Multimedia artist Tav Falco and his band Panther Burns have long been considered heroes to bands like Primal Scream, Spiritualized and the Blues Explosion.
The 77-year-old Falco takes it all in stride.
“I doubt these two consider me a hero,” said Falco about Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream and Jon Spencer of the Blues Explosion. Both have been quoted as such.
“It’s obvious they’ve been listening. Once Jon came down from New York to Memphis for a show we self-produced on the banks of the Mississippi River. He was looming around in the audience. Later, I was told he had adopted some of my delivery into his own show. However, some years later when we shared a bill in Antwerp, I saw none of that.”
Falco is coming to Arizona to play a handful of shows, including HOCO Fest, which is introducing the Regenerate AZ: Sonoran Desert Sustainability Summit. His other gigs are Aug. 30 at the Orpheum Theater in Flagstaff, and Aug. 31 at Phoenix’s Rhythm Room.
“I applaud the innovative minds behind the first annual Sonoran Desert Sustainability Summit,” Falco said.
“By hosting HOCO Fest, they are, in a sense, redefining the role of the music festival in America. They are joining arm-in-arm with green life and climate change activists. These efforts may prove to form a model, a gestalt, for approaches to urgent sustainability issues anywhere on earth.”
In terms of his set, Falco will perform a retrospective of his career along with songs from the new collection “Club Car Zodiac.”
“Unlike our last tour, during which I felt compelled to address some urgent topics, this new tour will be less politically focused,” Falco added.
“Considering that America is worn down and weary from the political antics, oppressions and follies of the past few years, I now prefer to draw from Panther Burns’ repertoire of fun and danceable songs of celebration.”
His latest effort is his most personal, Falco said. It was recorded during the pandemic and was instigated by one of Panther Burns’ bass players, Mike Watt (Firehose, Iggy & the Stooges). Watt is not on this tour.
“It was originally intended to be a single, but it morphed into a five-song vinyl EP that includes three originals and two covers,” he added.
“‘Dance Me to The River’ and particularly ‘La Brigantessa’ and ‘Tango Primavera’ are products of my past appearances at the La Conventicola Degli Ultramoderni in Rome. Panther Burns’ guitarist and producer, Mario Monterosso, arranged those songs beautifully for ‘Club Car Zodiac.’ Mario has just released his first solo album, ‘Take It Away,’ and he will be at my side throughout this tour.”
Now was the perfect time for “Club Car Zodiac,” he said.
“The pandemic was a dark time, as I lived in isolation in my apartment in the theater district of Vienna,” he said.
“It was a time for reflection, introspection, inner discovery. Above all it was a time for dreaming, and as Jean Genet noted, ‘dreaming is nursed in darkness.’ I had lived in Vienna for 20 years, but when the worst of the pandemic was behind me, I felt the urge to start a new chapter. I moved to Bangkok in January.”
Elaborating on the move, Falco said his tarot is the sign of “the wanderer.” He grew up as an only child on a farm in the backwoods of Arkansas. After migrating to Memphis in the early 1970s and “picking up the devil’s six strings,” doors opened upon the world by virtue of the music he was playing.
“Going from Arkansas to Memphis was like going to the moon,” he said.
“Then Memphis opened the door to New York, which provided the threshold for me to catapult into the world at large. Now, I have become a roamer — he who travels fastest, travels alone. This is reflected by the genres Panther Burns draws upon as we create our music: rhythm and blues, balladry, tango, samba, torch songs and the occasional dirge.”
As soon as his coast-to-coast tour wraps, he’s headed back to Bangkok to complete “The Urania Trilogy” of intrigue films that he shot in the demimonde of Vienna, featuring original music by Panther Burns.
“Just south of Bangkok, on Wongamat Beach, I have a creative place in which to work with an expansive view of the Gulf of Siam and a warm ocean at my feet in which I can swim,” he said.
“These days, I live in the sun, ride my Royal Enfield motorbike everywhere, and observe strict precautions against the contagion. ‘Masked I advance,’ wrote Descartes.”
Tav Falco and Panther Burns
WHEN: Time TBA Thursday, Sept. 1. HOCO Fest runs through Sunday, Sept. 4
WHERE: HOCO Fest at Hotel Congress, 311 E. Congress Street, Tucson
COST: Tickets start at $39.14 for performances
INFO: hocofest.com, facebook.com/tavofalco
This article appears in Aug 25-31, 2022.
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