochester: Get Your Gig On