{"id":3741,"date":"2012-10-19T23:50:10","date_gmt":"2012-10-20T06:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=3741"},"modified":"2012-10-20T12:30:15","modified_gmt":"2012-10-20T19:30:15","slug":"chinese-melodrama-music-you-know-but-have-never-heard-like-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/chinese-melodrama-music-you-know-but-have-never-heard-like-this\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Melodrama: Music you know, but have never heard like this. . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

It was one of those rare Friday nights that didn\u2019t involve a longish drive for me. \u00a0I was staying close to home, so when my friend Evelyn sent out her weekly \u201cthings to do this weekend in Pacifica\u201d and how much she loved this duo Chinese Melodrama<\/em> \u00a0I thought: I\u2019ll check \u2018em out.\u00a0 Playing this night (October 19) at \u201cA Grape in the Fog\u201d wine bar in Pacifica.<\/p>\n

A classically trained violinist of clearly Asian descent (Lisa\u00a0 Chu\u2014the Chinese part) and a white-guy singer-songwriter (Randy Bales\u2014the Melodrama part, as he himself put it).\u00a0 Put them together, and you have something you have never seen before, but you are sure to want to see again.\u00a0 The evening starts off at a relaxed pace, a trio of songs including Cat Stevens\u2019 \u201cFather and Son.\u201d\u00a0 Guitar and vocal didn\u2019t stray far from the original (true of many of the evening\u2019s offerings) but with Lisa\u2019s poignant violin it took on a dimension I never knew it had.\u00a0 The same holds true for other offerings from the familiar songbooks of Soundgarden, Mettallica, Led Zeppelin, rendered ethereally beautiful with the Lisa\u2019s 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.\u00a0 Randy Bales handles all the vocals, and it\u2019s his detailed and potent guitar work that give the performances their underlying foundation.\u00a0 By the third song, one of their original compositions, we were getting a taste of what was about to come.\u00a0 \u201cSeasons,\u201d ostensibly about the spirituality of our being, started of suitably restrained and introspective, but when the music hit the bridge, it positively ignited.\u00a0 Just an amazing little interlude of stringed pyrotechnics, before settling back down into its muted, reflective groove.<\/p>\n

But by this time, the show was just getting started.\u00a0 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:\u00a0 \u201cMore music, less talk.\u201d\u00a0 And, boy was there more music.\u00a0 That hot interlude of \u201cSeasons\u201d was just a teaser for the real power these two bring to their performance.\u00a0 After the first break, the real show started off.\u00a0 There is a subtle personal interplay between these two.\u00a0 Watch their faces.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 And then this happens again.\u00a0 And again.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

By the end of the show, I had to marvel that their instruments\u2014just a guitar and a violin\u2014had not burst into flames.\u00a0 You really have to see these two in person.\u00a0 You can check their website http:\/\/chinesemelodrama.com\/<\/a><\/span> for upcoming dates in the Bay Area, including house parties, surely the best way to see Chinese Melodrama<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Lisa Chu and Randy Bales<\/p><\/div>\n

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It was one of those rare Friday nights that didn\u2019t involve a longish drive for me. \u00a0I was staying close to home, so when my friend Evelyn sent out her…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[153,716,154],"class_list":{"0":"post-3741","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-david-hirzel","7":"tag-chinese-melodrama","8":"tag-david-hirzel","9":"tag-david-hirzel-music-review"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"