The Invincible Czars: Arabian Dance
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Welcome to a week of musical transformations for the holidays. What do I mean by that? Geovicki gave us a taste of it with her post to finish last week‘s theme. This time of year, songs get asked to do things that were never intended. A song which has nothing to do with the holidays may become a staple on holiday radio broadcasts because Christmas, or presents, or even cold weather were mentioned. Familiar holiday songs may travel to strange dimensions, and come back with amazing genre makeovers. Lyricists may force a song into the holiday season by changing some of the words, or change a song from one holiday to another in the same way. All of that is fair game this week.
I wanted to start with a genre makeover, because I have a remarkable example to share. The bio on this band‘s website starts by saying, “The Invincible Czars are one of Austin's most adventurous rock bands.” All bands brag on their websites, but this statement is actually modest. The Czars fearlessly take on classic, (often classical), music, and turn it into an amazing stew of rock, jazz, klezmer, gypsy music, and probably a few other things I missed. Arabian Dance is from The Nutcracker, and the video is from an annual kid’s show that the Czars do where they perform the entire Nutcracker Suite their way. I haven’t seen the show live, but the album is as consistently crazy as this song. I love it, but I know not everyone will agree.
