The Invincible Czars Would Die for You at Alamo Lake Creek

You better clutch that baby when Death comes calling!

The Invincible Czars present Fritz Lang’s Destiny with live original score
Sunday, September 20th
Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek (17329 Research Blvd)
$10, 7:30 p.m.
[info] | [tickets]

Fall has arrived and you need something elegantly creepy with pumpkin spice on top. We're going to go out on a dead branch here and say you've seen one too many stories/shows/films revolving around chiseled man-boy vamps in high school; facebook-fed zombie apocalypse tactics probably aren't doing it for you anymore either. We all need an ominous slap in the face—a sinister cold shower! Thank the gods that The Invincible Czars are returning to the Alamo Lake Creek this Sunday to bend genres with their swoon-worthy original score for Fritz Lang's 1921 German silent film Destiny. Paying a little respect to our elders in both film and all-around eeriness—Lang and Death (Mr. Death, to be exact)—is just the thing to get us out of our tween trance. By the end of the night, we want everyone to be contemplating mortality and clutching a baby like actress Lil Dagover. Everyone have a baby they can bring?

Destiny (Der müde Tod) starts with young love. It's all kisses and lengthy stares until Death comes and escorts your lover out of the dimension you happen to be in—we all know this. When this unfortunate incident befalls the heroine in Lang's film, she confronts Death himself and is granted an opportunity to see the return of her lover boy. She has three chances to save a dying man (plus a very special bonus round) or it's a one-way ticket to Singlesville. Although the story follows a more mythological path, Lang sets up some darker themes and questions in this film. Try answering this overdramatic one we came up with: does the inevitability and finality of death eclipse the power of love ?

Now for the really intriguing part (re: why you need to go): touched by the hands of Tchaikovsky and thrown into the passion pit of "weirdo rock," the mini-symphonies of The Invincible Czars will imbue Destiny with more meaning and, ironically, life, than you could ever imagine at a silent film screening. This is not the first time the Czars have presented an amped up screening like this—there's just been a totally unnecessary two-year hiatus since they last hooked up with the Alamo. Lucky you! To give you an idea of what your ears are in for, we'll pull a random sampling of The Invincible Czars listed influences: Danny Elfman, Beethoven, Iron Maiden, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Louis Armstrong, Grateful Dead, and Weird Al Yancovic. Now, we're no chemistry masters, but we're betting that's a sign that the Czars will produce one hell of a pleasing concoction.

Having recently witnessed the radness of live music for silent films when Guy Forsyth stopped by the Paramount to provide an energy-fueled, fiercely folksy score to Buster Keaton's The General, we are still (admittedly) a little more excited about this event, mainly because we're suckers for candles and healthy doses of Gothic font. See a font sampling and get a little taste of the other elements you'll be in for with this rehearsal room recording vid of the Czars' intro and this visually appealing ghostliness!

Editor's Note: This is Nick Barbieri's first post after a long jaunt to Los Angeles. Welcome back to the loving arms of Austin and Austinist, Nick!

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