ROUND 9: SAN FRANCISCO
Thursday, OCT. 14TH – 7 P.M.
SPARRING W/ BEATNIK GHOSTS
RETURNS TO THE BEAT MUSEUM
540 Broadway – North Beach
Guest Host…Ginger Murray
with…
David Meltzer
Ellyn Maybe & Her Band
Steve Arntson
Jerry Ferraz
Martin Hickle
Richard Loranger
Whitman McGowan
Julie Rogers
Margery Snyder
Chris Vannoy
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ROUND 10: BERKELEY
Friday, OCT. 15th – 7 p.m.
SPARRING WITH BEATNIK GHOSTS
@ ART HOUSE GALLERY
& CULTURAL CENTER
2905 Shattuck – at Ashby
Guest Host…Mark States
Ellyn Maybe & Her Band
J.R. Brady
Tim Donnely
Q. R. Hand
Mike The Poet
H.D. Moe
A. M. Stanley
Plus: Mystery Poets (To Be Announced)
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ROUND 11: SANTA CRUZ
Saturday, OCT. 16th – 7 p.m.
SPARRING WITH BEATNIK GHOSTS
REVISITS FELIX KULPA GALLERY
107 Elm Street – Downtown Santa Cruz
Guest Host…Marc Kockinos
Gary Young, Santa Cruz Poet Laureate
Ellyn Maybe & Her Band
Dennis Holt
Debbie Kirk
Ron Lampi
Erik Lawson
B.C. Petrakos
William Taylor, Jr.
Mel C. Thompson
Plus Mystery Guest
I have started to write something about you for your site several times, and each time I am struck by my inability to describe what you do in terms beautiful enough, original enough to do you justice. But it’s always been this way. Who has ever been able to say in other words what a song says? Maybe it’s why I like your poems so much, they say what can only be said in exactly the way you say it. The best way of turning someone on to you is to play you for them.
I’ve seen Ellyn Maybe & her band at a number of events and also when they had their residency at 212 in Santa Monica. Every single time, I find myself grinning like a maniac, I just get so excited by the music and the lyrics and the laughter. It’s impossible not to get caught up in it. Ellyn’s band is phenomenal, so talented and fun: Harlan Steinberger from Hen House Studios, Tommy C. Jordan from Geggy Tah and Robbie Fitzsimmons from Rabbits Running (this link is to a free album download that you should really check). Robbie couldn’t be here for the event but it was so cool to have the three artists who collaborated to create the CD “Rodeo for the Sheepish” all here to play it.
I need to admit here that I became a gushing fan the first time I saw them, and immediately asked Ellyn if she would perform here. I do not know where I get the balls for this stuff, I just couldn’t contain myself and I asked. She said “yes! Yay!” and it turned out that the date was her birthday and so we jumped around some and laughed and it was all giddy. Oh my god, what a responsibility! THE Ellyn Maybe is going to be here on her birthday? How am I going to make that great for her?
What the Tiki Bar looked like.
July 10th was the first time that we had the event outside and it was so nice to be out in the sun and be able to spread out a little. We used the PondWater launching pad, which was once a Tiki Bar until entropy took it’s toll. Everything that you see in this photo is displaced now except for the concrete floor. Todd Kraus and his son, Randy, brought a microphone and amp for Jamey Hecht to use and Randy did a great job with the sound.
Jamey Hecht opened the entertainment by reading 4 sonnets from his book, “Limousine, Midnight Blue“. Honestly, if you haven’t heard of this book then just click on “Jamey Hecht” in the tag cloud over there up and to your right. I have to stop glowing over it, you take over from here. I had specifically asked Jamey if he would read from his translation of Sophocles “Three Theban Plays“. You know, that story of Oedipus is really pretty killer and he tells it so well, I really wanted to see/hear it out in the garden. It was transcendent, so perfect with the birds singing in the background; I could have sworn that I was in Greece and in some other time. I’m going to show you the videos of that here, but you know how that goes; no matter how much I love these videos, they are no replacement for the experience of being in the audience.
So, what to do, what to do, what to do to make Ellyn Maybe’s birthday special and how do you earn Sophocles in your back yard? All I could come up with was the food; make a big cake for Ellyn and some Spanikopita for Sophocles, some carrot-fennel soup, sandwiches, etc. that’s all I got. But you know what did it? Ellyn and the audience made her birthday special. Jamey and Sophocles brought it home. I love so much watching the artists and the audience connect and make the day. At one point during the show the audience broke out with a spontaneous round of “Happy Birthday” and you could feel the warmth and joy between everyone.
Tommy C. Jordan playing our Kalimba
Todd was so smart and he suggested to Eddie and I that we bring out the Bass Kalimba that we had all worked on. Eddie gave it to Tommy and he knew just what to do with it. I was so thrilled because that thing has sat here for a very long time and we found the just right person to make use of it; he played it like it was a normal part of their set and it sounded so awesome! Well, now that I think about it, I’ve seen Tommy play table tops and chair legs and make them sound great. I have spent so much time trying to tune that thing and have never been able to do it, hours and hours of frustration. Harlen gave me the best tip ever and informed me that these instruments don’t need to be tuned, they just need to sound good. Who knew that having a musicologist in the house would provide such relief?
Lori McGinn made the most beautiful Mexican Wedding Cake cookies, they were delicious! Everyone brought such wonderful things, it really did feel like such a celebration, and it was! We had so much fun (I’m speaking for everyone, but we did!).
Here are Ellyn’s videos just to prove it:
Ellyn and her band and Jamey Hecht have humbled me to the point where I lost my stream of consciousness and have struggled to tell you about it. You’ll need to trust me that it was all quite divine.
On Saturday, August 14th, the Poets in Distress will be here and The Dull is going to reunite to open the show. I’m not sure what that means, but I suspect that a punk band is going to be in the back yard and a lot of unruly poets. What I know for a fact is that these unruly poets are really good and a lot of fun. Just because they bring chaos with them wherever they go, well, they can’t help that, it’s their lot in life. If you could find your way here to witness this with me, that would pretty much rock.
Ellyn Maybe and Michael C. Ford inside the Beyond Baroque bookstore before the show.
Round VII: Sparring With Beatnik Ghosts on Friday, July 23, 2010, Venice, CA.
Photo by Mani Suri
ELLYN MAYBE is a dynamic performer (joined on the night of July 23rd at Beyond Baroque by two extremely talented musicians Danny Moynahan and Robbie Fitzsimmons matching her charistmatic artistry) and I’m so honored to have had her be a part of Sparring With Beatnik Ghosts. Maybe’s Rodeo For The Sheepish is getting rave reviews and her set at Sparring was filled with beautifully infectious sound and words connecting the brain to a much needed transfusion of art at its best!
Photo by Mani Suri
MICHAEL C. FORD is not merely a Language Commando but a Five Star General of poetry — once again demonstrating his craft not only to the Beyond Baroque audience on July 23rd but drawing tremendous respect from his poet peers with the highest standards. He has it dialed in impressively — as the crowd witnessed at the Sparring With Beatnik Ghosts show. Ford’s work is extremely influential and his accessibility to less-known poets earns him a place of honor among Los Angeles poet greats.
Sparring With Beatnik Ghosts is a “traveling poetry supershow” of spoken-word performers and musicians that started in San Francisco in 2008 and is finally making its debut in L.A. The series presents adventurous modern-day poets in bars and venues where the early Beat poets used to hang out, in the hopes that the lingering spirits of the elders will inspire their progeny’s new work. Given its long history as a SoCal literary vortex, Beyond Baroque seems to be an ideal setting for “tapping the mystic voices and drumming the Beat haunts from their tombs in Los Angeles.” This seventh edition of the series features the longtime local poet Ellyn Maybe, appearing with a band (!), and veteran wordsmith Michael C. Ford, whose “arsenal of commando language” blows apart every last standing irrational political pie-ball cowboy who continually threatens National Nirvana.” Meanwhile, former Ringling Sister Iris Berry (Two Blocks East of Vine, pictured) leavens her tales of heroin misadventures and gangster boyfriends with a punk rock perspective and gallows humor. The show also includes Jim Bolt, Mike the Poet, Rachel Kann, Brenda Petrakos, Gary Justice, host Mani Suri and special guests known only as the Mystery Poets. (Link to LA Weekly Events)
“Fans of spoken word CDs and lovers of slam poetry with a nerd-girl edge should seek this CD out as soon as they finish reading this review, as should anyone curious to see the highs to which this blended art form can aspire. I cannot recommend Rodeo for the Sheepish enough.” – JoSelle Vanderhooft for Pedestal Magazine
///This video was a contribution to Ellyns online zine http://www.rodeowrite.com/ please visit and contribute your own work to the Rodeo!
“The recent revival of poets performing with musicians is an interesting trend,” says Brown, who performs with bassist Steve Lanning-Cafaro as The Duende Project. “I know that for The Duende Project, it’s the chance to find ways to present my work differently to an audience; being a musician myself, it gives me a chance to flex different muscles … even though I may not be playing an instrument myself in the duo. Audiences may find a new way into the work through the music; it’s also possible that those who don’t care for poetry just like the music. Whatever the reasons for it.”
For Ellyn Maybe, a Los Angeles poet whose first full-length book was published by Henry Rollins’ 2.13.61 Publishing, and who recently released a poetry CD, “Rodeo for the Sheepish,” with musical accompaniment, the addition of music to a reading is a serious artistic choice.
“I think performing with music can heighten different moods,” says Maybe, “inspire new phrasing and bring out different, more outgoing aspects of oneself. I reference music quite often in my work, so it’s fun to actually work with music. For audiences it can get interactive as sometimes people dance, sing along and shake the fruit shakers at the shows!”
And it’s not just the poets who see artistic value in the collaboration between art forms. It also adds dimensions for the musicians involved.
