Thirsty for more Staxx Brothers? If so, you are in luck because we have the new shots. They are green and come in test tubes. Moreover, the band makes its first Lake Tahoe appearance in more than two years on Saturday, Dec. 6, in the Crystal Bay Casino Red Room. The show starts at 10 p.m.
The Staxx Brothers, a song goes, “think they’re the Beatles but sound like the Stones.” However, the Seattle group is more like next millennia Who from its seminal rock opera days of “Tommy” and “Quadrophenia.”
The songs take listeners on a journey and the videos take them to the movies.
Just released, “Black and Mild” is different from the previous Staxx Brothers videos, produced and written by Davin Stedman, the lead singer who really does sound a bit like Mick Jagger but might more resemble fat Elvis.
“Black & Mild” was a “monumental and group collaboration,” Stedman said, and Ryan Cory directed and co-wrote the video, which does have some consistencies with the latest Staxx videos. We are referring to the gratuitous views of Stedman’s belly and the eventual demise of our hero. Previously, Stedman was killed and turned into a zombie and in the last one, “Uncle Ed,” he played a country singer run over by a train. But these aren’t tear-jerking endings. When Ed reached heaven, he was handed a Pabst and entertained by haloed Staquelettes, the band’s soulful harmony singers.
In “Black & Mild,” the Staquelettes have a charismatic, playful presence. Each Staxx Brothers member, in fact, seems an equally accomplished thespian and musician. And Ayo Ogunrinde who portrayed angel-cowboy Michael Landon in the previous video is no “Little Joe” in “Black and Mild,” as Stedman describes.
Scientists kidnap and experiment upon the band, which opens with soulful trance rock that in a haze morphs into psychedelic hip-hop as the singer transforms into his alter ego.
At least that’s our take. There is a vast room for interpretation, this one in an old warehouse near the Space Needle. This set, like many of the others from the Staxx video library, is scheduled for demolition, enhancing the equivocality.
Stedman was an English major in college who studied literature. He’s a self-described playwright who mythologizes his own characters and weighs heavily on absurdity, irony and humor. Before learning guitar, he hummed riffs to accompany his lyrics.
The songs he writes with his band take twists and tempo changes, conducive to the stories in the videos, “Black & Mild” being the eighth with the Staxx Brothers.
