Olde Fashioned Pre-4th of July Picnic with The Invincible Czars
The Invincible Czars bring their annual family-friendly pre-Fourth of July live music event with juggling, face painting, a costume contest and other surprises.
Austin’s most adventurous rock band, The Invincible Czars, will bring all the wit, humor, patriotism and fun they can muster
The event will feature Houston’s own husband wife circus entertainers Swopesters performing alongside the band. Dancing is encouraged and face painting, hula hoops and beach balls will be provided for extra fun. Best of all, prizes will be awarded for the best-dressed olde-fashioned girl, boy and adult. The event is BYOPicnic Basket. Food will also be available from El Palomo food truck on site and Houston author James Prohaska will be promoting his forthcoming book, Andrew Jackson and the Vampires.
The event centers on a performance of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, which the Invincible Czars released last year for the bicentennial of the event that inspired it: Napoleon’s defeat at Borodino by the Russian army in 1812. This year, the band will keep that tradition and add instrumental material from their recent silent film projects as well as compositions by Sousa, Satie, Ravel, Mussorgsky and Ween.
The Invincible Czars ever-revolving personnel door has also spun in an interesting fashion for this performance – the band will be 50% women with the addition of two native Houstonians –drummer Sarah Norris (Austin bands Bee vs. Moth and My Education) and Erin Rodgers (Houston’s Glass the Sky) on keyboards and clarinet.
The show will also be free for all ages (though tips are encouraged) as a “thank you” performance to Houston for its years of support and hospitality to the Invincible Czars!
About The Invincible Czars:
In the past few years, The Invincible Czars have become known and lauded for their sprawling catalog of original material as well as for arrangements of classical works such as Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite and1812 Overture as well as Mussorgsky's A Night on Bald Mountain. They are currently documenting their silent film works in a new CD-R series, working on a re-working of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition to be performed as a double-band with Austin avant jazz-rockers Bee vs. Moth and developing more original and non-original material.
The band has made its mark by creating exceptionally original music: songs and instrumental pieces that are like four-to-five minute mini-symphonies chock full of memorable melodies, meticulous arrangements, dynamics, and humor. Their music fuses riff rock, classical/symphonic music, heavy metal, loungey grooves, odd meters, klezmer, country shuffles, punk rock and circusy polka. They draw from influences as disparate as Slint and Igor Stravinsky, Van Halen and Louis Armstrong, and Sonic Youth and Ween. The band applies the DIY attitude of post-punk groups like NoMeansNo and Fugazi to their musical explorations, resulting in a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Free! 1:00pm. Kid-friendly, rocker-approved.
Location:
AvantGarden
411 Westheimer rd
Houston
,
Texas 77006