BWW Reviews: The Charismatic BUSTER POINDEXTER Galvanizes Café Carlyle With Raucous New Show

Buster Poindexter (aka David Johansen) doesn't so much play "at" Café Carlyle as "with" it. Like the bad kid from a black and white cult film, this charismatic artist establishes dominion over the highbrow room, determined to lower its bar as irrevocably as a limbo stick in a roadhouse lounge. A blistering, purposefully overwrought, genre-hopping, two-hour performance on Tuesday's opening night had even jaded waiters and busboys enthralled.

Poindexter, founding member of The New York Dolls, hipster, solo vocalist, actor, and full time iconoclast, has physical mannerisms akin to James Brown and Mick Jagger. His skinny frame, topped with signature eight-inch pompadour, big black specs, and some of the best teeth in the business (Al Hirschfeld would've loved him) stands shoulders back, arms chicken-bent. One hand moves ceaselessly unless in a pocket, the other holds a tilted microphone stand as if in a dance dip. Macho swagger manifests sharp, fast stage moves unfortunately limited by The Carlyle's tiny space.

"I'm just a bad boy/All dressed up in fancy clothes/I'm takin' the trouble/To blow my bubbles away...la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la..." The voice is muscular, abrasive, unvarnished, sometimes singing, others musically shouting or delivering lines--not because he can't sing but because edgy interpretation makes demands.

Poindexter is a canny provocateur. Hard charging numbers are followed by vaudeville, rimshot jokes (fewer of these would've served.) He seems to ramble and abort thoughts, but who knows? We're on his turf, in his world. Does he really think about death all the time? Did he do a charity event in Detroit with Carol Channing? Does it matter?

Genres range widely. Buoyant calypso includes "The Monkey Song" ("One Monday morning, I got up late/And there were these monkeys, outside ze gate/Ze guard went to stop them but he had no luck/The monkeys got free and they ran amok . . ."), replete with maracas and "Hot! Hot! Hot!" which he has the enthusiastic audience parroting.

There's doo-wop, blues, jivey swing, Latin, honky-tonk, eruptive rock n' roll, a nod to English Musical Hall with a ditty about a tattooed lady to the tune of Ta rah rah boomdeay, and a musical theater selection. Pause to pant. Loopy lyrics include those in which "I tore the head off Elvis (a Jim Beam Decanter) and filled Fred (a vitamin jar that looks like Fred Flintsone) to his pelvis-Yabba Dabba Do . . ." and a love song pleading that his inamorata stays her own sweet psychopathic self.

Poindexter even renders a terrific, rubber-faced, rendition of Burt Williams' 1910 "Nobody." "When life seems full of clouds and rain/And I am full of nothin' and pain/Who soothes my thumping, bumping brain, uummm?/ Nobody!"

The show is a raucous, loosey goosey, juggernaut. Songs are many and, for the most part, short, making for a fragmented evening. Poindexter does wield a mean harmonica. His industrial strength, multifaceted band plays at anarchy but is as tight as they come. Back-up choruses and duets with Brian Koonin add texture. Bonhomie is palpable. Fasten your seatbelts.

Photos by Michael Wilhoite

Buster Poindexter at Café Carlyle
Buster Poindexter-Vocals/Harmonica
Brian Koonin-Guitar, Clifford Carter-Piano, Richard Hammond-Upright Bass, Ray Grappone-Drums
Café Carlyle in The Carlyle Hotel. 76th & Madison
Through February 21
http://www.ticketweb.com/snl/EventListings.action?pl=cafecarlyle&orgId=165022

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