more tigers than lily-livered

By Sergey Chernov

Staff Writer

Published: September 19, 2003 (Issue # 903)

This weekend sees the return of The Tiger Lillies, a trio of London musicians whose accordion-driven operatic ballads have been drawing crowds at concert venues in both Moscow and St. Petersburg since the band debuted in Moscow in April 2000.

After that first show - at the then newly opened club Project O.G.I. in Moscow - counterfeit versions of Tiger Lillies albums appeared at music kiosks all over Moscow and St. Petersburg, the band's music was used in a handful of soundtracks for locally produced movies and plays and cinematic director Sergei Bodrov began work on a documentary - as yet unfinished - about the trio.

It's no surprise, perhaps, that The Tiger Lillies have made their mark on local music lovers: When the band takes the stage, the radically falsetto voice of frontman Martyn Jacques combines with lyrics that are often shocking - tackling themes such as London's underworld, prostitution, murder and sex with animals and insects - to produce a show that has few analogues in the world of contemporary music.

"There are big things and there are small things. Sex and death are big," said Jacques, sitting on a kitchen stool in a St. Petersburg apartment earlier this month.

The Tiger Lillies arrived in St. Petersburg on Sept. 7 to begin work on a collaboration album with popular local ska band Leningrad, whose frontman and founder Sergei Shnurov admits that The Tiger Lillies had a considerable influence on his work.

The two bands played together with Jacques singing, after which Shnurov, who does not speak English, overlaid his vocals in Russian with lyrics written or improvized from word-for-word translations provided by a friend.

Out of 14 recorded tracks, 12 are Jacques' songs with Shnurov on vocals and two are Shnurov numbers sung in English by Jacques. The album is due early next year to give fans a break after Leningrad's long-awaited new album, scheduled for October.

The idea of the collaboration came about at The Tiger Lillies' concert at Red Club in April. Shnurov, who borrowed music for Leningrad's 1999 hit "Diky Muzhchina" ("Wild Man") from Jacques' song "Whore," paid his respect to the trio by making a suprise appearance to sing the song with The Tiger Lillies playing.

"Sergei is a really good singer, he is probably even a better singer than people realize," said Jacques, whose favorite vocalists include Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel. "I think he's got seeds of greatness in him, in fact."

"He's got an emotion. I think Sergei's voice is lived-in, he's a person who's seen things, suffered," he said. "I think he's got that kind of voice."

After four days in the studio, The Tiger Lillies headed to Moscow to perform three shows, followed by a gig in Donetsk, Ukraine before returning to St. Petersburg for two more dates.

Though The Tiger Lillies may have influenced the work of Leningrad and frequently perform at rock venues, the band distances itself from rock 'n' roll - even posting messages on its web site that read "How dare they call us a 'rock' band?" beside copies of reviews - and claim its roots lie in the theater, specifically with German playwright Bertolt Brecht and German composer Kurt Weill.

"Brecht and Weill were big influences for me - 'The Threepenny Opera' ['Der Dreigroschenoper'] in particular," Jacques said. "It was one of the records I used to listen to when I was very young, when I was about 20."

In addition to Brecht and Weill, Jacques includes cabaret and Gypsy music and Russian folk songs among his influences, adding that he is also a fan of the music of the New York Dolls, Tom Waits and "the intellectual aspect of punk."

"I've always been interested in less popular things, the less commercial side of music," Jacques said, adding that he moved to London's Soho district six years ago to be closer to "unusual" people. "At the time, weird people used to live there."

Jacques, who sings and plays accordion, is backed by double bassist Adrian Stout and drummer Adrian Huge. The band boasts a vast, ever-expanding repertoire of songs written by Jacques, who said he never uses set lists during gigs, simply playing what song he feels ought to be performed next.

The Tiger Lillies' 10th and most recent album, "The Gorey End" (2003) is based on the poems and prose of the late U.S. writer and illustrator Edward Gorey, who in 1999 wrote a letter to the band suggesting a collaboration. The band agreed, but Gorey died the following year before he had the opportunity to hear the resulting songs, which use pre-existing Gorey texts chosen by Gorey and Jacques (and occasionally reworked to conform to rhythms) as lyrics.

"[Gorey] was a very eccentric man," Jacques said. "He used to draw pictures and he used to write words to the pictures. They are very, very dark and black - very Victorian - and he was quite similar to The Tiger Lillies in that way, because they are also very dark and Victorian."

On the album, The Tiger Lillies are joined by San Francisco string ensemble the Kronos Quartet.

"We did a show called 'Shockheaded Peter' in San Francisco, and they came to see us play," Jacques said. "They're always very keen on working with avant-garde, unusual musicians, and I talked to them about [Gorey] and the songs I'd just written and they were very interested. They were fans of his as well."

The new album's lyrics are dark, fantastical and at times absurd, but always considerably tamer than The Tiger Lillies' previous texts. In one of the band's best-known songs, 1996's "Banging in the Nails," for example, Jacques sung:

"I'm crucifying Jesus/Nail him to the cross/The poor old bastard bleeds to death/And I don't give a toss./I'm bang, bang, banging in the nails."

Despite the songs' graphic imagery, Jacques likens his lyrics to the images on show at art museums.

"If you go to some national gallery - any national gallery - you see paintings of people being raped, violence, terrible violence, terrible things going on," Jacques said.

"And if you look at crucifixion, there's a man and he has nails in his wrists. His ribs are cut and blood comes out. ... It's violence. It's obscene. And so much of the Bible is graphic violence - and that's art. What's the difference between that and what we do? I just wish people ... saw what we do as art."

The Tiger Lillies perform at 8 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday at Red Club. Links: www.tigerlillies.com