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No harm: Quintet will again make
sweet music at home
Published December 15, 2006
by Jim Abbott
 It
has been almost two years since Toxic Audio took its high-energy a cappella
act to New York, for an off-Broadway run that might better position this
Orlando-based vocal group for world domination.
Or at least a shot at being the next Blue Man Group.
"The plan is being executed slowly, but it's maybe not world domination as
much as world exposure," says Toxins frontman and baritone Jeremy James, who
performs with wife, alto Shalisa James, scat-singing soprano Michelle
Mailhot-Valines, tenor Paul Sperrazza and bass Rene Ruiz. "We've had many
opportunities to travel around the nation and around the globe."
This month, Toxic Audio will be in Mexico before it closes the year with
shows Dec. 29 and 30 at the Helen Stairs Theatre in Sanford. The singers,
along with technical director John Valines III, also traveled to Japan this
past winter.
Isn't there a language barrier for a show that relies solely on voices?
Not really, James says.
"Our show, because it's based on the human voice, is perfect because music
is the international language," he says. "And many of our pieces rely on
facial expressions and body language, which is universal. There's also a lot
of scat and jazz in numbers that translate well. It kills in any language."
The difference between a Toxic Audio show and the a cappella styles of say,
Bobby McFerrin or Manhattan Transfer, is the Toxins' willingness to embrace
the theatrical and downright silly. A familiar routine is Sperrazza's
version of "Dream a Little Dream of Me," sung as if his voice is being
sped-up and slowed-down by an out-of-control turntable.
Toxic Audio also slips MTV-era songs into the mix, everything from Michael
Jackson material to Thomas Dolby's 1980 hit "She Blinded Me With Science."
The singers who first came together as Toxic Audio for the Fringe Festival
in 1998, are always looking for new tunes.
Recent additions include the Rascal Flatts song "Broken Road," adapted
during a swing through Texas. Often, arrangements are rehearsed by e-mail
and digital audio files, because Sperrazza and Ruiz now live in Las Vegas
and Manhattan, respectively.
"Where we live doesn't matter," James says, "because we're on the road so
much."
Even so, James considers the Sanford shows "a holiday homecoming" for the
group, which still has its sights set on the world.
A holiday leftover
So I received an e-mail from a lawyer in response to my round-up of holiday
CDs, which is never, never a good thing.
Well, almost never. Turns out that Lawrence Savell is a New York attorney
with a rock 'n' roll heart. He just wanted to send me his own Merry Lexmas
From the Lawtunes, an album of holiday songs that finds the joy in judicial
proceedings, the cheer in closing arguments, the heavenly light in
litigation.
Merry Lexmas (available at lawtunes.com) is the third of Savell's
lawyer-themed holiday albums, the follow-up to Legal Holidaze and The
Lawyer's Holiday Humor Album. I have to say, at the risk of legal action,
that this is quite possibly the worst novelty holiday album ever, even more
of an acquired taste than the Chipmunks, if you can imagine. "The Twelve
Days of Lexmas" alone made me contemplate a violent act that would most
certainly require an attorney's attention.
In the liner notes, it's reported that the concept was conceived during a
Perry Mason rerun at the precise moment an Elvis song started playing on a
clock radio.
That's romantic, but there's more Hamilton Burger than Perry Mason in the
slightly off-key warbling of "Another Billable Christmas," "Merry Lexmas,
Baby" and "Ridin' a Red-eye With Santa on Christmas Eve."
Admittedly, I probably don't get some of the inside jokes, like hanging red
highlighters on the tree.
And, to be fair, there are a few funny lines in "So If Your Client's Name Is
Santa," which includes helpful advice along the lines of "take him out for a
dinner soon, but skip the venison."
Otherwise, unless you're an attorney, or Savell is your attorney, it's hard
to justify the entertainment value of Merry Lexmas.
Jim Abbott can be reached at 407-420-6213.
jabbott@orlandosentinel.com
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