Rapskallion

Saturday night at The Basement usually brings a tenuous enjoyment of the escapism and thrall of alternative Jazz, Blues and Folk music. Situated in the gilded Circular Quay, an essentially seated concert stifles the feeling that too many attendees get in the heat of their weekend, and it is often a task for the bands to isolate the world on their stage with transcending skill.

On this evening, the escapism was easy to sustain as the line-up alone was enough to transport you to far off places, but on top of that, the dining tables had been shunted to the railing for a clearly crucial dance floor. It turned into an epic and energetic night of gypsy vaudeville folk and vigour with Doc Jones’s Lechery Orchestra setting things in motion before Lola Lovina’s authentic furore gave a glint to our slightly sweaty eyes and finally Rapskallion brought us the theatrical rapture that we’d been awaiting.

With Lola Lovina’s more traditional roots, they brought Serbian sensuality and Romanian/Ukrainian rhythm to the Basement, allowing the young and the middle aged to dance with equal fervour, but still with a mature measure that did not quite explode with their version of ‘Paint it Black’. Still, the accordion and saxophone skills of Leonid Beshlei affirm that this is an exciting band to catch whenever you can, even if you don’t think a gypsy escape is what you need, you can’t resist the alluring vocals of Sarah Bedak-Rockliffe.

Usually, a gig at the Basement is toned down, or in its own way, mellow, and you’ll often see many people in the crowd to whom the show is merely a precursor, before they wander out for flashy cocktails at harbourside bars, but this evening you had to give in completely to the artists and the venue if you were to get anything worthwhile for your money. After a handful of sound-checks, the gregarious members of Rapskallion slinked on stage, barely noticable, at about 11:30pm. I’ve learned that the more subtle the entrance, the more powerful the performance to come, and Rapskallion, with their youthful extravagance in costume, musicianship, and passion, made good grounds toward such power.

Aside from the charm of the finely dressed Fingal Cipaldi and the impishly sexual Sara Yael & Carmen O’Brien, perhaps noting ‘Mysterio’ McNaughton’s blonde dreadlocks and accordion, all eyes fixate on the pirate antics of their very own circus performer. Adding no music to the show, he is dressed somewhat laughably as a pirate of the 18th Century, engaging in mock sword fights with balloons made onstage. He would stay for the majority of the show and even tell a tale or two, slowly growing on you as the music swelled on.

Not having a truly rich Gypsy, or at best, Eastern European background, Rapskallion don’t presume to embody that musical culture. They are more fittingly a vaudeville cabaret, with the sideshow flairs and eroticism of old Parisian Bohemia. Their energetic performance lasted over an hour and they never lost the glint in their eyes despite weeding out the more tired and bemused audience members who lacked the stomach for such rambunctious late night music.

Sara’s whole body pout had a devilish malice when she sang, and a wicked giddiness when she hunched into wide claps as the music picked up with fiery violin and accordion rhythms to which the audience whirled and squealed. Fingal’s grunting and moaning through a megaphone in Devil’s Lair ended with echoing words, “drinking and laughing... until... we all... die.”

The Basement is a near perfect venue for this frenetic delirium as it was all swallowed by melancholy crimsons and mahoganies of the hybrid country bar/worldly ballroom. However, at times I could barely make out if they were singing in English because of the poor audio adjustments, or perhaps because of the vocalists’ techniques. I’m going to assume they were switching between English and French because that is the expected language of the style, as well as the noted press-release comparisons to Edith Piaf.

Ultimately, Rapskallion give you a fantasy world, and you need to give in to the experience to understand the music. It is hard, definitely hard, because even though it is virtually unique to see side show performance simultaneous with such engaging live music, the Pirate costume is childish and insulting to a large degree. It is trying to romanticise and fetishise a dead era which was in fact particularly vile and unfriendly, and to a lesser degree, so is their entire fashion menagerie. Great music lives in you and you in it, but you can’t actually live this music, while in any live performance, while you can create a world beyond reality, you still cannot completely dispel the attachment to alcoholic, unromantic desire that infests the audiences.

Nonetheless, I would like to see Rapskallion, and the Melbourne trend they’re borne of, make its way to Sydney a good deal more often.

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