CHARMING HOSTESS *

      CHARMING HOSTESS was founded in 1993 inside the fertile anarchy of Barrington Co∼op, and nurtured by the West Oakland arts community, along with other coeval bands such as Fibulator and Eskimo…

• Half of CHARMING HOSTESS “big band” was also in Idiot Flesh & Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. The female trio (Carla Kihlstedt, Jewlia Eisenberg, Nina Rolle), a kind of commando half∼gospel < > half∼choral, immediately striking by its vocal arrangements of extreme vigor and precision, its complex and contortionist harmonies, supported by a rhythmic heated to white and drawn with a knife, quick to sow the most dangerous «breaks», and highly colored by an instrumentation that borrows as much from rock  as from various folklores : electric guitar, bass, violin, accordion, saxophone, flute, and so many other sound spices…

• At fashion parade, the «Charming Hostesses» prefer boxing rings ! The formation of the group lends itself well to duels : three women and three men. They could also be distinguished into three singers & three musicians, but the truth is that female singers also play instruments and musicians sometimes sing as well. The roles are mixed, jostled ← Parity, isn’t it ?

• After the disband of the “big band” in 2000, Jewlia kept the fire of Charming Hostess in various curious & delicious transitions, mutations, inversions, transformations in so many beauty (r)evolutions…