VINSANTOS
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VINSANTOS

Band Rock Gothic

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This band has not uploaded any videos

Music

The best kept secret in music

Press


"SF Weekly"

Treidler and his companion, a small woman in a tattered tutu and striped stockings, purchase a couple of boxes of candy at the concessions counter and disappear behind the double doors of the Victoria Theatre like two missing extras from A Nightmare Before Christmas. They are not alone in their sketch-gothic finery. The crowd gathered in the long-faded opulence of the 95-year-old theater for Vinsantos' holiday spectacle, Counterfeit, is awash in high style and black lace. "It's December," purrs Jill Tracy from behind a piano on the lip of the stage, "and, if you're like me, you're teetering on the edge somewhere between sentimental and suicidal." The crowd titters appreciatively, clearly at home in the dim, ruddy wash of light that just illumes the stage. "I told Vinsantos the only [holiday song] I know is about a suicide that took place on Christmas Eve in 1941," says Tracy in a voice that is like the inhalation of clove cigarettes. "He said, 'That'll be perfect.'" The ivories tumble, and Tracy creeps through a Christmas requiem about a man found in a hotel room with nothing but a sextant by his side. It seems that even at the end, he was trying to find his way by the stars. A grainy, black-and-white "home movie" flickers to life on a screen overhead: Happy young parents sit on a couch bouncing their infant in the air. Cut to the smiling face of the swaddled child. The child falls to the ground. Vinsantos -- the child grown -- enters the stage in a sequined dress and characteristically macabre clown face. He sets one nightmarishly tall stiletto heel on top of the piano and begins to play, accompanied by his violin-laden sextet, the Sixthe Toe. "I should've been a dancer," he sighs and rumbles, "but I didn't have no steps." The dark, languid ballad is followed by others, interspersed with surrealistic, often darkly funny, cinematic chapters in a life riddled by misfortune and circus-performing parents: the misguided attempts at tightrope walking, a doomed love affair, a high-heeled shoe stuck in trolley car tracks, a wig blown off in gale-force winds on the deck of the Golden Gate Bridge. Suzanne Ramsey does a brilliant turn as Vinsantos' stage mother -- all satin stripes, ruffles, and fishnets -- while the star's own son, Christian Seamus DeFonte, portrays a young Vinsantos and Fauxnique appears as an impressionistic twin, waltzing across a tear-stained stage. Flowers are given to the audience and taken back again. Hearts are broken. Dreams are smashed. And, in the end, Vinsantos rises on his 4-1/2-foot-tall black stiletto heels to ask the audience members what is real in their lives. The music swells, and, in the crowd, a small blond girl crawls off her mother's lap and begins to twirl through the aisle. - Silke Tudor


"sfparty.com"

"Vinsantos, a member of the dead clown glitterati, plays piano like an angel and sings like a screech owl, accompanied only by a warped record and a braided man."-san francisco party party.com - sfparty.com


Discography

New album just produced by David J (Bauhaus/Love and ROckets) engineered by Aaron Prellwitz at Tiny Telephone studios SF........sample tracks available on
myspace.com/vinsantoswithasixthetoe

Photos

Feeling a bit camera shy

Bio

Vinsantos is best described as cabaret rock with influences ranging from Pink Floyds middle years to Tom Waits to Antony and the Johnsons. Blending various musical styles including rock, jazz, ambiant, folk, experimental, classical indian and more in a singer songwriter format with a goth damaged edge, the recorded and live experiences are a true musical journey. Vinsantos' stage presence is nothing short of compelling.
With thoughtful lyrics that connect with the basic fundamentals of the human condition to a reoccuring
theme of an aging rock stars' life riddled with misfortune, each song paints a strong picture. The live sets often include story telling and improv . On a musical level, the arrangements are revised and reworked to compliment the setting. Visually, Vinsantos has been decribed as "a member of the dead clown glitterati" outfitted with outrageous and prevocative costumes. On stage, Vinsantos plays both sides of the coin in true clown fashion creating an initial sense of unease then ultimitely winning the hearts of the audience.
Producer, David J explains "You know when you are in the presence of something special. You can feel it in your water, bones and blood. It tickles your nerve endings and sends shivers down your vertebral column.
I have been blessed to have experienced this
on so many occasions as to belie the fact that it is
rare.
Lou Reed, Antony, Diamanda Galas, Iggy Pop,Bowie
and tonight behind the studio glass, Vinsantos.
Like all the special ones he has the ability to arrest
time. The buzz of the world recedes and all focus
is concentrated into a laser beam of intensity.
That moment! One's immediate surroundings blur into a nebulous fog and all that is present is the talent under the spotlight. Talent that taps into to the transformative, redefines the transgressive and illuminates the divine."

A review of a full scale live show decribes...
Treidler and his companion, a small woman in a tattered tutu and striped stockings, purchase a couple of boxes of candy at the concessions counter and disappear behind the double doors of the Victoria Theatre like two missing extras from A Nightmare Before Christmas. They are not alone in their sketch-gothic finery. The crowd gathered in the long-faded opulence of the 95-year-old theater for Vinsantos' holiday spectacle, Counterfeit, is awash in high style and black lace. "It's December," purrs Jill Tracy from behind a piano on the lip of the stage, "and, if you're like me, you're teetering on the edge somewhere between sentimental and suicidal." The crowd titters appreciatively, clearly at home in the dim, ruddy wash of light that just illumes the stage. "I told Vinsantos the only [holiday song] I know is about a suicide that took place on Christmas Eve in 1941," says Tracy in a voice that is like the inhalation of clove cigarettes. "He said, 'That'll be perfect.'" The ivories tumble, and Tracy creeps through a Christmas requiem about a man found in a hotel room with nothing but a sextant by his side. It seems that even at the end, he was trying to find his way by the stars. A grainy, black-and-white "home movie" flickers to life on a screen overhead: Happy young parents sit on a couch bouncing their infant in the air. Cut to the smiling face of the swaddled child. The child falls to the ground. Vinsantos -- the child grown -- enters the stage in a sequined dress and characteristically macabre clown face. He sets one nightmarishly tall stiletto heel on top of the piano and begins to play, accompanied by his violin-laden sextet, the Sixthe Toe. "I should've been a dancer," he sighs and rumbles, "but I didn't have no steps." The dark, languid ballad is followed by others, interspersed with surrealistic, often darkly funny, cinematic chapters in a life riddled by misfortune and circus-performing parents: the misguided attempts at tightrope walking, a doomed love affair, a high-heeled shoe stuck in trolley car tracks, a wig blown off in gale-force winds on the deck of the Golden Gate Bridge. Suzanne Ramsey does a brilliant turn as Vinsantos' stage mother -- all satin stripes, ruffles, and fishnets -- while the star's own son, Christian Seamus DeFonte, portrays a young Vinsantos and Fauxnique appears as an impressionistic twin, waltzing across a tear-stained stage. Flowers are given to the audience and taken back again. Hearts are broken. Dreams are smashed. And, in the end, Vinsantos rises on his 4-1/2-foot-tall black stiletto heels to ask the audience members what is real in their lives. The music swells, and, in the crowd, a small blond girl crawls off her mother's lap and begins to twirl through the aisle.