24 Sept 2012

Parstronix Perform Charlie Chaplin

The setting for an outdoor screening on top of a massive car park, was a purple sunset in Peckham. The night was the inaugural gig for Parstronix, a troupe of Iranian avant garde improvisers from London.

With auto loops and electronic home production flooding the music scene out there, it's the ripe time for hands-on, uneven and spontaneously judged live performance. We were honoured to have Omid Amiri Larijani on saxophone, Armin Firouzabadi on guitar and amp, and Roshi Nasehi on vocals and keys while I played guitello (as in the previous Bold Tendencies screening Hunchback of Notre Dame).

Charlie Chaplin, a staple in every country's cultural memory made The Tramp (Charlot) to much acclaim but also some criticism. Alcoholism was rife amongst the poorer classes in Chaplin's day, and the final scenes where the tramp wends his way out of his redeemer's life forever, supposedly to lead the 'free' life of an eternal drop-out, were considered contentious by some critics. So later he made The Cure in which he plays (unusually) an upper class alcoholic who makes good, ditching his usual character for once in this bright film, an impressive health spa the set for his redemption.