Populuxe is the genius level musical vision of LA songwriter, actor, polemicist and activist, Rob Shapiro. Three years ago Populuxe released the haunting masterwork, Beauty in the Broken Place, a song cycle reflecting on the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh which took place in 2018.
Right now, Shapiro and his “Luxe-Musicians”– new members of the band for this album include Eric Skodis, from Redd Kross, Imperial Drag, etc., on drums/vocals, Aaron Tap, co-producer and member of about 3,000 acts! on guitars, noises and vocals, and Rick Shaw, another stalwart player, on guitars/ukulele/banjo/vocals– are preparing to release a new LP called Uneasy Listening.
The first single, “This Show Is Closed,” is already out.
The new tune is lovely, dark and deep, a Robert Frostian winter missive from Santa Monica pier. Tender lead and harmony vocals suggest the post-Manson Beach Boys backing Warren Zevon at midnight on the Troubadour’s liveliest open mike night of 1972.
Shapiro calls it “a post-pandemic, post-parental death, throes of therapy record — very intimate and grappling with the various masks falling away. I think it’s our best yet.” His canny self-assessment is not an overstatement. “This Show Is Closed,” is certain to catch on with KCRW’s eclectic purveyors of hot beauty and their devoted legions.
AND — that’s not all! — Populuxe will be mounting a theatrical production to coincide with the LP release “Sideshow: Uneasy Listening with Populuxe” the weekend of December 16-18 at Theater 68 in NoHo (LA area). “We did this in lieu of dumb club dates at all the non-existent clubs here in LA,” says Shapiro. “Better to control the environment, create an entire theater experience, put the songs in a context absent the “you guys, I was feeling things when I woke up and I wrote a song. It’s about my feelings on waking up. It’s called “I Woke Up Feeling Things””– explanations that songwriters all too frequently do, and have some fun.”
