LuminoMagazine.com - Rasputina

Rasputina - an unheard gem

Written by JESSICA DiMAIO

Monday, 02 May 2005

Rasputina is one of the best bands you’ve never heard of. Fronted since 1991 by Melora Creager, the band has gone through many different members, but the format remains the same – two (sometimes three) girls clad in Victorian clothing, with corsets and feathered plumes, furiously playing cellos hooked up to amplifiers, and a drummer behind them, pounding out the beat.

Rasputina

Entertainment

Art

House of Blues
Chicago, Ill.
May 2, 2005

Melora finally seems to have found a lineup that sticks, with second-chair cellist Zoe Keating, who also sings backup, and drummer Jonathon TeBeest, providing the rhythmic backbone to the strings. It isn’t often you hear the words “cello” and “rock” in the same sentence, but that’s exactly what Rasputina does. Their concert at the House of Blues was no exception. Rasputina has long been a staple for goth kids, but their music has a broad appeal so the crowd had a nice mixture of mohawks, corsets and business suits.

The band is currently touring for the recently released "A Radical Recital", a live album of one of their concerts available only at cdbaby.com. Anyone who has seen Rasputina can tell you it is a show not to be missed. Most of their songs are rooted in history and laced with Melora’s wicked sense of humor, like “Rats,” which depicts a famine many years ago in Bolivia, causing the pope to allow natives to eat rats instead of fish on Fridays. This gets followed by a parody of diamond commercials (you know the ones with the swelling strings and sparkling rocks slipped onto shadowy fingers) which ends with Melora bellowing, “Give me the goddamn diamond!” and causing the crowd to cheer.

Mix this with extremely rocking covers of “Barracuda” by Heart and “Rock n Roll” by Led Zeppelin, and you have a very happy audience.

One of the highlights of Rasputina’s shows is Melora’s between-song banter. “This next song is dedicated to Michael Landon,” she deadpanned. “A great actor, a great humanitarian, and an unrepentant bed wetter.” In a music scene famous for making depression fashionable, Rasputina provides a much welcome humor and originality.

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