It was one of those rare Friday nights that didn’t involve a longish drive for me. I was staying close to home, so when my friend Evelyn sent out her weekly “things to do this weekend in Pacifica” and how much she loved this duo Chinese Melodrama I thought: I’ll check ‘em out. Playing this night (October 19) at “A Grape in the Fog” wine bar in Pacifica.
A classically trained violinist of clearly Asian descent (Lisa Chu—the Chinese part) and a white-guy singer-songwriter (Randy Bales—the Melodrama part, as he himself put it). Put them together, and you have something you have never seen before, but you are sure to want to see again. The evening starts off at a relaxed pace, a trio of songs including Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son.” Guitar and vocal didn’t stray far from the original (true of many of the evening’s offerings) but with Lisa’s poignant violin it took on a dimension I never knew it had. The same holds true for other offerings from the familiar songbooks of Soundgarden, Mettallica, Led Zeppelin, rendered ethereally beautiful with the Lisa’s haunting melodic counterpoints. At more than one point during the show I found myself wondering, what is it about the sound of a violin that literally brings a tear to the eye. Randy Bales handles all the vocals, and it’s his detailed and potent guitar work that give the performances their underlying foundation. By the third song, one of their original compositions, we were getting a taste of what was about to come. “Seasons,” ostensibly about the spirituality of our being, started of suitably restrained and introspective, but when the music hit the bridge, it positively ignited. Just an amazing little interlude of stringed pyrotechnics, before settling back down into its muted, reflective groove.
But by this time, the show was just getting started. When Lisa felt his spoken introduction to another of their originals was going on a bit too long, she tapped the music stand with her bow: “More music, less talk.” And, boy was there more music. That hot interlude of “Seasons” was just a teaser for the real power these two bring to their performance. After the first break, the real show started off. There is a subtle personal interplay between these two. Watch their faces. She takes a half-closed look over her strings at his fingers on his own, while the song begins to take on its shape, growing slowly, methodically, inevitably she leaps into the music, and the whole performance ignites again in complex syncopated rhythms, amazing melodic lines sweeping and soaring breathtaking power. And then this happens again. And again. I no longer care who wrote what I am hearing, or what the lyrics might have had to say, so powerful has this performance become.
By the end of the show, I had to marvel that their instruments—just a guitar and a violin—had not burst into flames. You really have to see these two in person. You can check their website http://chinesemelodrama.com/ for upcoming dates in the Bay Area, including house parties, surely the best way to see Chinese Melodrama.
Lisa Chu and Randy Bales