By Michael Vazquez
Last night at 205 Chrystie, just after 1:00 am, Nirvana’s cheerleaders got an update during Ebony Bones’ set, as one of the coolest singers and the two most awesome back-up vocalists went through alternately joyous and solemn dances in the spirit of “a small village in Africa,” per lead singer Ebony’s quip. And while their garb is tribal, they are far more steeped in subculture—namely that great tradition of conceptual British art-pop informed by a societal, political, and historical consciousness, and expressed by the Bones crew to an, at-times harrowing, and often rapturous and delirious pitch. During one moment, the back-up singers vamped with a boppy, New Wave dolly coo, asked a question pondered since time immemorial by thinkers like Morrissey, Eldridge Cleaver, et. al: Why do we smile at the people that we hate the most?
If Ms. Bones’ alarmed and stern tones occasionally erupted to a righteously guttural wail, more vengeful than plaintive, indifferent to perfect pitch, then all the better for it. The entire unit, from the Pharaoh head-garbed, shirtless guitarist to the more trad-dressing keyboardist and drummer whose dark, brooding, fantastical notes and tom-tom heavy on the third new wave stomp-friendly arrangements kept shit at a very high place for the entire set. This is one of the best bands I’ve heard in a while. You could compare them to Blood Brothers, or Lene Lovitch, or Rip Rig & Panic, or The Higsons, or APB, or The Selector, or countless other groups, but these cats aren’t mercenarily derivative; what sounds Ebony Bones do carry of the past are the stuff that’s best worth remembering.
This was the sentiment I expressed after filming Ebony Bones hustling on a stage that would barely fit a trio, much less two-thirds of a collective of twelve. “Like the twelve tribes of Judah” is how leader Ebony Thomas puts it. Musicians who never been onstage before, but now travel around the world espousing a simple credo of “embracing the ridiculous” and “preaching optimism as cultural rebellion.”
While the Ebony Bones crew play up their sense of fun and outré fashion, there’s no denying their serious side, manifested in “Story Of St. Ockwell,” which like Springsteen’s “American Skin (41 Shots),” takes on the subject of a police shooting of an innocent, unarmed civilian. “We Know All About You” is loosely based on George Orwell’s 1984 and losing freedom in society. Even their debut LP, Bone of My Bones, takes its title from Genesis—the book, not the band.
In an e-mail interview typed back and forth during Glastonbury—where Thomas and Co. played three different stages—the former child actress (Thomas made her bones in the Royal Shakespeare company, followed by seven years on a British soap opera, Family Affairs) turned global pop ingénue drops nuggets of wisdom.
URB: Tell me about being a child actor—are the clichés true?
THOMAS: I guess it depends on the child. My hope has always been music. When I’m onstage, I forget who I am, I become that five year-old dancing in front of the mirror again. Acting was accidental, how I ended up doing Shakespeare at twelve, I don’t know, but part of this business is magic. You don’t know how it happens.
Loading ...
Leave A Comment!