Last night I saw the Prince Myshkins, a satirical singer/songwriter duo. They were terrific-- sang well, played superbly, and were laugh-out-loud funny. Highlights of their set included "Nail Clippers," which they'd tried to smuggle on the plane to give every passenger a professional-quality manicure :-) ; "Don't You Love This Planet," a retort to a rethuglican asking the same about the country; "Ministry of Oil," which sounded like a hymn; and a reminiscence of the Reagan years entitled (and with a repeating chorus of) "I Don't Remember!"
Their style is like the most baroque (twisted) edge of show tunes-- like Threepenny Opera or West Side Story, as opposed to feel-good straight arrow harmony like Sound of Music. I should mention that the instrumentation is just one guitar and one accordion, and that they get an amazing amount of music out of that combination. Their lyrics are piled high with rhymes, often very good and tricky ones, reminiscent of Tom Lehrer (who they admit is a hero of theirs).
Their politics-- they seem to be ABB at present; although they didn't say anything overt about Kerry, I don't think they have any great love for him or the Democrats in general. They did do a tune I'd heard them do last time I saw them a couple years ago, "Little Jewish Ladies for Buchanan," which poked omni-partisan fun at everyone involved in Selection 2000. They're gay (I think they're personal as well as musical partners) and that informs their politics; they did a tune skewering the people trying to defend traditional marriage from, as they put it, people who want to get married-- and then there was "The Dr. Laura Polka." (The name Prince Myshkin, by the way, comes from Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot.)
Anyway, if they're coming anywhere near you, I can't recommend strongly enough that you go see them. This weekend they're in Western MA, followed by their NYC date October 2, then they're going down the Atlantic coast and the Midwest. Here's their itinerary:
http://hiddenagendamusic.com/myshkins/tour.html
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