The Wild West
It’s been described as “a new performance practice” and shows can last up to 5 hours! Jackie Hayden talks to Trevor Knight about his latest venture, The Devil’s Spine Band.
Jackie Hayden, 20 Jan 2012
Taking its inspiration from Oscar Wilde’s visit to the mining town of Leadville in Colorado for a lecture back in 1881, The Devil’s Spine Band is more a new concept in performance than a band. In a stunning visual setting by artist Alice Maher that captures the spirit of a Wild West saloon, it features Japanese butoh dancers Gyohei Zaitsu and Maki Watanabe, guitarist Ed Deane, percussionist Noel Bridgeman, keyboardist and director Trevor Knight and special guest vocalist and performer Cindy Cummings in the role of Madam Mustachio.
But where and how did this adventurous, some might say downright bizarre, multi-disciplinary melange come about? As Knight, who played with Auto Da Fé and has an impressive CV on Ireland’s rock and blues scene, explains, “When I was in Leadville in Colorado with a show called Catalpa I spotted a plaque on a wall saying that Oscar Wilde had been to Leadville as part of a lecture tour he once did. That intrigued me. I’d also been looking to do something that had a cowboy, Wild West, aspect to it.
“Meanwhile Olwen Fouere, the Irish actor, had been offered a short script by Malcolm McLaren, which portrayed Wilde as the inventor of rock’n’roll when he went to Hollywood. Another part of the jigsaw was seeing the band Left, Right and Centre with Noel Bridgeman, Ed Deane and John Quearney. They have a repertoire of 160 songs and don’t have a set list. So I wondered if it would be possible to put them into a performance situation with the butoh dancers as well as Olwyn – and with Alice’s tree sculptures. We workshopped it for three years, but for the upcoming Dublin shows Olwen had to drop out and Cindy came in. We’ve also added a film contributed by filmmaker Vivienne Dick. So it’s hardly surprising that the show has been described as a David Lynch movie with music by Captain Beefheart!”
On the music front, Knight has been writing with guitarist Deane, and they fly in the songs and instrumentals at particular points during the show. “There’s a warped, somewhat Tom Waitsian, version of Wilde’s ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’,” he says. “There’s also a song called ‘The Devil’s Own Brigade’, and there are songs about lynchings and other themes. The band members wear what might be best described as Tex-Mex outfits on a set that looks like a cross between a mariachi bar in Mullingar and a wild west saloon!”
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