Sid Yiddish and The Candy Store Henchmen

Sid Yiddish and The Candystore Henchmen for this the night of March 20th was a quintet of quirky proportions featuring: Sid Yiddish as conductor, playing, vuvuzela, shofar, Marc Gee on keyboards,Chad Wynes on guitar, Rat Niptikwith his electric violin, and John Hardwick on keyboards. The Candystore Henchmen perform an avante garde approach to music that is as refreshing as it is weird, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.

Royce's painting from the night of March 20th.

This was the only band we had work with us that had a conductor. Sid Yiddish has developed his own version of conducting based deeply in the style of Soundpainting. This sort of conducting is a language that comprises more than 1200 hand gestures and was created by the New York composer Walter Thompson in 1974. Watching Sid Yiddish conduct is reminiscent of the fancy arm movements and hand gestures that I have not seen the likes of since Don Zimmer was positioned as third base coach for the Cubs.

Instructing the Candy Store Henchmen.

During sound check and rehearsal, I got to hear Sid instructing the band on what they would be playing. Maestro Sid said to Rat Niptik, that when he made this movement with his hand that nearly looked like the dance Uma and Travolta did in Jack Rabbit Slim's Twist Contest, but it wasn't. Rat's instructions were to play "Cloud over a Metal Bathtub" when he saw that signal.

Are you getting the picture here? This was not about to be anything close to a normal set of music. And thank goodness, it wasn't. But it was exhilarating and inspiring such that we found ourselves inventing new things we had never thought of doing before. During the first set the Candy Store Henchmen played four movements from the thirty-three movement Paul Hartshaw composition titled, Scatter. 

Movement 2 of Scatter.

 Yiddish  introduces each of his songs  by showing the band and the audience some marks on a sheet of musical score and then giving a description that would go something like, "Man using a rake, picking his nose."

The second set consisted of two of the Henchmen, Marc Gee and Chad Wynes, made their world debut as the improvisational duo Lack of Trying. Marc and Chad both added their vocals to the mix as well as playing their keys and guitar. Their accomplished musicianship was the perfect vehicle for their sometimes humor lyrics and Marc incredible shouted ramblings.

Lack of Trying

Following Lack of Trying's debut performance, The Candy Store Henchmen took the stage again and performed an original Sid Yiddish spoken word poem, Cumming Up for Air, and a new improvisational piece title BAGism, as it is based on the major chords B, A, and G. They also played some untitled pieces by Chicago composer Christopher Priessing and ended with Nursery and Machine Houses, by Berkeley, CA composer Eric Glick Riemen.

Tali's monochromatic impressions.

And what night with Sid Yiddish would be complete without a shofar clinic?

Sid Yiddish demonstrating proper shofar embouchure.

©2011 The Colorboration Project is the property of Tali Farchi and Royce Deans.