Audio-Visuals

THE ASYLUM STREET SPANKERS: RE-ASSEMBLY
Directed by JP Riedie
(Spanks-a-Lot)
On August 14, 2004, the Asylum Street Spankers celebrated their 10th anniversary with two shows at Austin's Texas Union Theater, inviting a horde of the band's former members to participate. On Re-Assembly you've got 21 musicians playing round-robin, sometimes invading the stage all at once. You get everybody from band co-founders Wammo, Christina Marrs and Guy Forsyth to the younger turks like pianist Reese Gray and fiddler Sick. Yet it never becomes a directionless clusterfuck, despite the antics of certain Spankers who shall remain nameless. Seriously, the band raises a glass and a batch of ukuleles and resonator guitars to eclecticism, fun and friendship, concentrating mostly on older Spankers material, but including enough to the later stuff to give every Spanker a chance to shine at some point. It was a special evening (full disclosure: I was present for the first show of the two combined here), a night of draw-dropping musicianship, soulful singing and groan-inducing humor. In other words, a typical, and typically excellent, Spankers show. If you weren't there, you now have a chance to relive the memories for the first time.

The disk not only includes a version of every song played that night in the two sets, but also a reproduction of the intermission slide show, featuring pics from every era of the band, a somewhat low-fi look at the backstage prep and a commentary track from Marrs, Wammo, Forsyth, director/manager JP Riedie and editor Mark Coffey. For the Spankers fan, a necessity. For the Spankers newcomer, a great introduction. Michael Toland [buy it]