Vermillion Lies: What’s in their box?

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By Madeline Brown

“I don’t know what the f**k I just saw, but it was amazing,” an audience member recently told Vermillion Lies after one of their live acts.

Zoe Boekbinder said that reaction is a pretty accurate way to describe their variety show. She and her sister Kim are quite the dynamic duo. They pack performances with quirky costumes, uncommon instruments and audience participation so there’s never a dull moment.

“It’s really hard to describe,” Zoe said. “It’s different every night.”

Zoe said a Vermillion Lies audience should be “clapping along, singing along, screaming along” with the sisters from Oakland, Calif.

These ladies know how to put on a lively interactive show using both of their theatre backgrounds and Zoe’s clown school education.

Their staple is the large trunk they bring onstage. Throughout the show they could pull out anything from a typewriter to a gas can they use for instruments, but only if the audience asks them loudly.

“We make the audience yell ‘What’s in the box?’” Zoe said.

That question is the Vermillion Lies’ mantra, in all of their charmingly eccentric glory… so much so the girls now offer, “What’s in the box?” underwear at the merchandise booths.

It’s also the title of their second album, released March 1. Their first release Separated at Birth experimented with more production, but Zoe said What’s in the Box? is a bit simpler.

“This [album] is more true to our live performance,” Zoe said.

What’s in the Box is a compilation of gritty but gentle folk songs with surprising sounds from kazoos, accordions and oboes to name a few. It’s like miraculously finding a rare treasure in a trashcan on a lucky day, listening to the Boekbinder sister’s lyrics that are sometimes funny, sometimes sad but always clever and intriguing.

Zoe and Kim add percussion to guitar, accordion and piano with otherwise non-musical objects. Zoe said they make music with random objects they find in garage sales, garbage and on the side of the road. One of their favorite stores in California, Zoe said, is literally located at a dump.

“You can find lots of crazy stuff there,” Zoe said.

Vermillion Lies is stopping in New Orleans on March 25 and 29, Lafayette on March 26 and Baton Rouge on March 28 on their CD release tour for What’s in the Box? For more information on the tour and the music visit www.vermillionlies.com.

E-mail the author at Madeline@tigerweekly.com

Originally Published: Issue 601 - March 26, 2008

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