Browsing videos online I fell down a musical rabbit hole that brought me to brass bands, and this led me to the Canadian Brass. I had heard of them before only vaguely and I’m not really into that sort of music, but I spent a good hour watching and listening.
Lots of concert length stuff is available. Some early:
And some recent:
Reading further I found they’ve been around for over fifty years, and one of the founding members, the tuba player, is still with them. What a great story for a wonderful group. There must be a bazillion brass bands, but they were good enough and fortunate enough to become one of the best and most well known. I love their aesthetic (formal suits with sneakers) and their ability to mash-up different kinds of music. They seem to close a lot of shows playing Handel’s “Hallellujah Chorus” and “When the Saints Go Marching In” interchangeably.
That got me thinking about other niche groups who became well known. Take the jugglers the Flying Karamazov Brothers - their story has some interesting similarities to the Canadian Brass. Also a group of 5 (4 at some points), they’ve also been around a long time, and one of the founding members (Paul Magid) still performs. They were on Broadway with their show “Juggling and Cheap Theatrics”, which is a classic:
And they’ve done Shakespeare:
Blue Man Group springs to mind, so does Rockapella and Penn & Teller. I love this kind of entertainment that’s a bit adjacent to the mainstream, but has a high skill level, humor and showmanship. The kind of quality that allows them to rise above the expected level when you think of a typical brass band, magician or juggler.
What else along these lines should I know about that I don’t already? Who’s the best of the best in a niche area of entertainment that will wow me even if I’m not particularly interested in their genre?
How about Crazy Train (with a little disco thrown in) performed on cello and bass, would that qualify?
Do barbershop quartets count?
I loved the Karamazovs. I saw them three times, each time bringing a date - and it worked, I married one of them. (one of the dates, not one of the Karamazovs)
I found a box of old letters recently and it seems that back in the 80s I sent Alyosha a haiku, and he sent me a very sweet letter back. (googling, it appears he left to go into CS and eventually became Dean of Pixar University, so that’s a career arc)
I’ve also seen Blue Man Group, where I had a (fake) camera stuck in my mouth so the crowd could see my supposed tonsils. That was less fun than the Karamazovs.
I think I’d throw Ricky Jay into niche, specifically because of this weaponization of the simple playing card. I wish I’d seen his act.
My favorite genre of Rock and Roll is Surf music; but man, since the Pyramids let their hair grow back and ditched the choreography, watching a Surf combo play was like watching paint dry…until along came Los Straitjackets!
They’re extremely mainstream, but considering their roots in Montreal street theater, and considering that at the time the idea of a circus without animals was patently riduculous, I’d call Cirque du Soleil pretty niche indeed.
Also, as long as there’s a (extremely stupid) national conversation going on about drag queens, I’ll note that drag kings have been around for 100 years, but the art form gets nowhere near the amount of attention that queens do.
I thought of Mummenschanz right after I posted the thread, but the title was long enough already I suppose.
Elmer, I love surf rock and I’ve heard Los Straitjackets before. Don’t know the Pyramids though, so I’ll look into them. Do you know The Red Elvises? I think they’ve morphed into a new group, but I saw them a few times back in the late 90s and they were always fun.
I saw Ricky Jay once (with his 52 assistants). He was fantastic. I knew an amateur magician once who said that tickets were hard to get, because as soon as Jay scheduled a show every magician in the area would get tickets.
I’ve seen BMG and the Karamazovs, too.
I’m trying to think of some other good acts for this thread. Postmodern Jukebox (covers of modern songs in old jazz and swing styles), Big Daddy (similar to PMJ, but back in the '80s), The Bobs (a cappella), and Uncle Bonsai (satiric folk).
When I was deeper into card magic I studied my vhs copy of that show like a textbook and learned a couple of the routines verbatim. What’s really cool is that there are some deep Easter eggs in there for magicians even in the moves he’s doing.
I’ll throw in the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.
So have I - the best card handling I’ve ever seen:
And the mention of Uncle Bonsai reminded me of…
If you are into ballet, or dance, I recommend Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. These guys are a combination of hilarious and amazing. Once I saw them do a send-up of Merce Cunningham that was spot-on, and I still giggle about it to this day!
I make a point to see them (and Canadian Brass) whenever they come to town.
I’ve seen The Reduced Shakespeare Company several times, probably all their major pieces. At the end of one I found a performer and told him that this must be the closest thing to seeing the Marx Brothers live on Broadway. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) is their masterwork.
The RSC combines braininess with slapstick. Closer to pure slapstick is the Mischief Theatre Company who parlayed The Play That Goes Wrong - all the bad things that have ever happened to live performances crammed into two acts - into an entire career. The Goes Wrong Show moved it to television, where they could cheat a bit to have wilder and faster “wrong” happening while still seeming like a live presentation. That makes it even funnier than the play.
Back in the long ago, lucky hippies in California got to watch The Firesign Theatre perform. The rest of the world knows them only from their incredible record albums. All Hail Marx and Lennon!
When I was in college in the '80s, I got to see the Flying Karamazov Brothers, as well as Peter Schickele, performing a P.D.Q. Bach concert. Both were extremely entertaining, and Schickele’s show, in particular, was even more enjoyable if you had a working knowledge of classical music (and appreciated horrible wordplay).
I spent my summer weekends in the '90s working at our local Renaissance faire, and I got to know a lot of the performers. The Karamazovs reminded me of a very talented and well-practiced Ren faire juggling troupe.
My wife and I saw Blue Man Group here in Chicago, for her 40th birthday. That, too, was a lot of fun, though in more of a surrealist way.
There’s the Australian rock band The Beards who have multiple albums of songs, all of which are on the subject of how great it is to have a beard. Some of them are pretty good!
The Karamazovs (who I have seen many times), Avner the Eccentric, Bill Irwin (also seen) were among performers styled as [New Vaudeville] (New Vaudeville - Wikipedia) back in the 80s.
I would also say Mummenschanz and Trockadero belong. Maybe Canadian Brass, too, but they seem a tad more conventional than the others, if no less entertaining.
PDQ Bach (who I have also seen in person) long predated NV.)
According to the Wiki entry, Penn and Teller disparagingly decline to be included, but I would say that in their early days they definitely were part of the New Vaudeville. They eventually became far more successful than any of the others. Perhaps that’s why they disdain any connection.
Among others mentioned here, I have seen Ricky Jay, Reduced Shakespeare (in London and Atlanta), Blue Man Group, and many Cirque du Soleil shows, including all the permanent ones in Las Vegas, and several of the traveling shows.
All great entertainment.
Among jugglers, there’s also Michael Moschen. He was a high school classmate of Penn Jillette, and they performed together for a while before Penn switched to magic.
I saw the Karamazov’s live twice. The first time, there were only three of them and they performed at a science fiction convention for $100 plus passing the hat. This was around 1979
Years later, I saw them on stage. For the challenge, someone brought a half gallon of ice cream out of the box. They managed it.
I’ve also seen PDQ Bach with the Philadelphia Orchestra. His entrance was spectacular: someone got on and said he’d be late, made a few jokes, then said, “I guess we’ll have to start without him.” From the back of the hall, Shickele shouts “don’t start!” and runs down the aisle, leaps over a barrier separating the front row from the stage, disappears for a few seconds behind it, then clambers onto the stage, panting and out of breath.
I saw Reduced Shakepare doing The History of the United States (Abridged).
You can find A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong on Youtube with Derek Jacobi as Scrooge (at first) and Diana Rigg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLOi5H3ylBo
