Java.JAN.2019-Singles

275 • JAN 2019
MIKI GARCIA • TANIA KATAN • JONOTHON LYONS • NEO SOUL

GABRIEL KAHANE’S
“8980: BOOK OF TRAVELERS”
January 22 | 7 p.m. | $28.50–$33.50
“A charismatic performer, he is equally at ease
in hipster bars and Carnegie Hall.”
—Economist
Upcoming Concerts
The Brother Brothers
January 16
Portland Cello Project:
Radiohead’s OK Computer
January 18
Dakh Daughters
January 21
Lizz Wright
January 31
Villalobos Brothers and
Flor de Toloache
February 4
And many more!
2019 Concert Series sponsored by
MIM.org | 480.478.6000 | 4725 E. Mayo Blvd., Phoenix, AZ

CONTENTS
8
12
22
30
34
FEATURES
MIKI GARCIA
ASU Art Museum Director
By Rembrandt Quiballo
Cover:
Photography: Sean Deckert
Model: Natalie Vie
8 12 22
34
TANIA KATAN
Creatively Disrupting the Workplace
By Jenna Duncan
SCORCHED EARTH
Photography: Sean Deckert
Styling: Natalie Vie
THE MAYA SPECTRA &
PALO BREA
Two Soulful Phoenix Bands
By Kevin Hanlon
JONOTHON LYONS
Scottsdale Native Barnstorms the Big Apple
By Jeff Kronenfeld
COLUMNS
7
16
20
38
40
BUZZ
Borderline
By Robert Sentinery
ARTS
Scandinavian Pain at PAM
By Mikey Foster Estes
MIM Traces the History of the Electric Guitar
By Jeff Kronenfeld
FOOD FETISH
Alexi’s Keeps It Classic
By Sloane Burwell
GIRL ON FARMER
The Best Medicine
By Celia Beresford
NIGHT GALLERY
Photos by Robert Sentinery
JAVA MAGAZINE
EDITOR & PUBLISHER
Robert Sentinery
ART DIRECTOR
Victor Vasquez
ARTS EDITOR
Rembrandt Quiballo
FOOD EDITOR
Sloane Burwell
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Jenna Duncan
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Celia Beresford
Mikey Foster Estes
Kevin Hanlon
Jeff Kronenfeld
Ashley Naftule
Tom Reardon
PROOFREADER
Patricia Sanders
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Sean Deckert
Enrique Garcia
Johnny Jaffe
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JAVA MAGAZINE
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4 JAVA
MAGAZINE

LAST CHANCE
THROUGH FEB. 3 ONLY
YUA HENRI MATISSE AND THE INNER ARCTIC SPIRIT
Original Works by Henri Matisse and the Alaskan Native Masks that Inspired Him
OPEN FOR FIRST FRIDAY | JANUARY 4, 6-10 P.M. | HEARD.ORG
Central Yup’ik, Napaskiaq Village, Kuskokwim River, Alaska. Wanelnguq dance mask c. 1900. Wood, feathers, pigment. Collection of the National Museum of the American
Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 9/3432. Photo by NMAI Photo Services.

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BORDERLINE
By Robert Sentinery
BUZZ
Writing this in the midst of a government shutdown and plunging stock
market makes me think that things can only get better from here. There is
hope that the rift tearing this country apart will somehow be healed in the
new year. When it comes to the issue of the moment, walls and border security,
Arizona is on the frontline.
Having grown up in the border town of Brownsville, Texas, ASU Art Museum
director Miki Garcia has a unique perspective. Her family has lived in southern
Texas for generations, since when the land was still part of Mexico. Despite
being a U.S. citizen, her father faced discrimination and segregation growing up,
similar to African-Americans in the South. The Chicano movement in the ’60s
helped to empower and create opportunities. Garcia is the product of all that and
understands the struggle it takes to overcome, yet she has risen to the highest
level of leadership in her career.
Garcia has lived and worked in major art markets like New York but appreciates
being here. She feels that the Phoenix arts and culture scene is booming,
partially due to artists being priced out of traditional creative hubs like Los
Angeles, San Francisco, and Manhattan. She also feels that there is an urgency
here due to politics, border issues, education debates, and more, that creates a
hotbed for artists and creative thinkers to thrive (see “ASU Art Museum Director
Miki Garcia,” p. 8).
Tania Katan is one of Phoenix’s clearest voices when it comes to identity issues
and empowerment. Her new book, Creative Trespassing, is slated for release next
month. A regular on the TEDx circuit, Katan has been recruited by corporations
to fulfill various roles as a motivational speaker, in-house disruptor, and
comedienne of sorts. Ultimately it is Katan’s ability to reimagine roles within the
work environment to enhance productivity that makes her such a valued asset
(see “Tania Katan: Creatively Disrupting the Workplace,” p. 12).
Jonothon Lyons is a product of this city’s ability to support creativity through
public education. After showing an early affinity for the theater – he wrote an
award-winning play at age seven – Lyons eventually ended up attending Arizona
School for the Arts high school, where he honed his stage skills. At ASU he
studied under top-notch professors and gained an understanding of the inner
workings of professional theater and the culture that supports it.
Upon graduation, Lyons shipped off to the Big Apple, where he has staged his
own productions, joined the famed Blue Man Group, and mastered theatrical
puppetry. His latest production, “The Apple Boys: A Barbershop Quartet
Musical,” just wrapped a three-week run to overwhelmingly positive reviews.
Lyons plans to look for an established off-Broadway company to stage the
production for larger audiences in the coming months (see “Jonothon Lyons:
Scottsdale Native Barnstorms the Big Apple,” p. 34).
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MIKI GARCIA
ASU Art Museum Director • By Rembrandt Quiballo
Portraits 8 JAVA by Rembrandt Quiballo
MAGAZINE

Miki Garcia truly believes in the
transformative power of art and
has made it her mission to share
this belief throughout her career.
For her, the museum is the best instrument to
get this message across. She couldn’t have
landed in a better place to do that than at
Arizona State University, one of the leading
research institutions in the world. For Garcia,
her role is more than a job, it’s a calling.
It’s been a year since Garcia was appointed
director of the ASU Art Museum, and her
impact is already being felt. She has used this
time to familiarize herself with the community
and to study the institution she now runs in
order to advance and enrich its mission. The
museum has produced events such as Party
Underground to engage the arts community in
creative ways and Get Weird to subvert the
conventions of a typical museum visit. There
are plans to create more expansive shows that
will run for longer blocks of time throughout
the year in order to create an increasingly
substantial effect.
Beyond these tangible changes, Garcia is
really thinking about what an art museum’s
role is in the wider context of society. “I’m
interested in how institutions run,” she said.
“How they make choices. How they represent
the communities they serve, or don’t represent
the communities they serve. How they acquire
objects and why. How they reach out to
audiences. How they support artists. All of that
is really up for renewed exploration.”
“We were operating from a classical museum
model that was very much about curators and
directors as the sole arbiters of taste – lone
connoisseurs who put works in a gallery,”
Garcia said. “You, as audience members, came
in as blank slates and were invited to learn
about a show or an artist.
“There is something to be said for scholarship
and expertise. I absolutely agree that the
people who are experts in their fields should
telling stories. But I’m more interested in a
new model where we also honor the lived
experiences and expertise of the communities
we serve, and have their voices at the table.
“So the question becomes, how can we invite
audiences into the museum to make their own
meaning while also bringing their experiences,
so we end up with a much richer community
space? Those are the kinds of ideas I’m
interested in right now.”
Garcia is originally from the border town of
Brownsville, located at the southernmost tip
of Texas. Both her parents were educators
as well as artists. Her father was an art
teacher and later an arts administrator. Her
mother was an elementary school principal
and a painter. Garcia’s upbringing exposed
her to art at a very young age. “I was raised
around museums and art studios,” she said.
“It’s just been part of my life. As a child,
I loved being inside museums. I loved the
stories. We traveled to Mexico quite a lot
and went to all of the museums. We went to
Houston and many different places. It was
while visiting those art spaces that I felt like I
really belonged.”
Garcia’s appreciation for art continued as she
matured. She went to school at Vassar College
for art history and continued her graduate
studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
“I took an art history class and that was it,”
she said. “I was hooked. It felt like art was
the discipline of all disciplines. Through art,
I could learn about history, religion, politics,
philosophy, and geography. For me, it was
an entryway into learning about the world.
But early on, I knew I didn’t want to be in
academia. For me it was about the audience
experience and how museums are alive.”
Garcia gained invaluable experience at other
institutions, such as the Blanton Museum
of Art at the University of Texas at Austin,
the San Antonio Museum of Art, and the
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.
Her most significant position prior to
ASU was as executive director and chief
curator at the Museum of Contemporary
Art Santa Barbara. MCASB started as a
small alternative space, but under Garcia’s
guidance for 14 years, it became a renowned
contemporary art museum.
Garcia’s newest challenge is directing an
educational museum that supports one
of the largest public universities in the
United States. Now the fifth-largest city
in the nation, Phoenix is quite different
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from Garcia’s hometown of Brownsville,
which recently became a flashpoint in the
debate over border security as the migrant
caravan reached the U.S./Mexico border.
However, there are parallels that speak to
her personal experience.
“My mom is from South Texas. She was born
in Mexico, but she’s an American citizen
because her grandparents were American
citizens – people just went back and forth.
My father’s family has been in Kingsville,
in South Texas, for about five generations.
That is a narrative that doesn’t really get
told. There is a sort of entrenched belief
that every Mexican-American is first
generation or second generation, and that
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is absolutely not true. In 1846, Mexico
ceded much of the Southwest to the United
States, and there were lots of Mexicans living
in those territories. They stayed on the land
and became U.S. citizens at that point. Many
lost their property and had to endure horrible
things, but they have been here for many
generations. So, in that sense, the border
crossed me, I didn’t cross the border.”
This family history has only made Garcia
more driven to make museums inclusive and
reflective of their communities. It informs the
way she thinks about how art is presented,
to whom it is accessible and how it can touch
lives. “My dad was from a very rural part of
South Texas, and his family had been there
Photo: Ken Howie Studios
for generations. Back in the 1950s and ’60s,
they had to enter through the back door of
restaurants. They couldn’t drink at the ‘white’
water fountains, those kinds of things.”
“My father didn’t come from college-educated
parents, but he became part of the Chicano
civil rights movement. It was really through his
discovery of art that he became connected to
people, stories, and expressions from around
the globe. It made him feel like he wasn’t this
lone person having this one experience, that
he was part of a larger space of possibility. He
went on to get his master’s degree and travel
the world. He became an educator. I think
about how art can do that. I would not be in
this privileged position today were it not for

the power of art, and that is an incredible story
that I will continue to tell.”
Garcia’s career in art has enabled her to live
in many places with vastly differing socioeconomic
levels. At every stop, she has
made an effort to engage with the immediate
community. This experience has given her
insight into the potential advantages of
running an art institution in a burgeoning city
such as metropolitan Phoenix.
“I’ve lived on both coasts, and I’ve lived in
other places,” she said. “When I was in New
York in the ’90s, I could see that the East
Village and that sort of CBGB artist culture
was fading away. Those kinds of underground
subcultures of LA, San Francisco, and New
York are really almost impossible to sustain,
because the cost of living has just gotten so
unaffordable for the creative class.
“Now what I’m seeing is that places like
Phoenix, Detroit, New Orleans, Cleveland, and
Atlanta are cities where people can afford
to stay. Poets, writers, artists, and such are
staying in these regional capitals and creating
a local culture that’s really cool, that maybe
wouldn’t exist if all these people had scattered
to New York, San Francisco, or LA. They’re not
doing that anymore, it’s just too expensive. I
feel like I’m in Phoenix at a time when there’s
this incredible culture happening all over, and
that’s pretty exciting.”
“I feel like Arizona has a real sense of urgency,”
Garcia said. “There’s a sense of urgency here in
terms of the realities of the educational system,
the changing demographics, the politics, and
what it means to be a university student here.
We have a lot of first generations, a lot of vets,
lots of online students. The world is changing,
and in Arizona you can really see it. So for
me, it’s very exciting to think about where the
museum fits into all of this.”
Photo: Lamp Left Media
JAVA 11
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Tania Katan just keeps popping up everywhere these days.
There she is at Giant Coffee near Burton Barr library at 8:30 a.m., getting some work done. Then
there is her bright, squinty smile on a huge poster outside Scottsdale Performing Arts Center,
announcing an upcoming stage performance on Feb. 22. And there’s her name in big letters again
on... What is that? A book cover?
“I’ve published essays and short stories in books. But this is the second, meaty undertaking,”
Katan says of her second full-length work of non-fiction, Creative Trespassing: A Totally
Unauthorized Guide to Sneaking More Imagination Into Your Life and Work, to be released by
Penguin-Random House in February.
The book developed after Katan spent the last several years serving as a tech industry hired gun,
doing a little consulting over here, motivational speaking over there, and generally creatively
disrupting countless traditional workplaces, infusing them with her infectious energy, off-the-wall
extroverted-ness, and keen eye of a quirky outsider.
“People would constantly ask, What do you do? And I remember always answering that question
with a job title.” Katan has held a number of different corporate positions. But at some point she
realized that putting on a label such as “program coordinator” or “curator” did not extend far
enough to explain who she is and everything she does for a company.
“Then I finally realized, that [title] says so little about what I actually do. In fact, I think I’m
more than my job title!” she declares. “When I started speaking as a representative of these
organizations, people began saying, yeah, but you bring so much more to the job – you bring a
sense of humor and lightness!”
“I feel like my entire life has been creative trespassing. I just didn’t have a word for it.”
Katan used her experiences in the corporate world to begin experimenting with her own inventions,
disruptions, and interventions. Many of these exercises in reclaiming space and agency at work
became direct inspiration for what she calls “productive disruptions” in the book. For example,
Katan advises readers to invent their own job titles and then print new business cards and own that
self-proclaimed title.
During her time at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, she titled herself Curator of
Shenanigans. Some in the office frowned at the silly new title, but Katan took her business cards
to conferences, handed them out, and the title stuck. Potential new clients and professional
connections remembered her and contacted her to help promote and advance SMoCA.
“If you take the initiative to do something that furthers the mission of your company or organization,
and it works, they are not going to be like, ‘Throw away those business cards! They’re too racy.’
They’re going to be like, ‘Thank you for getting us extra business’,” she explains.
The productive disruptions encourage employees to push the rules and seize agency in their places
of employment. These bold moves show the management you’ve got “moxie,” just like Tania
Katan. “As I got an awareness of what I was doing – by bringing in skills that were not on my job
description but were necessary – it actually helped. It helped generate revenue, it helped marketing
efforts, and it helped really traditional boxes get ticked.”
Katan says she has always been a writer, her entire life. She began as a kid, journaling. Developed
her own code in a handwriting that only she could read, just in case she needed to protect her
secret information. Sometimes it was stories, sometimes it was poems. She has never limited
herself to any genre.
Tania
Katan
Creatively
Disrupting
the
Workplace
By Jenna Duncan
12 JAVA
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“Since I was little, I would keep journals. Like,
little-little, five or six years old. And then as
a teenager, I think I developed that chicken
scratch-y [style] so that only I could read it if
anybody found it. I was protecting my thoughts
and ideas and allowing them to unfold without
anybody intruding.”
Katan says no matter where she lived or
whether or not her family had money, she
always had a journal. “Writing, for me, in real
life, has been an experiential first,” she says.
“I don’t know why I picked writing. Maybe it’s
because my family was really poor. However,
I always had a pencil or pen and a piece of
paper. I knew that I was seeing things that were
interesting or funny to me, or absurd, and I
knew that I had to record them,” she says. “Had
I had other options, like if we had money and I
had a video camera, maybe I would have gone
that route. But I just grabbed what I had in front
of me and used it.”
In addition to her love for observing and
documenting, Katan is a natural extravert. In
high school she became involved in drama
classes and speech and debate. She gravitated
toward comedy and says as a 16-year-old
she even snuck into local comedy clubs and
competed onstage, often winning prizes, like
overnight hotel stays, candles, and nice bottles
of wine. She would gift her speech and debate
coach and drama teacher at school with these
21-and-over prizes.
“I wrote my own sets before I went and
performed them,” she says. “How amazing, as a
16-year-old, I had all this courage, and I would
go and compete in comedy contests with adult
people!” she says, her eyes lighting up.
Katan is sure that somewhere her mother has
an old, deteriorating VHS tape of her on stage
performing comedy as a teen with big, bleachblonde
1980s hair. “I was giving a talk at Uber
and my friend from high school works there. She
was also in speech and debate. I was like, Oh
my god, Justine, you look exactly the same, and
she was like, You don’t!”
Katan’s background in theater has allowed her
to embrace permission, to try something even
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if there’s the risk she might fail. “I didn’t know
anything about technology,” Katan explains.
“But I did know, through theater, that we could
try anything out.”
As a teen, Katan dreamed of a life in comedy.
She says she was inspired by “Saturday Night
Live” and especially Gilda Radner. “It was
something really compelling. And it framed the
way I walked through the world and approached
different situations. I really thought ‘SNL’ was in
my future.”
Katan also credits her quirky family for helping
her embrace her outsider-ness and learn to
make bold moves as an adult. But in school, it
wasn’t always easy. She remembers wishing
more than anything for the chance to fit in. She
wished she had two parents who were together
instead of divorced. She wished she had a
mother who wasn’t foreign and didn’t talk with
a funny accent. She wished for the right clothes
and shoes; she recalls a school-bus bully calling
her “four eyes” for wearing glasses.
“I wanted parents who had ordinary jobs, who
packed snacks in my book bag and ate dinner
around an actual table at a certain time each
night,” she writes. “It took me a long time to
figure out that standing out was any kind of
advantage,” Katan writes in the first chapter of
Creative Trespassing. “I come from a long line of
outsiders – people who didn’t, and would never,
fit in.”
But as she performed in theater and grew into
an adult in the “real world,” she realized that
her outsider attributes and differences were
really what made her special – able to stand
out in any workplace setting and contribute
valuable insights that drones and stuffed shirts
simply could not. And she encourages others to
break the cubicle mold, embrace their creativity,
and find slyly effective ways to integrate that
creativity into work life.
“We are in a moment where we can take
permission, because no one’s giving it to us,”
she says. “So just take it! Creative people –
artists in particular – are trained to see limits as
opportunities. And constraints as invitations,”
she says. This kind of disruption can help
support, encourage, and motivate employees
who relate to their workplace when they feel
connected. “It’s about collaboration. It’s about
elevating the people around you, elevating what
you are doing collectively.”
Tania Katan will perform at Scottsdale Performing
Arts Center on February 22, in partnership with
SMoCA and Changing Hands bookstore, to launch
her new book, Creative Trespassing: A Totally
Unauthorized Guide to Sneaking More Imagination
Into Your Life and Work. She will also present at
The Moth storytelling night at Mesa Center for
the Arts on February 1.
TaniaKatan.com
Photos courtesy of Tania Katan
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ARTS
SCANDINAVIAN PAIN AT PAM
By Mikey Foster Estes
“Scandinavian Pain and Other Myths” presents three
distinct works by Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson.
Organized by Phoenix Art Museum and curated by
Gilbert Vicario, the exhibition pairs The Visitors,
an expansive video installation newly added to
the collection, with two other key works. Though
differing from one another in terms of format, this
sampling of Kjartansson’s oeuvre highlights the scope
of the artist’s playful approach to performance.
Kjartansson, having grown up in the theatre – his
mother an actress and his father a director and
playwright – often creates works that engage in
pretending, evolve through repetition, and pull from
both history and popular culture. In theatre and film,
the audience is well aware of fiction, and Kjartansson
applies that set of relations to his projects that
span across multiple mediums: video installation,
durational performance, painting, and drawing.
The two works presented alongside The Visitors are
remnants of performative actions but are presented
outside of their original context. Scandinavian
Pain, from which the exhibition takes its title, is
an 11-meter-long (36 ft.) neon sign that diagonally
protrudes through the space. Its hot pink glow directly
contradicts its bleak phrasing. The sign, originally
installed outdoors atop a barn in Norway, loses a bit
of its pointed irony here, but it sets the stage for its
salon-style companion, The End – Venezia.
Extending along the walls from floor to ceiling, the
144 paintings that compose The End were produced
as part of a durational performance – Kjartansson’s
contribution to the 2009 Venice Biennale. For six
months, the artist adopted the persona of a bohemian
artist and worked out of a studio that was open to
the public. His muse, fellow performance artist Páll
Haukur Björnsson, appears in each painting donning
a Speedo.
The paintings, which display a range of scenes and
styles, playfully satirize the myth of the artist and
muse. Equal parts endurance and method acting,
the performance situates the artist as an actor and
the public as an audience. Kjartansson’s deflation of
the figure of the artist speaks not only to antiquated
myth but to contemporary realities, as well. Through
elaborate staging, Kjartansson mocks the weight we
put on “truth” – in this case, we the audience are in
on it.
The Visitors, perhaps Kjartansson’s best-known
work, has its own space at the back of the gallery.
The expansive work, a nine-channel video and audio
installation that spans just over an hour, can be heard
even before one walks in. Set at an estate in upstate
New York, each video, carefully composed as in a
painting, features a musician (including the artist)
secluded in a different area of the house. Separated
yet together, the figures perform a sprawling piece
of music with repeating lyrical bits adapted from
a poem by Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir, Kjartansson’s
ex-wife.
The song reverberates over the course of the hour.
Performers take breaks, move from one channel
to another, and collectively pour emotion into the
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music. With each video equipped with its own
respective speaker, listening becomes a spatial
exercise. As the viewer walks through the
space, the work repeats itself, but it never quite
sounds the same. It’s a beautiful experience, both
cinematically and sonically.
Borrowing its title from Swedish pop group ABBA’s
eighth and final studio album, the work shares
characteristics with its namesake. The Visitors album
is considered to be ABBA’s most moody and complex
effort. Through the form of the pop album, the songs
dwelled on the subject of divorce. The album cover,
which depicts the four members in a dim room
together but standing apart from one another, is
echoed in Kjartansson’s installation.
Although planned and rehearsed, the overall gesture
of the work has a poetic simplicity to it. It’s neatly
bookended: each performer sets up on their own
individual timecode, they play, moving in and out
of chorus with one another, and at the very end of
the song, they run off into the distance together.
Kjartansson, then alone in the house, moves from one
frame to another, turning each camera off.
The myths examined by Kjartansson in this exhibition
and throughout the entirety of his practice center on
contradictory notions of Scandinavian identity. What
is often imagined as peaceful or ideal is also grey
and gloomy. Kjartansson reminds his audience that
beauty, light, and humor can come from pain.
“Ragnar Kjartansson: Scandinavian Pain and Other
Myths”
Through April 14
Anderman, Marcus, and Marley Galleries
Ellen and Howard C. Katz Wing for Modern Art
Phoenix Art Museum
phxart.org
Ragnar Kjartansson, Scandinavian Pain, 2006, at the Hirschhorn Museum
and Sculpture Garden. Neon. Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New
York and i8 Gallery, Reykjavik. Photo: Cathy Carver
Ragnar Kjartansson, The Visitors (detail), 2012. Nine-channel video.
Restricted gift of the Diane and Bruce Halle Foundation to Phoenix Art Museum,
The Art Institute of Chicago, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
© 2012, Ragnar Kjartansson. All rights reserved.
Ragnar Kjartansson, The End – Venezia, 2009. 144 Paintings. Installation
view at Phoenix Art Museum. © Ragnar Kjartansson; Courtesy of the artist,
Luhring Augustine, New York and i8 Gallery, Reykjavik. Photo: Cathy Carver
All rights reserved.
Ragnar Kjartansson, Scandinavian Pain, 2006-2012. Neon. Installation view
at Phoenix Art Museum. Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York
and i8 Gallery, Reykjavik.
Ragnar Kjartansson, The Visitors, 2012. Nine-channel video. Restricted
gift of the Diane and Bruce Halle Foundation to Phoenix Art Museum, The
Art Institute of Chicago, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. © 2012,
Ragnar Kjartansson. All rights reserved.
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MIM TRACES THE HISTORY OF
THE ELECTRIC GUITAR
By Jeff Kronenfeld
On November 10, the Musical Instrument Museum
unveiled its newest exhibit, The Electric Guitar:
Inventing an American Icon, with more than 80
historic guitars, instruments, amplifiers, and original
design sketches. While you’ve probably heard some
of these very instruments – Pete Townshend’s “5”
Les Paul Deluxe, Keith Richards’ Telecaster, and Bo
Diddley’s custom “The Get Drum” – visitors have
a chance to see the DIY origin story of the first
electrically amplified string instruments unfold before
them in their steel and wooden flesh.
The electric guitar so revolutionized popular music
it’s hard to remember when horns ruled the roost in
the early 20th century. The first of the exhibit’s three
sections displays a number of seminal electrified
instruments, including a ukulele, banjo, violin, and
zither. There is a hand-drawn sketch from Frederick
Deardorf, who designed one of the first functioning
electronic stringed instruments in the early 1920s,
in this case a violin. There are also a number of very
early amplifiers, some which look straight out of
Edison’s lab and others that appear astonishingly
modern for the time.
As the exhibit’s title promises, it includes a plethora
of guitars from this period, however unrecognizable
their designs may be. The first to be electrified were
not “Spanish” guitars, those often played while
standing with the instrument suspended from a neck
strap, but instead lap steel or “Hawaiian” guitars,
which are generally laid flat and played while sitting.
“In a few short years, people explored a staggering
range of possibilities,” said curator Richard Walter.
“It’s just hard to imagine that so much development
across so many categories had already been
investigated just between 1932 and 1938.”
By the late 1930s, the simple yet elegant form of
the modern electric guitar began to take shape.
George Beauchamp’s refinement of the stringdriven
electric pickup – the device that converts
the physical vibrations of the strings into an
electric signal – helped make this possible. After
the exhibit opened, Beauchamp’s nephew reached
out to Walter, sharing the story of how his uncle’s
first model was made with parts cannibalized from
the family’s washing machine.
“I thought that was a perfect example of people
using what was at hand to develop something totally
new, because there were no ready-made parts,”
Walter said. “It was kind of the Wild West.”
The exhibit’s second and third sections see the
electric guitar go from technical oddity to massproduced
commodity and cultural icon, including
instruments such as the Elektro A-25, known
commonly as the frying pan, which became the first
commercially successful electric guitar. It was also
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first to grace a national radio broadcast, in January of
1933. Alvino Rey’s historic performance caused quite
a stir, prompting a number of listeners to contact the
station to find out what it was they had just heard.
“The electric guitar was a different sound,” Walker
said. “Some people thought it sounded almost like
an organ and some like a horn. Depending on the
recording quality, sometimes it even sounded like a
kazoo, that real nasal-but-dense sound.”
Rey also helped a number of companies with
research and development, all of it together earning
him the moniker of “Father of the Electric Guitar.” It’s
no wonder Rey’s historic instrument – with its faded
white paint chipping along the edges – is given such
pride of place in the exhibit and its marketing.
More than 20 years before Elvis gyrated his guitar
and hips into the national consciousness, the
instrument was already an emblem for a changing
society. As electric guitars became more widely
available, they revolutionized popular music, helping
usher in first western swing and later rock ’n’ roll as
popular genres.
“Leo Fender in particular was really important
because he took the principles of the electric guitar
and applied a very smart mass-manufacturing
sensibility,” Walker said, pointing out another
instrument of particular historical significance in
the show. “For all the images of Jimi Hendrix, Eric
Clapton, and all the great Stratocaster players,
Leo Fender personally wanted to put his fanciest
early one in the hands of Eldon Shamblin to play
Western swing.”
Whether it was a discordant rendition of the national
anthem in the ’60s or the staccato aggression of
punk in the ’70s, the electric guitar has continued
to be a totem of youth, rebellion, and consumerism.
To learn the rest of this story – and find out how the
Stratocaster got its horns and the Gibson Les Paul its
double humbuckers – you’ll just have to explore the
MIM’s exhibit yourself.
The Electric Guitar: Inventing an American Icon
Through September 15
Musical Instrument Museum
mim.org
Alvino Rey’s Electro
Audiovox model 336 Duo double-neck
Bo Diddley’s The Bad Dude
Pete Townshend’s Gibson Les Paul Deluxe
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Photos courtesy of Alexi’s Grill

Alexi’s Keeps It Classic
By Sloane Burwell
It’s impossible to miss the facelift happening in Central Phoenix. With the
explosion of new builds and faux-Tuscan remodels, there is almost nothing left of
old Phoenix – except maybe Alexi’s. For years, I’ve driven by and thought, “One of
these days, I’ll go there.” I’m not alone in that – legions of fellow Cenpho peeps
say the same thing every time I bring it up. So I took the plunge, and you should,
too. Alexi’s is one of the last untouched pieces of our collective history. The
building, the service, and the menu are warm and comforting, kind of like a hug
from your favorite aunt.
If you’ve ever pulled into the Alexi’s parking lot on Central Ave. instead of
Walgreens, you’ll remember the huge lot out in front (that blocks your access to
Walgreens). It’s a treat, these days, to have enough parking and not feel obligated
to quickly download an app to tip the ubiquitous, mandatory, and “free” valet
(seriously, who has cash anymore?).
Inside, the restaurant is warm and inviting. And it was fairly packed on every
one of my visits. Alexi’s is filled with celebrating families (several generations,
sometimes), people from the neighborhood, and hipsters who have discovered the
tasty food, attentive service, and extremely fair pricing (more on that later). The
art, the tables, the decor seem charmingly out of the ’80s, and the entire place is
polished to an impressive shine. Alexi’s is well loved and looked after. The ’80s
feel isn’t at all ironic, and more like that aforementioned hug from your favorite
aunt. This is a place that hasn’t changed, because it shouldn’t have to, and I hope
it never does. I will cry if I ever return to find a cheap IKEA-style remodel. Or even
an expensive remodel. Please don’t change.
The menu reminds me of places my parents would take me when I was younger,
and it was a special (at the time, that meant fancy) meal. Do try the Fried
Calamari ($10), an impressive plate of fried, crispy perfection. The adorable steel
gravy boat holds warm housemade marinara. We used the basket of yummy freshfrom-the-oven
rolls (delivered almost as soon as you sit down) to scoop it up with
quickness. If there is a better fried calamari around, I have yet to come across it.
Since I’m a sucker for a retro appetizer, I had to try the Shrimp Cocktail ($12). Four
enormous and delicately poached shrimp arrived perched atop fresh greens. A
quick spritz of the lemon slices and a dash of kicky cocktail sauce and it’s almost a
salad. It’s clear that these were poached in-house (that is the only way they taste
this sweet and perfect), and it’s obvious nothing here comes out of a bag.
Speaking of salads, every dinner comes with soup or salad. Get the salad,
especially if you love a mustardy vinaigrette. You’ll get a generous serving, which
is missing cheaper greens like iceberg. It’s fresh and pretty fabulous. I sampled several
soups – the chicken noodle was great, but to me the salad is the way to go.
Don’t skip the Catch of the Day Salad ($16) – on one visit it was halibut. A rather
large raft of buttery, exquisitely cooked fish comes perched atop a mesclun green
mix. I would ask for a light hand on the cabernet vinaigrette, as the salad was
a bit heavily dressed on my visit. I recently had a smaller piece of halibut on a
smaller salad at another well-known place in town, and it was closer to $30. At this
price, this dish felt like a steal.
I’m careful about the carbs these days, so it seems decadent to see an entire
section of the menu devoted to pasta. I absolutely adored the Sirloin Pasta ($16):
an entire steak covers an enormous portion of penne, covered in mushroom,
gorgonzola, and wine sauce. Plate-lickingly good, and get some more fresh bread to
sop up the sauce. I almost made a tiny steak sandwich with the leftovers (there are
ALWAYS leftovers at Alexi’s).
The Eggplant Parmigiana ($15) comes with two eggplant discs, smothered in cheese
and marinara, and served alongside linguini. The eggplant was well cooked, not
mushy, slightly sweet, and still savory (thank you, oregano!). The Vodka Tortellini
($17) comes in a giant white ’80s bowl (like the ones used for Lobster Bisque back
in the day), with your choice of sauces. Go for the Jalapeno Alfredo – a slight heat
lingers and enhances the sauce, with grilled chicken tossed inside and a smattering
of black beans. Don’t skimp on the spoonfuls of fresh-grated parm they bring around
– it’s gilding the lily, but you only live once, right? Knobs of chunky tortellini are still
toothsome and eminently slurpable.
My favorite surprise here was the New York Strip. I love a good steak, especially
at $28. This is 12 ounces of excellent grilled beef, and would easily cost twice this
amount at other places. It’s served with a side of grilled potatoes and super yummy
and sweet carrots (in the ’70s these were called Num Num Carrots – you should
Google. Made with about a stick of butter and brown sugar, the end result is totally
worth it). Try as I might, after the appetizers, the fresh warm rolls, and the ample
salad – there was no way to finish this. But it made an excellent breakfast burrito
the next day.
The dessert was the real walk down memory lane. We had the Cheesecake ($5).
It was like a literal slice of 1984, in the best way. Once upon a time, every fancy
restaurant had cheesecake. And it was this cheesecake – straightforward, simple,
dense, and served atop a puddle of strawberry sauce. It’s a comforting dessert
that harkens to a simpler time, before the Food Network turned cheesecake into
a complicated thing. Don’t get me wrong – I love a fancy cheesecake with handgrated
nutmeg, locally sourced pinon crust, and housemade whipped cream from
fancy cows. That also has a place. But so does this. I hope this dessert transports
you as much as it did me and my guests.
As this city continues to evolve and change, I’m on board with most of it. It’s great
to watch this place grow up a bit and feel like the big city that it is. And at the same
time, I’m a bit sad and wistful for all we’ve lost, which is why places like Alexi’s
Grill are all the more important. It is our history, our city, and our collective culinary
memory of a time and a place that doesn’t really exist anymore. But within these
walls, it does.
Alexi’s Grill
3550 N. Central, Suite 120
alexisgrill.com
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Photography: Sean Deckert
Styling: Natalie Vie and Sean Deckert
Makeup: SuperSonicNava
Location: Calabasas, California, post Woolsey Fire
Models: Natalie Vie, Ray Ochoa (dog)
Blue necklace: Anya Melkozernova
Vintage Tiara: curated by Nadine Allen
Silver and turquoise jewelry: Natalie Vie
Skull Ring: The Great Frog
Snake Ring: Gucci
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Two Soulful
Phoenix Bands
The Maya Spectra and Palo Brea • By Kevin Hanlon
Photo: Dino Webb
Some people consider music to be the language of the universe – an
integral part of the all-encompassing mystery of being. The authors of The
Kybalion identified seven principles of truth to understand the construct of
life. The same seven principles live within music. The fourth principle
is polarity. “Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of
opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but
different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes
may be reconciled.” Beauty is found where these two points meet – this is
known as the point of balance.
Countless artists and musicians experience peaks of triumph and valleys
of struggle in various parts of their lives. These trials and experiences
affect everything they create. Most artists would agree that they need
both aspects present if they are ever to realize their creations. People
are merely machines of experience that process what they perceive and
produce what they come to know. They can try to explain their work –
what happened to them, etc. But in the end, all they’re really saying is, “I
didn’t know how else to say this. I made this for you.”
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The Maya Spectra
The Maya Spectra is everything you didn’t know you
needed and nothing you would expect. The band
creates what they refer to as “omnigenre” music.
Their 2016 release, Music Box, found them diving
headlong into their varied influences of electronica,
hip-hop, jazz, funk, and soul. They cite James Blake,
Tigran Himassyan, and Stateless as influences. The
band blends their favored elements to craft a sound
that spans tranquil meditation, nourished vigor, and
informed politics.
The group’s history is as varied as their tastes.
Donald and Julian Pena are brothers born and raised
in Arizona. Donald didn’t find himself behind a guitar
until he was 17 years old, but he quickly rose in
prowess and went on to earn a degree in music from
the Santa Fe University of Art and Design. Donald
attended school with Julian, a drummer, and once
there, the pair met French-Canadian vocalist Janel
Blanco. In 2016, the trio formed The Maya Spectra.
After graduating from college, Donald and Julian
moved back to the Phoenix area, and Blanco soon
joined them. Since that time, the trio has played rare
Photo: Dino Webb
shows at Valley Bar, Musical Instrument Museum,
Lost Leaf, and Crescent Ballroom. While their dates
have been few, The Maya Spectra’s impact has been
great. This past September, the group opened for
musical juggernauts Kneebody at Valley Bar. It was
the band’s largest and most prestigious show to date.
“We rehearsed that set every day for about a month,”
Blanco says. And as the old adage goes, hard work
pays off. The band performed a crowd-pleasing set
worthy of their Kneebody nod.
The three members of The Maya Spectra harness a
uniquely rich sound. Their music exhibits ethereality
and carnality. Blanco’s voice crystallizes over
electronica-driven beats, synth pads, and other
sounds crafted by the brothers Pena. Their sound
is dreamlike, phantasmagorical even, and yet
thoroughly energized – the perfect soundtrack for a
psychological thriller, a library session, or a winestained
evening.
Donald’s technical handiwork is partly to thank for
the multi-instrumental soundscape. For live shows,
he splits his signal with a pedal into three different
sounds: guitar, bass, and synthesizer. Julian holds
up the other half of the music with percussion that
is by turns fervent and poised. Finally, Blanco brings
Photo: Brandon Mendez
the experience full circle with her enchanting vocals
that are at times textured with reverb and delay for
increased effect. “We talked about getting another
member, but if we can get the sound we need by
ourselves, we might as well just go with what
works,” says Donald.
The band gets their name from the Hindu goddess
Maya, known as the force that creates and maintains
the physical universe. Brahman is considered the
supreme cosmic power of every physical object,
while Maya is the illusory individual created by the
consciousness that allows us to reach the highest
truth, enlightenment. Blanco explains, “The spirit of
The Maya Spectra is openness and freedom.”
“Our goal is to always remain conscious socially and
politically, but we want it to stay open,” explains
Donald. “We’re open,” Blanco affirms.
In 2019, listeners can expect a new release from The
Maya Spectra. “We’re reintroducing ourselves with
this new music,” says Donald. Look for The Maya
Spectra’s live shows throughout the Phoenix area,
and listen to their music on your favorite streaming
service. Their newest single, “Cerulean Eyes,” will be
available February 22.
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Photo: Cody Simpson

Palo Brea
Another Phoenix band that explores the confluence
of polarity is Palo Brea. In the group’s rehearsal
space near downtown Phoenix, Daniel Byers spins
silk magic from his keyboard and Laura Berens is
crooning a vocal warm-up as she checks the levels on
her PA system. She shrugs and offers an untroubled,
“I don’t know,” once she gets her levels dialed to
where she wants them. Owen Ma’s fingers roll
through his warm-ups, which consist mostly (and
hilariously) of playing the theme to Seinfeld, and
Connor Sample is telling an anecdote about someone
who told him to “beat the hell out of those things –
this is a rock show,” referring to his drums.
Byers and Berens have been making music together
in Tempe and Phoenix since 2014. I first had the
pleasure of hearing the pair play in 2015 at a house
show in Tempe as part of the pop-soul band Blacktop
Chalk. The band was made up of four ambitious
undergraduates, all remarkably proficient in their
respective crafts. Just as today, Berens led the band
on vocals and Byers was behind the keyboard. Their
sound was playful and intimate, full of consideration
and emotion. Audience members couldn’t help but
become entranced, smile, and break into dance. To
put it simply, people fell for the group when they
played. That reaction hasn’t changed at all when
listeners come across Palo Brea.
Photo: Cody Simpson
After graduating from ASU, Berens and Byers stepped
away from their independent project to work as cover
musicians at various lounges and restaurants in the
Phoenix area. “It was mostly just pop tunes,” says
Byers. “You know, top-forty songs; playing ‘Piano
Man’ for tips. Things like that. It sounds funny, but it
was fun, too.” The duo took the gigs out of necessity
more than anything. “Basically, we just needed the
money,” Byers says, laughing. While the lounge gigs
might have paid the bills, it’s evident that they also
helped build the duo’s technical proficiencies. Berens’
voice is stronger than ever, and Byers is simply a
wonder to witness on the keyboard.
During their time as lounge musicians, Byers and
Berens met bassist Owen Ma and drummer Connor
Sample, and the four of them formed Palo Brea. With
the right pieces finally in place, Palo Brea has brought
their music to new creative heights. Berens and Byers
couldn’t be happier to be back performing with a
band and working on original music. “It’s the freedom
of improvisation and being able to talk with the band.
It allows us to create original music that speaks
collectively,” Berens explains.
At the end of 2018, the band released their first EP,
Palo Brea. They consider it to be a departure from
and a marker of their former selves. From what they
were before their release, the band seems more
cohesive and willing to enter new spaces with group
confidence. Their communication structure is sublime.
Each member takes cues and advice from the others,
and each offers advice in return when needed. Byers’
Photo: Corey Johnson
demeanor is perhaps the most apt to describe the
band’s: fun, but ever-focused.
Palo Brea’s music is a mixture of pop, soul, and jazz,
among other genres. “Crafty jazz-pop,” says Berens
with a laugh; she credits Holly Pyle (House of Stairs)
for the description. But their music continues to
grow in so many new directions. At their rehearsal,
I was lucky enough to hear some of the band’s new
material. A hip-hop beat paired with an infectious
synth hook slid into new territory, via a prolonged
hold on the synth-pad that dovetailed into the
caressing arms of psychedelia before landing in fastpaced
electronica.
Palo Brea’s music is honest and raw. Byers’
musicianship drives placid, graceful moments into
wondrous, ebullient climaxes. Sample and Ma are an
ever-present support system. Berens’ voice is at all
times tenacious, confident, and familiar, with a full
spectrum of angst and triumph. Flow comes naturally
to the quartet, and beauty and truth are well within
their purview. They each know how to support, fill
gaps, and let the other members breathe, and, of
course, they are all marvelous soloists. The band
members wrap in and out of each other with ease
and familiarity. Their rehearsals are full of laughter
and joy, and yet their sound exhibits a maturity that
suggests years of serious study and living.
Both Palo Brea and The Maya Spectra are examples
of what happens when hard work meets stable roots
and a desire to seek out the unknown. Look for shows
from both of these bands in the new year.

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Jonothon Lyons
Scottsdale Native Barnstorms the Big Apple
By Jeff Kronenfeld

Although Jonothon Lyons was born in Scottsdale
and lives in New York City, his true home is the
stage. Whether as an actor, dancer, puppeteer,
or playwright, Lyons has dedicated his life to theater.
He has performed on and off Broadway with the Blue
Man Group, “Sleep No More,” and in Basil Twist’s
“Symphonie Fantastique,” to name a few.
His most recent original work – “The Apple Boys: A
Barbershop Quartet Musical” – wrapped its premier
off-Broadway run at the HERE Arts Center in New
York City on December 23. Having received rave reviews
from dozens of prominent publications – The New
Yorker described Lyons’ writing as “wonderfully silly
yet tightly constructed” – the offbeat musical seems
set to run for seasons to come, with the possibility of
a national tour in the not-too-distant future.
Lyons’ dream of conquering the theater world’s
capital city didn’t begin on the streets of Manhattan.
At just age seven, he wrote his first play – “The Fox,
the Hunter, and the Rabbit” – which tied for first
place in a competition with a play written by high
school seniors. A 10-minute version of the play was
staged, with Lyons’ father (Richard Howard, a mixed
media artist who passed away last year) contributing
an original song. A local TV news station seized on
the play, which reporters interpreted as an allegory
for the then-ongoing Gulf War.
“They thought the hunter represented George Bush
and the fox represented Saddam Hussein,” Lyons
recalls with a laugh. “I had no idea what they were
talking about. I was seven years old. To me, it was
just a fable.”
Lyons father returned to ASU to study theater
around that same time, exposing his son to more
plays. At nine, Lyons stepped in front of the curtain,
performing as Man Number Two in a production of
“Rumpelstiltskin” staged by Greasepaint Youtheatre
in Scottsdale. Lyons didn’t let the part’s supporting
status deter him in the slightest. “When I auditioned
for that play, something really clicked,” he said. “I
knew that’s what I wanted to spend my time doing.”
Lyons continued to audition for and land parts in
community and school productions. The next big
step forward was enrolling in the Arizona School
for the Arts for high school, a charter school
with an emphasis on performing arts located in
downtown Phoenix. Lyons recalls the passion and
professionalism of his theater teacher, Ron Bonanni.
“He set a new bar and demanded that acting and
theater be taken as seriously as the ballet program,
which, at the time, had students dancing with Ballet
Arizona,” Lyons said. “He was also a multidisciplinary
artist. He was our director, but he was also the
scenic designer, lighting designer, and construction
craftsman. The sets in our school productions were
unbelievable. That really raised the bar and taught
me about the collaborative aspect of theater.”
The first play he performed in with the school – “The
Fantasticks” – still holds a special place for him and
was a deep influence on “The Apple Boys.” When
the Arizona Republic did a series profiling promising
graduates from the class of 2000, the school put him
forward. ASU faculty saw the article and suggested
Lyons apply for an Arizona Community Foundation
scholarship, which he received.
Though adjusting to the larger class sizes at ASU
took some time, Lyons connected with his professors
and performed in numerous plays and improv nights.
One of his professors, Marshall Mason, received a
Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater
in 2016 for work on numerous Broadway productions.
One aspect of Mason’s class that strongly impacted
Lyons was the weekly quizzes about the New York
Times’ Sunday Arts & Leisure section. “It really
gave us a New York–centric view of what it takes to
succeed in theater,” Lyons said.
Gitta Honegger and Lance Gharavi were two of
Lyons’ ASU professors who encouraged him to think
about producing his own original work. “Gharavi had
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a thing he called the ‘edifice complex,’ where he sees
breaking into theater or the entertainment industry
as a process where you have to get inside an existing
building, as opposed to building your own thing,”
Lyons said. “I took that to heart, and now I’m finally
at a place where I have built something myself and it
is breaking down walls.”
A performance highlight from this period was landing
the leading role of Alex in a Stray Cat Theater
production of “A Clockwork Orange,” based on the
novel by Anthony Burgess. “That was just a dream
come true, being 21 or 22, playing Alex,” Lyons
said. Robert Pela praised Lyons’ performance in a
review for the Phoenix New Times in 2004, as “a
swaggering recital that’s equal parts Iggy Pop and
Joan Crawford.”
After graduating from ASU, Lyons relocated to New
York City intent on pursuing his dream. He soon
landed a job working for a mask puppetry theater.
Inspired by the elaborate papier-mâché masks he
encountered there, he created his first large rat mask.
A theater in Brooklyn hosted a night of 10-minute
dance and movement-based plays, and Lyons create
a piece for it. “The rough idea was that an old man in
a New York apartment dies, and a giant rat eats his
brain and becomes a human,” Lyons explained. “Then
he notices the audience and realizes he’s a naked rat
and puts his clothes on.”
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After the performance, Lyons continued developing
the story, using his anguish over a recent
heartbreak as creative fuel. He gave his Kafkaesque
anthropomorphized vermin a darkly ironic profession
and tragic arc worthy of a German Romantic opera.
He submitted it for a program at the HERE Arts
Center, which provides subsidized space for new
works. Lyons staged roughly a dozen performances of
“The Tenement” at the Dorothy B. Williams Theatre
in 2009.
The judges for the New York Innovative Theater
Awards were in the audience and liked what they
saw. “The Tenement” received nominations in many
categories, and Lyons won for Outstanding Original
Short Script. In 2013, ASU commissioned a new and
expanded version of the show, which Lyons wrote
in collaboration with another playwright, Matthew
Keuter, who helped with dialogue.
Around this same time, Lyons began working
with renowned puppeteer Basil Twist – recipient
of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant in 2015 – on the
Broadway staging of “The Addams Family Musical.”
Lyons continued to work with him over the next few
years on productions such as “Petrushka,” “The Rite
of Spring,” and “Symphonie Fantastique.” Twist
became a mentor and role model for Lyons, who was
inspired by how Twist developed unique works on his
own terms that were both critically and commercially
successful. “I’ve absorbed so much from him that’s
led to my ability to write, produce, and perform in my
own work,” Lyons said.
In 2011, Lyons joined the Blue Man Group, a unique
performance art company famous for their stage, film,
TV, and even audio work. Being a member of such
a well-known production group changed his status
within the industry. It was also a reminder that truly
unique acts could succeed.
Lyons’ next original project, titled “Enso,” made use
of Bunraku puppetry, a traditional form of Japanese
puppet theater where a single puppet is operated
by three individuals. Lyons was inspired by Philippe
Genty’s famous work “Pierrot,” in which a marionette
puppet slowly becomes cognizant of its strings and
the one who pulls them. “Enso” was to culminate in
a scene where three Bunraku puppets, operated by a
total of nine puppeteers, would pick up and operate a
fourth one. Though he received a grant from the Jim
Henson Foundation, the project didn’t advance far
past the developmental stage.
In 2012, Lyons joined the cast of “Sleep No More,”
an award-winning New York City production by
Punchdrunk, a London theater company. An example
of promenade or interactive theater, the show’s stage
sprawls over several floors of the McKittrick Hotel, a

enovated warehouse in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. The audience
wears masks as they follow performers through psychedelic sets in a show
inspired by Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” Alfred Hitchcock movies, and the 1697
Paisley witch trials.
Also in 2012, Lyons began forming a barbershop quartet with another Valley
transplant, Cameron Malstead. Their first performance was in a show held in
the Manderley Bar, a venue within the McKittrick Hotel with a 1920/30s theme.
Having recruited Zach McNally, another actor, to be the third member, they still
needed a tenor. In the dressing room while preparing, they asked Lily Ockwell,
another “Sleep No More” performer, if she would don a mustache and striped
vest. She accepted, and the Apple Boys’ first incarnation was born.
A few years later, at a cast party, Lyons discussed his vision of a musical built
around the Apple Boys with actor and writer Mat Fraser (who has thalidomideinduced
phocomelia and appeared in the third season of “American Horror
Story”). Fraser told Lyons to stop worrying and just write a draft. This encounter
proved the final impetus.
Lyons approached composer and lyricist Ben Bonnema from “Sleep No More,”
who agreed to write the music and songs. Lyons then wrote the rest of the script
(called the “book” in musical parlance). Tired of schlepping puppets, masks,
projectors, and other props, Lyons wanted this project to be performance driven
and require minimal set-up. “I decided I’d do it as long as everything fit into one
suitcase,” Lyons said.
The story is set on Coney Island in the first half of the 20th century. The four
protagonists are drawn from American and New York lore, with Lyons himself
portraying Warren Lincoln Travis, the world’s strongest man. Throughout the play,
the four actors portray more than forty characters. Even before it was finished, the
pair started submitting it to various development projects. “It got rejected from
basically everything,” Lyons said.
Finally, they secured a venue for August of 2016 and staged what would become
the first act of “The Apple Boys.” The next spring, they held a number of table
reads. With their tenor Ockwell unavailable, Emily Skeggs, a Tony-nominated stage
and film actress, was recruited to fill in. She drew further attention to the project.
Then one April afternoon, while working on “Symphonie Fantastique,” Twist
turned to Lyons and asked what he wanted to do with “The Apple Boys.” “I said,
‘Honestly, I’d love to have a production in the Dorothy B. Williams Theatre in
December,’” Lyons recalls. Twist informed him of an available slot due to another
show’s cancellation.
Lyons and his team wasted no time, submitting a proposal that was quickly
accepted. The full musical ran from November 30 through December 23 of 2018,
garnering overwhelming positive reviews from critics and audience members
alike. Famous stage and film actor Alan Cumming said the show “managed to
reinvent the barbershop form for the twenty-first century.”
“Our hope is that next year we can be produced by an established off-Broadway
company or maybe an out-of-town production,” Lyons said of the show’s future.
“With the right reviews and the right advertising, we could really run for a while.”
However far his dreams and craft may take him – whether performing in shows
such as Anthony Minghella’s “Madama Butterfly” or harmonizing his own
creations – the commitment and focus Lyons honed in school and community
theater productions in the Valley will ensure he’ll never forget where he’s going –
or where he came from.

GIRL ON FARMER
BY CELIA BERESFORD
On a train from the Philadelphia airport, I overhead
a Pentecostal-looking girl of about 17 and her
friend having a conversation. It was mostly teenage
job jab, but my favorite part was when the friend
complimented the girl on her long hair. “Yup,” she
responded, “17 years of hard work.” I don’t know if
you are allowed to call not doing something, i.e. not
cutting your hair, “hard work.” And I don’t say this
just because I think hair you can sit on seems a little
gross. I also know it must get caught in her butt crack
like crazy. Any person with mid-to-long hair can tell
you how after a shower, or a vigorous brushing, there
are hairs stuck everywhere.
In New York City, I watched a woman on the train
platform poke around with what I assumed to be a
walking stick. It was long and she tapped it around
before moving ahead. She also had sunglasses on.
These clues led me to believe she was blind. In my
mind, I congratulated her on her bravery of navigating
the world in the dark. Eventually, as I am prone to do,
I imagined a scenario that required me to rescue her
from some sort of atrocity. That could be anything,
really, an oncoming train, a pickpocket or maybe just
a bully. Regardless of the scenario, it always ends
in me doing something heroic and then us – me and
the person I save – becoming lifelong friends. We go
on vacations together, or maybe just meet out for a
few drinks. We always end up telling people how we
met and they just can’t bel ieve it. In this particular
scenario, she teaches me to read Braille and I show
her what colors look like using hot rocks like in the
movie Mask.
The horn of the actual train shook me from my
fantasy. Crowds of people politely parted as she
made her way to the edge of the platform, and when
the train pulled up she haphazardly folded the stick
up, got on the train first and then played around on
her phone. And when I say she folded that stick up
and got on the train, it wasn’t like she did a careful
fold and then tentatively moved along. It was like, f*
this stupid stick and then full steam ahead. So, does
this mean she’s not blind? She only plays the part to
get first dibs in a busy city? It seems like any act that
requires props is cumbersome and also risky. At any
38 JAVA
MAGAZINE

How much kissing is allowed on an airplane?
I don’t mean sexy tongue kissing, because the
answer to that is none. But what about just
some mild lip kisses? Not quite a smooch, but a
bit more of a lip press.
moment you could be called out by an angry person demanding that you give up
your act. Luckily, I would have been there to save her.
In the Phoenix airport bathroom, as I perched precariously above the seat, I
overheard what could only be the voice of Judge Judy. I guess she could be here,
Phoenix is a pretty big city. But isn’t it strange that she is talking in the stall and
shouting and belittling someone about being a bad person? And then I smelled
something. Things started coming together, but it still took me a moment to
realize what was happening. The person in the stall next to me, IN THE AIRPORT
BATHROOM, was sitting around taking a crap while watching TV on her phone.
I am all for relaxing, but come on! That is ridiculous. We need to somehow
distinguish between public and private places so we can be a functioning society,
and I draw the line here.
Speaking of being in public and maintaining yourself, how much kissing is
allowed on an airplane? I don’t mean sexy tongue kissing, because the answer
to that is none. But what about just some mild lip kisses? Not quite a smooch,
but a bit more of a lip press. In these close quarters, I want to say you can kiss a
person one time before you should get a written warning. I wondered about this
a while ago on a flight when I heard what I was sure was some kissing. I turned
around to give a look like I might be sick, when I saw that it wasn’t kissing, but
a person loudly slurping an ice cube. It was the intermittent slurping sound that
was easily confused for kissing. I also believe that this type of activity on a plane
should receive a warning.
Although 2018 has been full of so much unbelievable, sci-fi, you-couldn’t-makeit-up,
jaw-dropping, eye-popping shit, it was also funny, as it always will be
when we get to observe and be observed. If this past year hasn’t taught us to
laugh at ourselves and this whole facade we’ve built, we really are a lost cause.
And, although you may want to curl up in a fetal ball, never leave your house and
have food, booze and all the necessities delivered to your door – you must go
out because, although there is sadness and fear, there is also funny stuff going
on everywhere. The ability to see it and be a part of it is the only thing saving
us from heartbreak and full-blown insanity. Your grandma was right, laughter is
the best medicine. It makes us feel better. I hope 2019 is full of lots of laughing.
Especially the kind that makes you cry and your stomach hurt.

NIGHT
GALLERY
Photos By
Robert Sentinery
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1. Tarah looks très élégant tonight
2. Renée dons a pretty party dress
3. Lee and Sarah at the Lodge Art Studio
4. Vivienne Lux shows her art in “Tiny Dances” at {9}
5. All smiles at Dana’s Christmas Classic
6. EFFEN Vodka’s label art contest with lovely judge Claudia
7. Jeff and Stephen at Dana’s Christmas Classic
8. Valerie shows her work in “Tiny Dances” at {9}
9. Patricia and Bill and Phoenix General
10. Good cheer at Kaiserworks Christmas party
11. Marshall Shore at Phoestivus

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12. Holiday fun with Carrie Beth and Sean
13. Trunk show shopping at Framed Ewe
14. First Friday at Heard Museum
15. Housewarming fun with Jack and friends
16. Ring-a-ding me up, please
17. SaludEats sells healthy goodies at Phoestivus
18. Handsome couple at Jack and Kathy’s party
19. Grand Arthaus with Janel and JB
20. This guy has the moves at “Tiny Dances”
21. Fortoul clothing line release at Phoenix General
22. Alejandra and Ashley at A Bloom Salon
23. Melissa’s colab show at Abe Zucca Gallery
24. Kimberly and Julie at Unexpected Space
25. Michael checks out JB Snyder’s show at Grand Arthaus
26. Checking out Kimberly Marie Jack’s artwork
27. Lexie sells her wares at Phoestivus
28. All together now at Third Space
29. Good to see these guys again at Phoestivus

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30. Bowling & Art Friends night
31. HILALI jewelry at Phoestivus
32. Phoenix painters Lalo, Tato and Abe
33. Kari from Mermade jewelry and friend
34. Sara is behind the scenes at Phoestivus
35. Jayson from Saffron Jak with his mom
36. Pretty EFFEN Vodka girls
37. Holiday shopping fun at Phoestivus
38. Davina and Deana at Abe Zucca Gallery
39. Michael from Copperstate Collection
40. Found:Re in the house
41. Check out this cute family
42. EFFEN Vodka bottle sleeve art contest
43. Celebrating the season with Larry and Sandra
44. Sabree took third place in the EFFEN bottle art contest
45. Laura and co. at JB’s First Friday opening
46. Thanks, don’t mind if I do
47. Jesse Perry wins the EFFEN bottle art contest

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48. Bowling & Art Friends night with Fausto
49. Idave is in town from Guadalajara
50. Mikey and Michelle rockin’ vintage Suns gear
51. Hey ladies! Dana’s Christmas Classic
52. Christmas Classic fun with Jenny and Jonathan
53. Kimberly Marie Jack with her work at Unexpected
54. Met these guys at the Kaiserworks holiday party
55. Holiday fun at Jack and Kathy’s
56. Christmas cheer with Laura and Danielle
57. “Tiny Dances” show at {9}
58. Around the fire pit at the Christmas Classic
59. Chillin’ with Shana and Lisa
60. Kaiserworks Christmas party crew
61. Pretty sisters are dressed for fests
62. More fun at the Christmas Classic
63. Michelle and her beau at Dana’s party
64. These guys were spinning the vintage vinyl
65. Plaid on plaid

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66. Mitch and Thomas party at the Classic
67. Awesome posse at Dana’s
68. Cozying up with a cactus
69. Indigo and her blonde pal
70. Best sweater of the night
71. Velvet lovelies at the Christmas Classic
72. Right back atcha
73. Lovely Tondra and friends at Jesse’s Christmas party
74. Jesse is the pirate Santa
75. Cute couple at Jesse’s fete
76. AZ homecoming for this Barcelona guy
77. Tarah is feeling festive at Jesse’s party
78. More fun at Dana’s Christmas Classic
79. Venuses in furs
80. Fate of the Galaxies rocked Jesse’s party
81. Christiana and Destyn spread the Christmas spirit
82. All together now at the Christmas Classic
83. Dallas releases her inner wild child

“ATC’S
THE MUSIC MAN
IS TRUTH AND BEAUTY
AND LOADS OF FUN.”
– TUCSON WEEKLY
JANUARY 5 – 27
“A JOYOUS
THEATRICAL
EXPERIENCE.”
– ARIZONA DAILY STAR
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