Tav Falco's Panther Burns at le Poisson Rouge

Tav Falco

Gustavo Falco, known professionally as Tav Falco, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but his family soon moved to rural Arkansas, where he grew up between Whelen Springs and Gurdon. In 1973, he moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he co-founded the nonprofit Televista "art-action" video group to document local musicians and artists in the mid 1970s. Impressed by a 1978 performance of Falco's in Memphis that culminated in the chainsawing of a guitar, Alex Chilton (Big Star, the Box Tops) teamed with him, and they developed the self-styled "art damage" band, Panther Burns, named after a plantation in Mississippi. They debuted the band in a Memphis cotton loft in 1979, and Chilton remained with the group until 1984. Falco continued the band, renamed Tav Falco's Panther Burns, moved to Europe in the late 1990s and settled in 1999 in Vienna, Austria. Falco is the only constant member of Panther Burns; his band presently consists of Falco, musical director/guitarist Mario Monterosso, bassist Giuseppe Sangirardi, and drummer Walter Brunetti. Panther Burns' 11th and most current studio album, Cabaret of Daggers, was released on November 30, 2018.

In celebration of 40 years as a recording and touring artist, Tav Falco brought his Cabaret of Daggers: Panther Burns 40th Anniversary Howl! tour to le Poisson Rouge tonight. The set combined elements of vintage garage rock and roll, rockabilly, Memphis soul, hill country blues, Tex-Mex pop, big band jazz swing and even tango. Reworked songs from the Great American Songbook were given a smoky feel. Original songs leaned towards both Memphis' Beale Street juke joints and Vienna's old world cabaret culture. Switching from rockabilly to tango is not an easy feat. To say the least, it was an odd mix, a salad so mixed that at times it was difficult to digest smoothly. Falco's innovative vision was curious, but his weak, flat singing voice was the music's most troublesome element, often failing to transport the audience to the place where an unpleasant vocal delivery would not matter.