ok, this is my first event to sponsor and this band/comedy troupe is one I've been waiting to see for a while, since my sister introduced me to their totally irreverent and hilarious music. I'm going to have fun sharing this with you.

Meet me in front of Cafe Du Nord. I'll be wearing MardiGrad beads around my neck and I look like my picture on Tribe. Show starts at 8. Doors at 7. How about we buy our tix in advance though their website -$25 +$5.75 service fee- FOR THE 8 PM SHOW (EARLY SHOW) at www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/S...ventDetail

and meet at 6:00 (suggestions for good eats in the area?) This should be a gut buster. Show is from 8 - about 10. Then doors open for the second, later Spankers show.

You MUST check out some of their youtube videos to get their flavor, and I'd start with Stick Magnetic Ribbons on Your SUV. youtube.com/watch

and to be sure you're not too easily offended by this sort of thing: "The Scrotum Song" youtube.com/watch

And to show their versatility, the Asylum Street Spankers have even found a way to fuse Country Western Murder Ballads and Hip Hop. Here's "Hick Hop" youtube.com/watch

Below is their Wikipedia entry. They are hysterical, musical masters and terrific visually as well.

Description below. Better one from their website press kit, but I couldn't figure how to copy it. It's at their website, www.asylumstreetspankers.com/

The Asylum Street Spankers, formed in Austin, Texas in 1994, is a band whose music is rooted in early 20th century American musical forms. Founded by Guy Forsyth, Wammo and Christina Marrs at a legendary party at the famous Dabbs Hotel along the Llano River in Texas, the band began by busking on the streets of Austin and playing for tips in bars. In their earliest days, the Spankers' repertoire consisted almost entirely of country, blues, jazz, swing and Tin Pan Alley songs dating from the 1890s to the 1950s with a particular emphasis on the 1920s and 1930s. While their tone was raucous and irreverent, the band was also known for its musicianship, theatricality and militant acousticism. Until 2004 they played the vast majority of their concerts without any amplification at all. Not only did this heighten the theatricality of their shows, it caused the musicians to develop inventive vocal and instrumental arrangements in order to constantly engage an audience in such a quiet performance. Several early members were actors and nearly all members have been multi-instrumentalists.

With the departure of Forsyth in 1997, the Spankers' began playing more original songs, most written in the roots styles the band had already mastered. By 1999 only Marrs and Wammo remained of the line up that gained massive popularity in Austin and around Texas. Reconstructing the band under their leadership, Marrs and Wammo began to expand the act's boundaries to include more cross-genre experimentation, ever more intricate arrangements and vocal harmonies, and, most successfully, more humorous, though sometimes pointed social and cultural commentary. Many of their albums from 1999 on have been musically or lyrically thematic. Spanker Madness, primarily country blues music about drug use, is generally pro-marijuana, but several songs examine the negative side of drug use and incisively criticize the War on Drugs. They have also released A Christmas Spanking; Mercurial, an album recorded live using technology and techniques of 1940s vintage; My Favorite Record, an album about their love of music; X-rated EPs; and an album of songs about children and childhood heavily inspired by Shel Silverstein and Maurice Sendak. The Spankers have covered songs by a wide range of artists including Prince, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, The Beastie Boys, The B-52s, Black Flag, Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Harry Nilsson, The Jazz Butcher, The Violent Femmes, George Jones, Nirvana, Nina Simone, Nine Inch Nails, Otis Redding, Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Johnny Cash. They are also known for throwing snatches of familiar songs into cut and paste sections of their own construction to form musical montages.

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