From: davisonj@bnr.ca (John Davison)
Subject: Apotheosis July 26, 1992, Dallas, Texas, USA show reviewed
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Richardson, Tx.
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 18:55:05 GMT


        On Sunday, July 26, 1992, I took advantage of the opportunity to see
Apotheosis, an ensemble known for their techno-style variation on Carl Orff's
"O Fortuna", perform at the Lizard Lounge in Dallas, Texas, USA.

        This show, which was performed indoors, was essentially a Menudo/
Village People-style (Front 242-style, for our younger readers) dance show in
which nearly all of the sounds coming out of the PA were coming from a tape.  A
small Korg keyboard, played briefly (and inaudibly) during the show by the
overweight, unshaven young gent with blond dreadlocks, sat off to the right,
and that was it for the instruments.

        Apotheosis' stage lineup consisted of the following four icons:

    1. Vanilla Ice clone (representing the apotheosis of stupid white-bread
       rappers)

    2. overweight, unshaven young gent with blonde dreadlocks (representing the
       apotheoses of overweightedness, unshavenness, youth, gentlemanly status,
       and blonde dreadlocks)

    3. Kim, a young woman with dark hair (not sure what she represented)

    4. simpering blond-haired female cheerleader (the apotheosis of
       stereotypical grinning, blonde, bubble-headed "rah"-ness)

        The four characters danced to, and sang along with, the following
taped music:

    1. a variation on some Carl Orff thing whose name I cannot recall
    2. "O Fortuna"
    3. "Ecstacy Is for a Motherfucker" (or "Dope is for a Motherfucker", or
       something like that...I forget)
    4. more of "O Fortuna"
    5. more of the variation on some Carl Orff thing whose name I cannot recall

        The two female members of the band wore black-and-white spandex tights
which had "APOTHEO$I$" emblazoned on the outer left leg; the two male members
wore loose-fitting black-and-white pants and jackets.  (The pants were black
everywhere except for the crotch, which was white.  The crotch was oversized to
enable leg-splits and other dancing moves.)  Most, if not all, of the dancers
wore microhone headsets, and a single hand-held microphone was also passed
among the performers.

        Highlights of the show included

1. Seeing the Vanilla Ice clone hold his microphone out to the overweight,
   unshaven young gent with blonde dreadlocks, waiting for the overweight,
   unshaven young gent with blonde dreadlocks to take it from him.  Ten seconds
   later, the overweight, unshaven young gent with blonde dreadlocks took it
   from him and went to the back of the small stage, where he gave the
   microphone to a stagehand.  "Co-operation" and "help thy neighbor" were the
   key themes effectively conveyed here.

2. Seeing the overweight, unshaven young gent with blonde dreadlocks put on his
   microphone headset after it fell off during a somersault.  Brilliant
   recovery!

3. Seeing the Vanilla Ice clone recover from a particularly grueling somersault
   that caused him to land on his back.  "Heroic", "resilient", and
   "determined" are words that come to mind.

4. Watching the Vanilla Ice clone and the overweight, unshaven young gent with
   blonde dreadlocks somersault over each other.  Had the music been turned off
   that point, one might have heard audible gasps from the audience during
   these feats.

5. Watching the simpering blond-haired female cheerleader dance.  Honestly, I
   don't think she stopped grinning, even once, during the show.  More
   "heroic", "resilient", and "determined" here.

        It was interesting to observe Carl Orff's work, already seen by many
music lovers as being bawdy and lightweight, and arguably trivialized by the
disco arrangement bestowed upon it by Apotheosis, trivialized even further by
the stage show, which resembled a 30-minute workout show more than it did
either live musical performance or modern dance.  It was sometimes difficult to
believe that the Vanilla Ice clone, the overweight, unshaven young gent with
blonde dreadlocks, Kim, and especially the blissful and eternally grinning
blond-haired female cheerleader, were the ones responsible for their relatively
dramatic (in my most humble opinion) disco rendering of "O Fortuna".

        Unless my ears deceived me, Apotheosis has joined the ranks of Laibach
and Doug Suade and the Suade-tones through the use of taped applause during
breaks between songs.  (It is quite possible that the applause was a part of
one of the disco tracks, or it may have been some some synthesizer patch which,
coincidentally, sounded like applause.  Also, the nature of the music employed
in their stage show renders the idea of a "break" ill-defined.)  Until I am
cleared up on the issue, I will prefer to think that Apotheosis uses taped
applause between songs.  More bands, I think, should do that.  (The loud booing
at the end of the performance, however, clearly came from the audience.)

        Apotheosis deserves credit for taking a white-bread "let us entertain
you" approach, regardless of their small scale, in their presentation.  The
band members pulled members of the opposite sex out of the audience to get up
and dance with them, and they engaged in dialogues with the audience, a foggy
recollection of which follows:

Vanilla Ice Clone: Do you like house music?

Audience:          (mixed "yeah!" and "boo")

Vanilla Ice Clone: Do you like techno music?

Audience:          (mixed "yeah!" and "boo")

Vanilla Ice Clone: Let me hear you say "yeah!"

Audience:          (mixed "yeah!" and "boo")

Vanilla Ice Clone: You can say it louder than that.  Let me hear you say
                   "yeah!"

Audience:          (mixed "yeah!" and "boo")

...

Overweight,
 Unshaven Young
 Man with Blonde
 Dreadlocks:       Let me hear you say "rave!"

Audience:          (mixed "yeah!" and "boo")

...

Overweight,
 Unshaven Young
 Man with Blonde
 Dreadlocks:       Kim is going to sing the next song.

Kim:               This next song is about people who take drugs, and people
                   who have died from taking drugs.  It's called "Ecstasy is
                   for Motherfuckers."

Audience:          (mixed "yeah!" and "boo")

        The tension between this friendly on-stage behavior and their stern-
sounding disco music, while a sure-fire way to get booed by a Dallas audience,
managed to make a funny statement about the whole idea of taking any musical
genre (or Carl Orff) too seriously.  Unfortunately, at the Dallas show,
Apotheosis was too timid to carry this irony far enough for it to be truly
effective.  In the future, the irony might be amplified by the addition of the
following elements, which I respectfully suggest here:

1.  clown suits
2.  rope tricks
3.  unicycles
4.  juggling
5.  pom-poms
6.  cheerleader uniforms
7.  cheerleader megaphones
8.  songs with workout lyrics (e.g. "work your body", "one-two, one-two",
    "breathe in, breathe out", "in-out, up-down")
9.  songs with cheerleader lyrics (e.g. "2-4-6-8, let's crank up the 808!")
10. a "Village People" wardrobe, adapted to the "techno"/"industrial disco"/
    "virtual reality" archetypes, e.g. an Altern8 body suit, gardening mask,
    and jar of Vick's Vapo-Rub; a Front 242 helmet; a Exos glove; etc.
11. on-stage body-building equipment
12. silly "techno" jokes and "techno" puns delivered in a "Leon Redbone" style
13. snare drum rolls and bass drum/crash cymbal sounds to accompany their
    somersaults and other acrobatic feats

        In short, although Apotheosis backfired with the (admittedly culturally
disadvantaged) Dallas audience, they made it clear that they possess at least
one trump card with which they can cultivate success beyond one hit single, and
in that respect, they showed themselves to be a force to be reckoned with.
Playing in venues which feature free admission for people 21 & up is also a
great way to get people like me to show up, but in this case, I think the
Lizard Lounge had more to do with that aspect of the performance -- one of the
finer aspects of the performance, I might add -- than Apotheosis did.
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