SOUND BAR
Issue #32
The Rosebuds’ Kelly Crisp loves racy reading, Russian poetry, and Dolly Parton
By Kristina Francisco
Published: June 1st, 2007 | 12:00am
Kelly Crisp finds influences for the Rosebuds’ synth-pop indie rock in a variety of places, not all of them musical. She lets us in on the people she looks to for some inspiration.
1. SIOUXSIE SIOUX inspires me as a female artist because she fused music and art together in everything she did. Even her stage makeup and dress was not exactly “sexy,” but rather another dimension of the performance and of the songs themselves.
All the pieces of the artwork should fit together of a project — the song, the lyrical content, the artwork, the presentation of it all onstage, everything. That’s my most important job or pursuit in the Rosebuds and in other stuff I do — making sure every dimension of the presentation is purposeful and meaningful. And when it goes well, it seems effortless, and the result live is an all-out party where the audience is just going crazy, dancing, and singing along.
2. ANAÏS NIN kept a private journal in which she discussed her sex life in and outside of her marriage, her romance with writer Henry Miller, and just all kinds of other fabulous stories and totally incriminating information. The freedom she had in living her life and in recording it in her journal astounds me. I read some of the stuff, especially the detailed accounts of sex (of all kinds!), and think,
“Oh my God, I have to hide this book! Somebody is going to find this!” Like it’s my own job to protect her journal. She wrote about real people who were well-known actors, doctors, writers, bankers, and psychotherapists (and didn’t spare men who were bad in bed either). Just knowing that someone could find her journal and read it and know all of her secrets … imagine the creativity and freedom she would have making a record.
3. RUSSIAN POETRY ensorcells me. It’s incredible. My favorites are Alexandr Pushkin and Anna Akhmatova. My favorite Pushkin poem is called “The Prophet.” It just kills me.
We played a show in Russia recently and I was so excited to see Moscow up close — the Kremlin, the cathedral, the frozen river. Pushkin is Russia’s Shakespeare, and he’s considered a hero there. I believe he was killed in a duel, of all things, after challenging his wife’s alleged lover. But most importantly, for me, he lead Russia’s radical writers into a kind of political reform movement, which got him exiled. Revolutionary change always begins with the artists, writers, and musicians. Then they get in trouble and get hushed by the controlling leadership, and then the public gets pissed, and that’s when things really get going.
4. DOLLY PARTON. Now here’s a woman who created herself. She created a performance persona that will never be duplicated however hard we may try.
5. SHADOW PUPPERTRY is so visually magical to me. I especially like Lotte Reiniger’s films. Her artwork is enchanting — just look at the intricate cut-out work in the characters and all the elaborate scenery. They are just so dazzling to watch.
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