From the Philadephia Weekly: August 15, 2003
Lock up your gutterpunk baby sister. The Molotov Mouths Outspoken Word Troupe is in town.
The San Francisco-based performance poetry team was formed on a dare two summers ago, when co-founder James Tracy worked up the nerve to cold-call a local venue and got the as-yet-nonexistent group on the bill with the legendary John Trudell. Now with the book Molotov Mouths: Explosive New Writing under their belts, they're taking on the rest of the country.
"Our tour is crazy/wonderful," said Tracy from day one on the road. An antipoverty activist, he's also the editor of Manic D Press' Civil Disobedience Handbook. Joining him is a group of poets he describes as 'pan-radical,' including George Tirado, Solidad Di Costa and Josiah Luis Alderete. Tracy says they're carrying on the tradition of socially conscious writers like Luis Rodriguez, June Jordan and Nikki Giovanni.
The most intriguing thing about these guerrilla artists is their willingness to deal with mainstream types who could very well decide to throw tomatoes. Their first gig was at a juvie hall in San Francisco, but they'll round up the tour at the popular Bumbershoot Festival, a major music event, with Macy Gray and R.E.M.
"We're populist poetry in the sense that one day we're in a low- income housing development, the next day we're performing at venues where Sarah Jessica Parker just happens to be in the audience."
But can politics really be interesting enough to the average person to work as entertainment? One answer is that for these poets, at least, the political is too real to ignore. The work of Chilean-born Ananda Esteva, for instance, is informed by the experience of fleeing deposed dictator Augusto Pinochet with her family. And the title of Leroy Moore's spoken-word recording, Black Disabled Man With a Big Mouth and a High IQ, kinda says it all.
As for the performance part, the Mouths aim for energetic, not frenetic. "Only one member has actually actively participated in the poetry slam scene, which is not a 'dis' on the slam scene at all. We're high-octane enough to slam, but sometimes we go over three minutes."
Heh heh. Okay, cool. Wait. Sarah Jessica Parker?
"It's true! George sold her a book at our Seattle show and had a conversation with her about radical community groups."
The San Francisco-based performance poetry team was formed on a dare two summers ago, when co-founder James Tracy worked up the nerve to cold-call a local venue and got the as-yet-nonexistent group on the bill with the legendary John Trudell. Now with the book Molotov Mouths: Explosive New Writing under their belts, they're taking on the rest of the country.
"Our tour is crazy/wonderful," said Tracy from day one on the road. An antipoverty activist, he's also the editor of Manic D Press' Civil Disobedience Handbook. Joining him is a group of poets he describes as 'pan-radical,' including George Tirado, Solidad Di Costa and Josiah Luis Alderete. Tracy says they're carrying on the tradition of socially conscious writers like Luis Rodriguez, June Jordan and Nikki Giovanni.
The most intriguing thing about these guerrilla artists is their willingness to deal with mainstream types who could very well decide to throw tomatoes. Their first gig was at a juvie hall in San Francisco, but they'll round up the tour at the popular Bumbershoot Festival, a major music event, with Macy Gray and R.E.M.
"We're populist poetry in the sense that one day we're in a low- income housing development, the next day we're performing at venues where Sarah Jessica Parker just happens to be in the audience."
But can politics really be interesting enough to the average person to work as entertainment? One answer is that for these poets, at least, the political is too real to ignore. The work of Chilean-born Ananda Esteva, for instance, is informed by the experience of fleeing deposed dictator Augusto Pinochet with her family. And the title of Leroy Moore's spoken-word recording, Black Disabled Man With a Big Mouth and a High IQ, kinda says it all.
As for the performance part, the Mouths aim for energetic, not frenetic. "Only one member has actually actively participated in the poetry slam scene, which is not a 'dis' on the slam scene at all. We're high-octane enough to slam, but sometimes we go over three minutes."
Heh heh. Okay, cool. Wait. Sarah Jessica Parker?
"It's true! George sold her a book at our Seattle show and had a conversation with her about radical community groups."
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home