The pre-2002 Charming Hostess (also known as Charming Hostes… Read Full Bio ↴Early Work:
The pre-2002 Charming Hostess (also known as Charming Hostess Big Band) was a rock band that embraced a genderfuck sensibility (the women often wore mustaches while the men wore dresses). Early Charming Hostess music drew on women's vocal traditions (primarily from Eastern Europe and North Africa), and integrated them with American folk forms both white and black. Charming Hostess was founded in the fertile anarchy of Barrington Co-op (aka Barrington Hall), and nurtured by the West Oakland arts community, along with other coeval bands such as Fibulator and Eskimo. Half of Charming Hostess was also in Idiot Flesh/Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. The final effect was of a hoedown where bodacious babes belted the blues in Bulgarian while a Punk-Klezmer band rocked out in accompaniment.
The genre of this incarnation of ChoHo is described by the band as "Klezmer-Punk/Balkan-Funk". Recordings of Charming Hostess Big Band include "Eat" (Vaccination, 1998) and the more recent "Punch" (ReR, 2005) Charming Hostess Big Band was: Jewlia Eisenberg (voice, direction), Carla Kihlstedt (voice, fiddle), Nina Rolle (voice, accordion), Wes Anderson (drums), Nils Frykdahl (guitar, flute, saxophone, percussion), and Dan Rathbun (bass)."
Jewlia Eisenberg, Marika Hughes, Cynthia Taylor,
Jason Ditzian, Shahzad Ismaily, Ches Smith.
- plus, often Ganda Suthivarakom and/or Pameliya Kursten (all vocals).
Honored guests on 2010 The Bowls Project album include:
Marc Ribot, Jenny Scheinman, Megan Gould, Jessica Troy, Nils Frykdahl, Dawn McCarthy, Ganda Suthivarakom, Boris Martzinovsky, Aaron Kierbel, and Nir Waxman.
Current Work:
The Bowls Project, an album and installation from Charming Hostess released Summer 2010.
The Bowls Project Album:
Based on inscriptions from ancient Babylonian Jewish amulets, The Bowls Project, Tzadik sings of mysticism and magic, angels and demons, and the trials and joys of love and sex. Especially audible are the voices of Talmudic-era women: their work, hopes and dreams. Weaving together Babylonian devotional songs, apocalyptic American folk music and a radical take on ritual power, The Bowls Project marks the deepest and most creative work by Charming Hostess yet.
The Bowls Project Installation & Sound Sculpture:
As a performance installation and interactive sound sculpture that takes place in a 40’ vaulted dome. Featuring new music composed and performed by Jewlia Eisenberg and Charming Hostess, The Bowls Project is based on texts from ancient Babylonian amulets. The culmination of five years of research, The Bowls Project will
run June through August 2010 at Yerba Buena Center for the
Arts. An estimated 15,000 people will visit and interact with
the installation.
The Bowls Project Background:
Bowl amulets were common 1500 years ago in the area
that is now Iraq. Simple bowls were inscribed with a
householder’s secrets and desires and then buried under
the doorway to protect the home. The bowl texts are
about “secrets of the home”: love and intimacy, angels and
demons, and the trials and joys of daily life. Audible in these
texts are the individual voices of women from this period
-their work, hopes, and dreams. These spiraled inscriptions
are among the few existing records of female voices during
the time and place of the Babylonian Talmud.
All Work:
The music primarily springs from three women with an emphasis in the body--voices and vocal percussion, hand claps and heartbeats, sex-breath and silence. The work grows from diaspora consciousness: both Jewish and African. Stylistically, Charming Hostess incorporates doo-wop, Pygmy counterpoint, Balkan harmony and Andalusian melody. Contemporary influences on the band include Meredith Monk and Reinette l'Oranaise. The music often explores existing text and overlays the composer's (Jewlia Eisenberg) own questions of authenticity, montage, and the effect of music on non-verbal languages.
The 2002 CD (Trilectic, Tzadik Records) explored the political/erotic nexus of Walter Benjamin and his Marxist muse, Asja Lacis. The 2004 CD (Sarajevo Blues, Tzadik) sets Bosnian poetry by Semezdin Mehmedinović as a form of love and resistance to the brutalization of war.
Adam
Charming Hostess Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
And before I could lay my mouth on yours, you begged me, with the pale tender face of the tenderest lily:
Don't bite me, don't bite me.
I saw that your body was completely covered with teeth marks.
Trembling, I bit into you.
You flared your thin nostrils, and edged closer to me like a burning horizon against a field.
In Charming Hostess's song Adam, the singer comes across Adam, who has been spoiled and fondled by many women. Adam is hesitant at first as he begs the singer not to bite him because his body is already covered in teeth marks. However, the singer cannot resist and bites into him, causing Adam to tremble. Despite his initial hesitation, Adam responds passionately to the singer's advance, flaring his thin nostrils and edging closer to her.
Line by Line Meaning
Spoiled, fondled by the hands of many women, I came upon you by chance, young Adam.
I met you, Adam, unexpectedly. You were a man who had been pampered by many women.
And before I could lay my mouth on yours, you begged me, with the pale tender face of the tenderest lily: Don't bite me, don't bite me.
As I approached you, you were afraid that I would harm you and pleaded with me not to hurt you.
I saw that your body was completely covered with teeth marks.
I noticed that your body was marked by bites from previous encounters with other people.
Trembling, I bit into you.
Despite your fears, I decided to take the risk and get physically intimate with you.
You flared your thin nostrils, and edged closer to me like a burning horizon against a field.
During our intimate moment, you showed signs of pleasure and desire, and your attraction towards me intensified like a fiery sunset on a countryside.
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
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@odedfried-gaon2880
wow. cool!