Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer create Kurt Weill Tribute

Ich Liebe Dich

Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer’s tribute to the music of Kurt Weill

Release date of article

2001-09-19

Eircom Dublin Theatre Festival

Ich Liebe Dich

conceived by Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer

Music adapted and arranged by Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer

Directed by John Comiskey

OPENS MONDAY 8TH OCTOBER

TIVOLI THEATRE

Performances 8th, 9th, 11th, 12th and 13th October

Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer mark their first high profile return to the live stage since 1996 with Ich Liebe Dich (“I Love You”), a production based on the music of Kurt Weill. The show, which encompasses songs from 1920s Berlin to the Broadway musicals of the ’40s, will be staged in the Tivoli Theatre from Monday October 8th to Sunday 14th (except Wed 10th) and will also be filmed and recorded for a live album.

The pair have put together an ensemble that includes Michael Blair, the percussionist best known for his contributions to the blue-lit soundscapes of Tom Waits’ mid-80s classics Swordfishtrombones and Raindogs, and also long-time Friday/Seezer collaborators such as multi-instrumentalist Renaud Pion and English avant garde/classical cellist Julia Palmer. The line up is completed by Irish jazz veterans Dave Fleming on double bass and guitarist/slide/banjo player Des Moore.

For Gavin Friday, Ich Liebe Dich is the fruit of a fascination that stretches back to the days of The Virgin Prunes. During his later days with the band, the singer “was travelling a lot in the early 80s around Germany and France, and I really started delving into the world of Brel, Brecht and Weill. I became an obsessive, getting every recording I could, finding different translations from American recordings, European recordings, whatever. I’m proud to say I must have one of the strongest collections of Weill’s stuff in the country. It’s just a labour of love.

“It’s as awkward and idio-centric as anything I ever do but that’s the way we do it,” he continues. “I’m determined to make it so that if you’ve never heard of Kurt Weill you’ll be able to relate to this. It won’t be just art for art’s sake. It will be a headfuck.” Or, if you like, an artfuck. Aside from Friday and Seezer’s three albums (Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves, Adam & Eve and Shag Tobacco) their extracurricular activities over the past couple of years have included scores for the films The Boxer and Disco Pigs, their collaboration with Pat McCabe on Emerald Germs Of Ireland and Friday’s narration of Peter & The Wolf . More recently, Gavin also appeared on the latest Howie B album, and he and Seezer collaborated with Bono on ‘Children Of The Revolution’ from Baz Luhrman’s Moulin Rouge.

“Ich Liebe Dich is so on the Moulin Rouge trip,” Friday says. “Baz was quizzing me about it, and I says, ‘I wanna bring people on a fantasy, a trip for two hours, sorta tiddle them and fuck with their brains at the same time.’ And within that there are some incredibly evocative and emotional songs as well as some ridiculously camp and aggressive ones. It’s just like getting lost for two hours. I do think it’s quite of the moment in the way that Moulin Rouge is so out of kilter but it’s not. I love putting on a show or making an album as a form of escapism that haunts the fuck out of ya, makes you think, makes you feel happy/sad, or question shit, y’know?”

Ich Liebe Dich runs in The Tivoli from Monday October 8th to Sunday 14th except Wed 10th.