About Charming Disaster
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“Charming Disaster has an affinity for monsters, mortality, paranormal activity and unearthly shenanigans…The songs on Spells + Rituals create a dark, compelling mood, sparked by flashes of wry humor.”
Brooklyn-based musical duo Charming Disaster was formed in 2012 by Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris. Inspired by the gothic humor of Edward Gorey and Tim Burton, the murder ballads of the Americana tradition, and the dramatic flair of the cabaret, they write songs that tell stories, using two voices to explore dark narratives and characters with a playfully macabre sensibility.
In their critically acclaimed albums Love, Crime & Other Trouble (2015), Cautionary Tales (2017), and SPELLS + RITUALS (2019), Charming Disaster has explored love, death, crime, folklore and fairy tales, mythology, works of literature, and the occult. Their album Our Lady of Radium (2022) explored the life and discoveries of pioneering scientist Marie Curie. In Charming Disaster’s live performances, they combine vocal harmonies and clever lyrics with ukulele, guitar, and virtuosic foot percussion, drawing listeners into a spooky, offbeat universe of paranormal romance, con artists, circus performers, and ancient mythology, playing out against a backdrop of nightclubs, car chases, circus tents, the afterlife, and beyond.
Charming Disaster’s music has been featured on the podcast Welcome to Night Vale, they have opened for legendary cello-rock ensemble Rasputina, goth icon Voltaire, and punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls,and their theatrical, entertaining live performances have captivated audiences across the United States. They have played festivals, bars and clubs, museums and art galleries, bookstores and libraries, and the occasional historic cemetery. They have appeared alongside storytellers, comedians, fire eaters, puppets, burlesque artists, poets, and circus performers. Recent appearances include Joe's Pub at The Public Theater in NYC, Brooklyn’s historic Green-Wood Cemetery, and the Coney Island Sideshow stage.
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Live Performances
“Charming Disaster have a penchant for dramatic eyeliner and fashion forward outfits, both nice visual representations of their creative work. The ensemble’s woozy folk-pop plays around the edges of the Gothic and, yes, the ritualistic...songs that are dark in subject matter but performed with a stomping liveliness...They clearly have a sharply-attuned sense of humor to go along with their occasional tarot readings and occult interests. The two sides of their personalities have melded perfectly on their latest album.”
“Each song is like a spell or ritual…with a little of the deadpan acoustic punk of Jonathan Richman, as well as the arch theatricality of Amanda Palmer.””
“Charming Disaster sound like the music that Pugsley and Wednesday Addams might have made after listening to the Decemberists, Squeeze and some Chopin.” ”
“Charming Disaster dances quietly through the dark side of life, investigating themes of murder, mortality, paranormal activity, and looming apocalypse…the arrangements are musically expansive, combining the sounds of dissonant Eastern European folk melodies, surf music, rock, blues and the duo’s own skewed brand of gospel.”
“Enchanting and disturbing…Spells + Rituals blends very thoughtful and funny American Gothic imagery with myth-based musical alchemy…there is a great acoustic punk drive to the whole record which matches the potency of the macabre humor. Without the grinning skull inside the loveliness of the tunes, or the dark campy heart inside the weird tales and odes to misery, it wouldn’t all seem so magically in balance and so engaging. And it certainly is!”
“Devilish and divine.”
“Playfully macabre.”
“Gothic folk murder balladry, not unlike PJ Harvey at her most ornate. But there’s an accessibility and pop sensibility that also nods to the likes of Andrew Bird or Regina Spektor. It’s darkness cut with a melodic immediacy...a thing of fanciful beauty.”
“The perfect balance of fun and frightening storytelling.”
“Heavily melodic folk music that is goth as hell.”
“Charming Disaster balances smart pop songs against a confident stage presence, sort of a swagger, that suggest the two people out front are destined for great things...these people are overflowing with musical ideas that simply defy categorization.”
Selected Previous venues
Amnesia (San Francisco, CA)
Barbes (Brooklyn, NY)
Beachland Ballroom (Cleveland, OH)
Black Cherry Puppet Theater (Baltimore, MD)
Burdock (Toronto, ON)
Blue Moon Diner (Charlottesville, VA)
Castle Clinton National Monument (NYC)
City Reliquary Museum (Brooklyn, NY)
Club Cafe (Pittsburgh, PA)
Coast Fork Brewing (Cottage Grove, OR)
Confluence SFF (Pittsburgh, PA)
Crow & Quill (Asheville, NC)
Coney Island USA (Brooklyn, NY)
Dixon Place (NYC)
Dream Away Lodge (Becket, MA)
The Drifter (Chicago, IL)
Duffy’s Tavern (Chico, CA)
Fallout (Richmond, VA)
Friends & Lovers (Brooklyn, NY)
Ghost Light Hamtramck (Detroit, MI)
Good Goat Gallery (Cleveland, OH)
Green-Wood Cemetery (Brooklyn, NY)
Hotel Albatross (Seattle, WA)
Howland Cultural Center (Beacon, NY)
Jalopy Theatre (Brooklyn, NY)
Joe's Pub at the Public Theater (NYC)
Johnny Brenda’s (Philadelphia, PA)
Lizard Lounge (Cambridge, MA)
The Lost Church (San Francisco, CA)
Manderley Bar at the McKittrick Hotel (NYC)
NACL Theatre (Highland Lake, NY)
North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh, NC)
Octopus Literary Salon (Oakland, CA)
Off Broadway (St. Louis, MO)
Oriental Theater (Denver, CO)
Pete's Candy Store (Brooklyn, NY)
Pine Box Rock Shop (Brooklyn, NY)
Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse
PJ’s Lager House (Detroit, MI)
Poe Museum (Richmond, VA)
Polish and Slavic Center (Brooklyn, NY)
The Purple Fiddle (Thomas, WV)
Radio Bean (Burlington, VT)
Ranger Station (Portland, OR)
Record Breakers (Chicago, IL)
Red Light Cafe (Atlanta, GA)
Rockwood Music Hall (NYC)
Rochester Fringe Festival (Rochester, NY)
The Rosenbach Museum (Philadelphia, PA)
Rough Draft Bar & Books (Kingston, NY)
Rough Trade NYC (Brooklyn, NY)
Rumba Cafe (Columbus, OH)
Shank Hall (Milwaukee, WI)
The Secret Society (Portland, OR)
The Slipper Room (NYC)
The Sou’Wester (Seaview, WA)
The Spirit Room (Rochester, NY)
Spotty Dog Bar & Books (Hudson, NY)
Subterranean (Chicago, IL)
Tellus360 (Lancaster, PA)
Wandering Goat (Eugene, OR)
Watts & Ward (Raleigh, NC)
Way Station (Brooklyn, NY)
Wigle Whiskey Barrelhouse (Pittsburgh, PA)
Contact
BOOKING & OTHER INQUIRIES: charmingdisasterband@gmail.com