Category: Concerts

An Art Mob Secret Revealed!

March 5, 2018
About Art MobFall 2019 concert
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OUR PROCESS

We’re continually pestered with questions about how we compose our program for each season’s concert (one person asked), so we’ve decided to open our kimono.  Our Process is a delicate, multi-step affair that takes weeks of extreme effort aided by alcoholic beverages, internet databases, and a trash can. Here’s how we start:

Music falling into trash can.

It’s happening …

At the end of every concert weekend we gather for a potluck dinner. After all are sufficiently relaxed, we determine the theme for the next season’s concert. Past concert themes have included The Best Laid Planets; Blood, Sweat, and Cheers; and Hook, Wine, and Thinker. (Eventually we tired of puns, so our current season’s theme is Keep a Lid on It!) Being highly collaborative, collective, cooperative, democratic, and fair, we all contribute themes and then vote on them. Our decisions are always unanimous.

Now comes the hard work. We all (but some more than others) go hunting for songs that somehow fill the bill. For example, we may include songs about hats this season. In fact, we will include songs about hats. What else can we keep a lid on? How about Egyptian sarcophagi? Alcohol consumption? Rabbit reproduction? Secrets? Extreme emotions? All that and more.

But back to the Process: At rehearsals, we gather our sheet music. We arrange ourselves in a circle around a ritual trash can. (The circle is very important. Perhaps we should have said a ritual circle, instead of a ritual trash can. When no can is available, the floor does almost as well.) We sing a selection, sometimes two or three times. We subject it to a evaluative rubric:

Does it fit the theme? (i.e., is there even one single word in the lyrics that could be interpreted as the theme?)

Has it been sung by the Art Mob in the past (x) years? (this variable can be from 5-10 years.)

Full trash can of rejects.

The Process is almost completed!

Is it too new, or to put it another way, not old enough? (This variable keeps creeping further into the 20th century—or is it us, creeping inexorably into the 21st century?)

Does it sound too much like something else we like better? (This happens a lot with shape-note music.)

Will Brent threaten to cut his throat if he has to direct it? (This happens a lot with shape-note music.)

After every aspect of the piece has been thoroughly checked, we vote on adding it to the program. Over the weeks, many pieces are voted down.

The defeated music sheets (we call them “losers”) are flung into the ritual trash can in the center of the ritual circle. When the can is full, a Mobster is chosen to ritually stomp them down, for good measure.

Art Mob Process: Stomping the losers.

Lauren delivers the coup de grâce.

 

When we reach the Magic Number (20+) we are done. We ritually welcome our season’s music selections (aka “winners”) by arranging them in alphabetical order. Then it’s snack time.

Hear the results of our Process when we present Keep a Lid on It! on May 18, 19, and 20. Times and locations are here.

 

The Things We Sing: We’re Nutty about Tutty!

February 19, 2018
About Art MobArt Mob MusicFall 2019 concert
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Old King Tut sheet music

In Old King Tutty’s Day– Hip Hooray!

Such Tut Fun!
The year 1923 was a big one for all things Egyptian—not because Tutankhamen’s tomb was discovered—that happened in 1922—but because no fewer than five hit songs came out of Tin Pan Alley to celebrate those fun, fun feelings we all get when we think of Old King Tut.

OK, he wasn’t old. (He died at age 19.) And he probably didn’t cut a rug. (He had a clubfoot and scoliosis, and used a cane.) But Tutankhamen inspired our singing, dancing grandparents with tunes like this:

Now Old King Tut was just a nut as you can see
Still proud was Tut about his nutty ancestry
His daddy was a Pharoah too
His mom an Ashkenazi Jew
In old King Tut Tut Tut Tut Tut Tut—King Tut-ty’s day!

and many others. We’ll be giving it our best, tutting away and doing that two-dimensional dance, in “Keep a Lid on It,” our May concert series.

Message from the Memory Palace, or, Kringled Memes, Anyone?

December 11, 2017
About Art MobConcerts
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If we were computers, this would be so much easier...

If we were computers, this would be so much easier…

“If he nabs you, jabs you, NO! If he nabs you, grabs you, jabs you!  He will bring you, fling you, NO! He will bring you, sting you, fling you…”

My neighbors probably heard something like this coming through our party wall this week. The singing, the reciting, the cursing, the repeating. . . They may have seen me on the sidewalk, silently mouthing some words, then slapping my head, shuffling index cards, then mouthing and slapping some more  It’s all part of Art Mob Cram School, a semi-annual event undertaken alone or in small groups.

Got. To. Memorize.

Everyone has their own methods. For the music, some of us listen to recordings of rehearsals, look at the sheet music, and ta-da! they’ve got it. I need to set an audio track of just my part on infinite repeat, and drill it into my brain.  This sometimes works.

Then there’s writing out the lyrics; typing out the lyrics; highlighting, underlining, coloring in, and creating mnemonic devices. (The three difficult entrances in “Crawdad” can be boiled down to OY, OY, WasIt?)

And there’s the Memory Palace, where you construct a mansion of many rooms, furnishing it with visual representations of whatever you need to remember. But tell me, where should I put the “dying worms”? (Shape-note lyrics have the most memorable images, but you still have to sing them in order. The great white throne sits in front of the crystal sea, and please do not rearrange the heavenly furniture.)

The Jukebox of My Mind

I wake up to “Ragtime Goblin Man” playing inside my head; by bedtime, I’m on “Enjoy Yourself, It’s Later Than You Think” (and it usually is), and round and round I go. I’ll be unplugging that particular jukebox on December 18…I hope.

Kringled Memes!

There are dangerous patches on the memory highway, though.  Like black ice, we can encounter inverted and mispronounced words, not to mention hysterically funny bloopers, at any moment.  And boy, do they stick; they move right in like field mice in autumn. Why, just the other day, Brent said “kringled meme” when he meant “mingled cream.” He probably doesn’t remember, but unfortunately I’ll never forget. Will I be blurting it out while we sing “Lines on Ale”? Come to the concerts this weekend and find out.

Concerts December 15, 16, 17: When & Where

Hook, Wine, and Thinker! Concerts

Bad puns, low humor, sweet spiritualism, all in one evening!

 

Where Did You Find That Song?

November 25, 2017
About Art MobArt Mob MusicConcerts
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The Art Mob has a particular fondness for overlooked or forgotten (sometimes justly), music of past eras. These rescued gems aren’t usually just lying around; we have to hunt for them. Here’s how Dean found one of our favorite entries for the December 2017 concert, “Hook, Wine, and Thinker”:

Yard Sale Treasure

Dean’s yard sale treasure

“Yard sales are a huge source of material for the Art Mob. That’s where several of us have gotten old songbooks that we mine for our obscure repertoire. The usual scenario is that a family is selling off an aged or deceased ancestor’s personal stuff, and that not infrequently includes sheet music. A couple of generations ago, it was as common for a family to own a piano and have at least one person who could play it as it is now for us to subscribe to a music streaming service. (I almost wrote, “to own a CD player,” but those are being dumped in the yard sale pile now, too.)

In 2014 I found, at such a sale in Rhinebeck, NY, a little book called “Jewish Folk Songs for the Young Pianist.” As the title suggests, it’s pitched to keyboard beginners, and the arrangements are very spare, just a melody and one or two notes in the left hand. All the songs have words, in Yiddish with a brief translation. And there are some great songs: the book has so far yielded up “Amol Is Geven a Mayse” (“Once Upon a Time”), which we sang in our “For Better or Voice” concerts, and now “Di Alte Kashe” (“The Old Question”) on our upcoming “Hook, Wine, and Thinker” program.

The melodies are hauntingly beautiful, and the minimal piano parts give the vocal arranger (me) maximum freedom. Besides, the songs are a healthy antidote to the overload of explicitly Christian pieces that end up in our repertoire simply because they are so common in the literature.”

Come hear us sing “Di Alte Kashe” in December and find out what the old question is that the world keeps asking us, but we can’t answer.

Fall Concerts: When & Where

Hook, Wine, and Thinker! Fall Concerts

Bad puns, low humor, sweet spiritualism, all in one evening!

Songs for the End of Daylight Saving Time

November 17, 2017
Concerts
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The days are short now. It’s getting cold and depressing, but the Art Mob has its seasonal affective disorder under control, with a leafy pile of songs about the season: how it’s dark; how everything’s dying; how the weather portends the scriptural end of days … and makes us happy! Really.

Take the well-named Autumn, penned by Samuel Johnson, no less, in the 18th century. What’s his soothing thought for the season? Listen:

O, what remains, what lingers yet /To cheer me in the darkening hour?

The grape remains, the friend of wit /In love and mirth of mighty power.

Yes, wine will keep his pulse cantering and his girlfriend looking good.   Here’s what else we sing:

I’ve got the wonder where he went and when he’s comin’ back blues…

What care I how time advances, I am drinking ale today!…

The world asks an old question, to which there is no answer…

We’ve got more songs, more music, more proven remedies for the blues.

Come and hear us sing them all: December 15, 16, 17

Fall Concerts: When and Where

Hook, Wine, and Thinker! Fall Concerts

Bad puns, low humor, sweet spiritualism, all in one evening!

  We’ll cheer you up.

 

Fishing for Singers, Hook, Wine, and Thinker.

September 24, 2017
Fall 2019 concertRecruiting Singers
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It’s September, and in line with our December concerts’ fishing/drinking theme, The Art Mob is trawling for new singers (especially tenors).

You who receive this message: You already know how much fun you’ll have, so come on and join us. And if you know someone else who’d be interested, forward this message, or slip us his or her name and email address, and we’ll be right over with our nets.

The rest of you: visit www.artmob.org and sample our audio clips, read all about us, write to Brent (he really wants to hear from you; see below) and get on board.

Here’s how we describe our unpatented Art Mob process and program: Our song selections, which are made by consensus, are notoriously quirky and eclectic.If you like  gospel, Victoriana, children’s ditties, jazz, and country songs along with who knows what other styles, you’ll feel right at home in The Art Mob. We rehearse every Monday evening. If you want to join in the fun, get in touch with our musical director, Brent Frederick. His email address: brent@brentfrederickmusic.com.

We love our fans!

December 17, 2015
Fall 2019 concert
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Thanks to all who attended our Rockin’ the Boat concerts in December.

We had a record crowd for the Friday performance!

On Saturday we got a standing ovation!

We are still feeling the love, and we’re sending it right back to you.

Our next concert series is May 20-22. Watch for more news as those dates approach.

It’s On Record!

November 24, 2015
Fall 2019 concert
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The Art Mob has a new CD, called Hope is the Sing with Feathers. That was the theme of our May 15 concert series, and the CD contains all the songs from it.

You can buy HopeFeathersCDone at our next concert series, Rockin’ the Boat, which we will perform at the Tenri Cultural Institute, 43A W. 13th Street in Greenwich Village on the first weekend in December:

  • Friday, Dec. 4, 8 PM
  • Saturday, Dec. 5, 8 PM
  • Sunday, Dec. 6, 3 PM

Rockin’ the Boat, December 4, 5, and 6

November 6, 2015
Fall 2019 concert
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RockBoat1The Art Mob will be Rockin’ the Boat in three a cappella concerts at the Tenri Cultural Institute the first weekend in December. Drift along on a sea of musical pleasure, with songs that will bring waves of nostalgia, gales of laughter, and more.

Tenri is at 43A W. 13th Street, New York, NY.

Performance times:

Friday, December 4, 8 PM
Saturday, December 5, 8 PM
Sunday, December 6, 3 PM

The Art Mob Will Be Rockin’ the Boat in December

October 13, 2015
Fall 2019 concert
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RockBoat3

 

The theme for The Art Mob’s December 2015 concert series is “Rockin’ the Boat,” and we’ve chosen a raft of wonderful songs about … well, use your imagination.

As usual, we’ve chosen songs from a range of genres and eras for a program that we hope will make you laugh, sigh, maybe shed a tear or two, and yell for an encore.

Rehearsals are underway. Stay tuned for information about when and where the concerts will be.