NEW YORK CITY—Busty bombshell Laurie Vargas plans to rock Brooklyn this weekend, as an onstage go-go dancer and spoken word artist with NYC-based XXX director/composer Joe Gallant's 18-piece orchestra, Illuminati.
"This is the band's first gig in almost 10 years," enthused Gallant. "I shelved it during much of my time as an industry director. But the tide has pulled us back to shore, and having my friend Laurie perform her poetry backed by string quartets and horns is a huge treat".
Vargas co-starred in Gallant's Sasha Grey vehicle The Skin Trade (Adam & Eve/Bad Seed), and the two hit it off.
"Her excellent anal/ATM work just scratches the surface," Gallant assured. "Laurie has a great opera-trained mezzo-soprano voice, ballet chops from her teenage years, and writes gorgeous, sensual prose in syntax and structure quite similar to the Elizabethan aesthetic. Her work has a feminine genius loci—or as the poet Trumbull has said, 'a soft-wing'd Grace'—that could sit proudly beside the collections of 17th century giants Edward Dyer or Ben Johnson, for example."
Illuminati plans an evening of Gallant's high-octane, large-scale orchestrations of Grateful Dead material as well as his original compositions.
"We were best known for big, sexy, rockin' Dead reconstructions, and that's what this reboot engagement is about," he said. "The stuff is very interlocking and groovy, good for the mind and body. We're happy to be back and gigging."
Illuminati opens for The New Orleans Suspects, a much-respected band of Neville Brothers veterans.
The concert will take place at the Brooklyn Bowl, 61 Wythe Ave., Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Saturday Dec. 17th, 8-10 pm. Tickets can be purchased for this nominally-priced event, and more information gleaned, by clicking here.
