What the hell is the New Orleans Bingo! Show?

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By Jason Andreasen

“Does anybody wanna be a winnah?!?!”

This simple question is at the twisted heart of the New Orleans Bingo! Show, which disregards the lines between theater and music and intentionally ignores the boundaries between the surreal and the literal. The English language has not yet found a word that encapsulates this performance group, which is part vaudeville cabaret, part circus concert and part good, old-fashioned bingo. Surely, though, the members of the New Orleans Bingo! Show must have a way that they explain themselves, right?

“The Bingo! Show is the diaper for Clint’s super-creative diarrhea,” jokes Mattvaughan Black, who plays one of the clowns (“Mr. The Turk”) who oversees the bingo shows that are littered throughout the group’s performances.

Clint Maedgen, the voice behind Bingo!’s surreal soundtrack and the mangled mind behind it all, returned from changing into a three-piece suit (and with hair as vertical as an outstretched arm with a winning bingo card) to chime in, “I leave an interview for five minutes, and it goes straight to feces!”

The idea for the Bingo! Show dawned on Maedgen while combing through a New Orleans junk shop when he came across a massive set of old bingo cards. They seemed to fit in with the circus-like feel of some songs Maedgen had written that didn’t fit with his current band at the time, Liquidrone. Thus, the Bingo! Show was born, and it grew up in the back of a fried chicken restaurant.

At the time, Maedgen worked at Fiorella’s, a Decatur Street café specializing in po’boys and fried chicken, that would play host to the Bingo! Show for two years after its creation. Now, some six years after those bingo cards were unearthed, the Bingo! Show has played across south Louisiana and even in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Brooklyn.

“We wouldn’t be opposed to playing a fried chicken place again,” explains Ron Rana, whose alter ego, Ronnie Numbers, is the bingo game’s emcee (Picture a short clown reminiscent of early Chris Tucker on acid). “We’d play one if they paid us right or gave us free chicken.”

Even though there isn’t much of a possibility of a nationwide tour of America’s finest fried chicken joints, there is a hope that the Bingo! Show will grow and be able to tour in the way that a theatrical production group does.

“I would love a record deal, but what I’d really love is an off-Broadway run. If I had to pigeonhole us into a marketable concept, we’re kind of along the lines of Blue Man Group or Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” explains Black. “If someone comes and checks us out, they’ll realize we’re a whole other debacle besides the music.”

“The music is truly amazing though,” pointed out Veronica Russell, aka the lovely bingo mistress Veve LaRoux, while adjusting her luxurious tutu. “I went to see them as a fan before I started performing with them. This is one of those instances where stalking can pay off.”

The Bingo! Show’s combination of music and theater is what got them their own tent at this year’s Voodoo Music Experience. The powers that be came to Ron Rana, who not only got the New Orleans Bingo! Parlour together but also booked local favorites such as Morning 40 Federation and Maedgen’s Liquidrone, as well as national acts such as Ghostland Observatory.

“We pitched them something, and they loved it,” Black explained. “We’re definitely going to do it again. The brass at Voodoo has already talked to us about doing something like that again.”

The best part about the Bingo! Show as a musical entity is their dismissing of convention. During a recent Baton Rouge performance, Maedgen played a toy circular saw like a DJ would scratch a record. Later, Black picked up a washboard and beat the daylights out of it with two whisks. Not to be outdone, Russell picked up a massive bullhorn and chimed in on the sonic riot.

However, these are simply complements to the intense and enthralling musicians that provide Bingo! with its eerie backdrop. For example, while Casey McAllister (a.k.a. – Kid Calhoun MacAluso) plays the guitar and organ, he also taunts the mysterious theremin to do his bidding.

All and all, the New Orleans Bingo! Show can’t be explained. It is an experience unlike any other. It is truly unique and yet typically New Orleans. It calls upon your ears with music that harkens back to the early ‘20s, yet it is arguably the most original show to roll through southern Louisiana in decades.

“I still don’t know how to explain the Bingo! Show,” said Russell with a cackle.

For more information about the notoriously New Orleanian experience, The New Orleans Bingo! Show, check out their MySpace page at myspace.com/thebingoshow.

While there, be sure to check out the video of Maedgen riding through the streets of New Orleans on a bicycle with a cast of NOLA characters, entitled “Complicated Life.” There you can also hear part of what makes the Bingo! Show so unique, though to even begin to understand the vaudevillian nightmare, you have to see them live. Even then, you won’t have a prayer if you try to understand them.

My advice – enjoy the ride, and don’t yell “Bingo!” if you don’t have it.

E-mail the author at JasonAndreasen@tigerweekly.com

Originally Published: Issue 589 - December 5, 2007

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