Mar 22 : "Strongest Son" - Madam West (East Village) ::: PART 2

New Video / Freshly Produced (March 8)

APOCALYPSE PARTY

What is or was an "apocalypse party"? Were you part of one? Maybe only know it now when you look back?

Back on March 7 I went to see New York band Madam West do a show at Rockwood Music Hall. It was my second time seeing them. Rockwood Stage 1 is a small stage, yet it still gave Sophie Chernin, lead of the band, more room to move around than she had had when I saw her the first time. That was at a packed basement show at a house in Philly.

The band played all the favorites from their 2018 album "Warm Bodies", including their disturbing song, "Strongest Son", which I wrote about last year. The song is about nuclear war, the possible destruction of the planet. When I first heard that they did a video of this song, and before I watched it I thought wtf are they doing a video about this? But after I watched this "apocalypse party" I realized what the message is. And I asked Sophie to tell us about the video, its creation and its background. Here's her response:

Hi Bob- Thanks so much! Really appreciate that. Here’s some background: I wrote the lyrics right after Trump was elected in 2016. They speak to the la-di-da, “he’s never going to win” attitude of the left in the months leading up to his election. It also predicts some kind of nuclear event with Trump at the helm. The last lyric, “mother of all shows of strength” refers to Trump’s boast that he planned to drop “the mother of all bombs” in Afghanistan. (Which he did.)

For the video, we imagined the months leading up to his election as a party of sorts—picnics, cocktail parties, dancing. The revelers ignore the atomic war footage (and “Apocalypse Now” fanblade shots) being projected onto the wall behind them, failing to see the signs of their imminent destruction. The party transforms into the dark and disturbing scene of a nuclear bunker. Our director Ian Wexler played with several different lighting setups for each phase of the end of the world, from bright yellows to jarring white and finally, red, the color of emergencies. We played a lot with projections on the bathroom tile, and used some smoke effects for an apocalyptic touch. The bird masks were added to our costume arsenal late in the game, but I love the way that they are both comical and sinister, like the Trump administration itself.

So here is the video "Strongest Son" released just two weeks ago :::

Madam West doesn't have any other shows coming up soon, but here is their Facebook click where you can follow what they're doing ::: Madam West on Facebook (CLICK HERE)