7 p.m. - 1 a.m., Saturday, September 17
This is not a ticketed event.
83131 Amboy Rd, Wonder Valley CA 92277
Hosted by son of the velvet rat
Son of the Velvet Rat celebrates their seasonal return to the high-desert with a very special evening of live music and art in collaboration with fellow Austrian artist and friend, Gilbert Bretterbauer and sponsored by the Austrian artists association INTRO-GRAZ-Spection.
The outdoor stage at The Palms will be transformed by Bretterbauer’s fabric installation entitled Desert Desolation Décor creating a unique acoustic effect and an extraordinary spatial feeling featuring live sets by Son of the Velvet Rat (Georg Altziebler and Heike Binder) with a performance by The Sibleys and a line-up of other special musical guests to be announced.
Desert Desolation Décor is a spin-off of a stage installation designed by Gilbert Bretterbauer and used at a live appearance by SotVR in 2014 (ephermeropterae tba 21/Augarten). This multilayered fabric construction enwraps the musical performance in an external shell consisting of decorative elements meant to evoke an open-ended form of existence and an intimate nomadic retreat beyond the realm of the traditional urban backdrop. Signed copies of an adjunct publication containing lyrics of SotVR’s songs along with drawings and photographs by Gilbert Bretterbauer will be offered for purchase at the performance. The limited edition book elaborates on the tense, complex interrelationship between transience and sustainability permeating every aspect of the creative, artistic experience.
Son of the Velvet Rat (sonofthevelvetrat.com) is the project of Austrian songwriter Georg Altziebler and his wife Heike Binder who now make their home in the California desert. With an impressive band history, their catalog includes award-winning collaborations with luminaries such as Lucinda Williams, Ken Coomer and Peter Jesperson. Their lyrics are purely poetic and their sound intersects and intertwines the genres of garage punk with French chanson and European folk-noir in a spectrum of style that seems to both surrender to and defy gravity. This special performance event highlights the couple’s return from a six-month tour in Austria, Poland and the U.K. on the heels of a newly-recorded and yet-to-be-released album produced by Joe Henry (whose most recent collaborators include, Billy Bragg, Bettye LaVette, Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell).
Gilbert Bretterbauer is an Austrian artist whose works span a range of visual, architectural and interior design. In addition to being an artist in the fields of textiles, painting and installations, he also writes using his autobiographical experiences and circumstances to create his own words of interwoven language texts. To present his textile collections and limited furniture editions to a broader public, he started the company bretterbauerobjects.com. Bretterbauer also teaches in the Department of Textiles.Art.Design at the University of Arts Linz, AU. His work is shown at the Harry Bichler Rauminhalt Gallery in Vienna, AU.
INTRO-GRAZ-Spection is an Austria-based art initiative producing interdisciplinary projects and international public offerings in the form of visual arts, literature, theater, music, film, architecture, photography, etc. with unusual, new perspectives and possibilities. With its oscillation between music & art, permanence & elusiveness, and its international implications, one senses that Desert Desolation Decor perhaps embodies the complete archetypal essence of IGS.
The Sibleys (www.facebook.com/The-Sibleys) are a rock trio comprised of James Sibley – drums and vocals, his sister Laura Sibley – guitar and vocals, and bassist Thom Merrick. Their music sounds like how the land looks, with a good harmony sung on top of it. They live out east of the town of 29 Palms in Wonder Valley, way beyond the sign that says “Next Services 100 Miles.” The Sibleys write about the desert and people they know and perform in a roadhouse called The Palms, that they own and operate. Their album “The Sibleys / Live Music Saturday” was released in 2011 by Amboy Road Records and produced by Ben Vaughn.
Special Guests: Stay tuned for a full line-up of high-desert musical talent to be announced.
