Jaime J Manez - Creative Portfolio

7/27/2019 Jaime J Manez - Creative Portfolio

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[02]

HateSex - Cabaret Sound The Dresden Dolls

[01]



childish game of let’s-pretend-we’re-back-alley-abortionists. The album’snal track, the pastoral and positive

rst single “Sing ,” brings it all home

as Palmer boldly announces, “Life is no Cabaret/We’re inviting you anyway,”

underlining The Dolls’ real-life attemptto invite everyone into their party while

maintaining the individuality that has

enabled them to be a x ture rather than

a fad.Inclusion is an art form

that The Dresden Dolls have perfected.

The artwork for Yes, Virginia was culledfrom over 600 submissions from fans,

painters and designers from aroundthe globe. Each panel of the bookletincludes original images directly

inspired by the songs. Featured is up-and-coming New York painter Barnaby Whiteld, who plays Warhol to the

Doll’s Velvet Underground, creating

beautifully disturbing scenes withinthe CD booklet reminiscent of post- WWI German Expressionists Otto

Dix and Christian Schad. This project

is just one installment of the on-going

artistic collaborations between the bandand their fans. Additionally, a ood of

home–made lms, burlesque numbers,

sculptures and animations to completeplays and musicals based around theband’s songs have created a constant

dialogue between band and audience.The same spirit exists at

live shows, as manifested in the so-

called “Brigade”, where the Dolls

collaborated with hundreds of

performing artists ranging from highschool drama troupes to top-shelf actors and professional circus artists,

including members of Montreal’scelebrated Cirque Eloize and San

Fransiciso’s Vau de Vire Society.

The Dolls’ self-titled debut hasbeen selling strong and steady. Initially released on Palmer’s own Eight FootRecords in the fall of 2003, the album

was subsequently re-released upon the

band’s signing with Roadrunner. The

release of two wildly different singles,

the manic-punk “Girl Anachronism ”and the cabaret-tinged and bittersweet“Coin-Operated Boy,” which debuted

on KCRW via the inuential DJ Nic

Harcourt, swiftly went on to be the

most-requested singles on a handful

of stations nationwide. Both songs were showcased in wonderfully twisted videos shot and edited by Michael

Pope. Airtime on MTV2 and theInternet immediately began to win theband thousands of admirers for theirinnovative style and “Coin-Operated Boy ”received an MTVU award nomination.

The Dresden Dolls will surely continue spreading their musical call-to-arms into a world which, though

veiled by a mask of enlightenment, stillseems as cynical as ever. The intangible

madness, rage and love which passes

between these two musicians radiatesdeeply into their audience, creating a

human encounter that has - strangely - become unexpected in today’s live

music. Perhaps they need to be seento be believed, but even then, it is

the unseeable which makes this bandmagic.

DISCOGRAPHY

|Studio albums The Dresden Dolls (2003) Yes, Virginia... (2006) (#42 US, #41AUT, #138 FRA, #105 UK)

|EPs, live albums and compilations The Dresden Dolls (2001) A Is for Accident (2003) No, Virginia... (#94 US) (2008)

|Singles “Good Day” (2003) “Girl Anachronism” (2003) “Coin-Operated Boy” (2004) “Sing” (2006) “Backstabber” (2006) “Shores of California” (2007) “Night Reconnaissance” (2008) “Dear Jenny” (2008)

The Dresden Dolls

Brechtian Punk Cabaret Rock bands are pigeonholed into ever-increasingly minuscule sub-categorizations, but The Dresden Dolls continue

to defy explanation and classication. While some have called it theatrical rock, punk cabaret, manic-musical, neo-glam - torch, eventually even the most clever and creative describers shrug and say: “You just have to hear it to believe it.”

Living in a two-faced, popular

culture built on artice that demands

authenticity, The Dresden Dolls take

the world stage, tear down the curtain,

rip holes in the veneer and create their

own rules, rhymes and reason. For

the past ve years, the duo has been

climbing steadily out of the artistictrenches and into the mainstream of

rock on their own terms. The Dollsthrive on their inherent juxtapositions.

The musical-theater and New-Wave

background of writer/singer/pianist Amanda Palmer mixes with drummer

Brian Viglione's heavy metal roots to

create a sonic smear of unclassiable

rock. Palmer wails; Viglione cackles. Itis this dichotomy that supplies the band with a yin-yang quality that keeps them

hurtling through space, pulling each

other to and fro in an endless - andhighly entertaining - match of musical wits.

After signing with RoadrunnerRecords in early 2004, the band has

been enjoying a whirlwind schedule

that has included headlining sold-outtours on four continents, opening

for Nine Inch Nails (Trent Reznor

hand-picked the band after seeing

their homemade video for “Girl Anachronism ” on television), performing

at the world’s biggest festivals including

Coachella, Fuji Rock, Roskilde and

Glastonbury, writing an original

musical at the prestigious AmericanRepertory Theater (scheduled topremiere in 2007) and releasing an

innovative and acclaimed l ive DVD.

A giant groundswell of interest - anda fan base that grows exponentially

as the band tours - is setting the stagefor an explosive response when Yes,Virginia - the band’s newest collectionof songs, is turned loose on an eager

public this spring. Produced by Sean

Slade and Paul Q. Kolderie (Radiohead,

The Pixies, Hole) and

recorded over several

weeks at Allaire

Studios (a convertedturn-of-the-century mansion in theCatskill Mountainsof upstate New York), Yes, Virginia is a rich tapestry thatshowcases the band’sroad-sharpenedmusical chemistry and digs deep intorecesses of thehuman heart usually considered taboo.

Songs like

“Sex Changes ” and

“Dirty Business ”blast listeners with earsplitting Marshall Stack Power and explore the

pathology of identity crisis. Torchcousins “First Orgasm ” and “ Me &

The Minibar ” nds Palmer back aloneat her piano, delicately unfolding her

pained confessions. Viglione solidies

his place in the Drummer Pantheonas he delivers mind-boggling lls and

ourishes on fast-and-furious tunes

“ Modern Moonlight ” and “ Necessary Evil.”On “ Mrs. O,” a slightly cryptic mid-

tempo ballad about the re-writing of history, Palmer takes on the dangerous

character of a holocaust-denying old

woman with the words “There’s NoHitler and No Holocaust/No Winter and No Santa Claus/And Yes, Virginia, All Because/The Truth Won’t Save You Now...” This line, and the title of the record

itself, is a reference to the now-famous

1897 New York Sun letter to the editor

in which 8-year old Virginia O’Hanlon

questions the existence of Santa Claus.

Palmer’s ambiguous reaches at

answering life’s impossible questions- whether about identity, loneliness

or technology - may echo dark, but

underneath lies a timid optimism anda childlike wonder. The Dolls have

not lost their sense of the absurd,

however, and the blacker-than-black-

humor on “ Mandy Goes To Med School ”nds Palmer imagining a scenario

in which she and drummer/cohort Viglione play a lighthearted and

[04]

HateSex - Cabaret Sound The Dresden Dolls

[03]





the point of a characterwheretwo lines meet at the top,an obvious example in A.

a stroke added to thebeginning or end of oneof the main strokes of a letter.

a stroke added to thebeginning or end of one

of the main strokes of a letter.

the point of a character where

two lines meet at the top,an obvious example in A.

a stroke added to thebeginning or end of oneof the main strokes of a letter.

the point of a character wheretwo lines meet at the top,an obvious example in A.

the (usually) horizontal strokeacross the middle of upper-case A and H; the strokeclosing an e counter.









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Jaime J Manez - Creative Portfolio