Clare was recently interviewed by on BBC's The World.
Listen to the interview and read the transcript here...
CLARE FADER on BBC's THE WORLD
Not Only Brooklyn
April, 2005
"Clare Fader is such a talented, clever, and original chanteuse I admit to wondering how it is she lives in North Carolina, not here in Brooklyn. So take advantage of her performances this weekend at Barbes, Saturday evening when she headlines, Sunday when she joins Roy Nathanson and Deidre Rodman. "
Time Out New York
April, 2005
"A evening of sultry song.."
Not Only Brooklyn
December, 2004
(Clare Fader and The Vaudevillains) "prove that North Carolinians can be just as cosmopolitan as Brooklynites..."
Euro combo: Not the band next door
The Hook
December, 2004
".... They are so utterly rare in a world where folk/rock/pop groups proliferate-- all playing their stale sets, secretly aware that two towns over, a group at that moment is playing music distressingly similar to their own.
The group's sound is also nearly impossible to categorize, relying strongly on cabaret tunes from late '20s Berlin, but also picking up dashes of klezmer and modern-day pop. Tom Waits is a touchstone, but only partially.
The album begins with "Catch of the Day," an original tune that drops listeners into Fader's lush world of foreign delicacies and past-tense glory. "What have you done with today? Where did you while it away? Out with the tomcats, sprawled on their fatbacks, digesting the catch of the day," Fader croons, relating a story of either cats or men, backed by accordion and tambourine for the first verse, then cello, percussion, and bass for the second.
Mixing anxious slow numbers with uproarious songs, Clare Fader and The Vaudevillains don't sound like your neighbor's garage band-- unless your neighbor has a time machine and one of those Telepods from The Fly. Then and only then could he gather together the musicians who make up the group's sound, and combine them into one pulsating cabaret/pop/jazz/Latin musical concoction.
HOT TICKET: Symphony delivers again
Winston-Salem Journal
February 9, 2004
"The big symphony story happened Saturday. Clare Fader, a cabaret singer with strong local ties and a couple of critically acclaimed compact discs to her credit, and her group, the Vaudevillains, performed for the first time with an orchestra as part of the symphony's "Saturday Nights, Live!" series.
Her hope was to drum up similar engagements with other orchestras around the country. If Saturday's concert, which was delightful in nearly every way, is any indication, she shouldn't have any problem at all.
Start with Fader's stylistically diverse "new-generation cabaret" songs, drawn from The Elephant's Baby and the more recent Seventh and Trade. The tunes exploited instantly memorable melodies.
Their endless supply of biting witticisms needled Martha Stewart, exposed the "contradictions" at Seventh and Trade and blamed not the booze but "the man who sleeps in my bed." Patrons didn't just listen to perfectly enunciated lyrics; they chuckled and chuckled.
Another asset: Damon Carmona, a rehearsal pianist at the N.C. School of the Arts, dressed up several songs with some of the most masterful, colorful orchestrations I've heard in quite a while. (Fader and her group performed both with and without orchestra.)
The instrumental combinations were uncannily on the mark in the way they enhanced a joke, set a mood or brought out an emotion. They drew on the jazz-improvisation skills of clarinetist Ron Rudkin and trumpeter Ken Wilmot.
One quibble: On a couple of occasions, the orchestra nearly overpowered the singer, but other than that, Perret and the Vaudevillains kept the musical accompaniment flowing smoothly and free of mishaps."
Rootsworld.com
February, 2004
"File under: Rootless cosmopolitans... again.
Fader and company are back with their second release, and it is if anything, weirder, darker and more quirky than the first. It's part cabaret, part Jaques Brel, perhaps a skittering dose of The Doors without the amplifiers and leather. No way to explain, just listen. "
Go Triad
December 11, 2003
(out of five)"Throw in Seventh and Trade, and you hear the exuberant, bohemian spirit of Clare Fader. She approaches her music like a pulp-fiction writer, peppering her songs with Technicolor characters, sensual backdrops and playful turns of phrase. Yet, like a sepia-toned photograph of shadow and light, her cabaret-style jazz is what mesmerizes you even more than her lyrics and makes "Seventh and Trade" one of the best local CDs to come out this year.
Fader will hold a CD release party Sunday night at Speakeasy Jazz in Winston-Salem. When she takes the stage, she'll be surrounded by her musical alter egos, The Vaudevillains: Aaron Bachelder, drums; Andy Mabe, upright bass; Brad Cokendolpher, guitar; and Mary K. Elkins, cello. This crack set of musicians will work the sumptuous arrangements from Damon Carmona and give Fader a chance to transform into a stage persona akin to Satine from "Moulin Rouge," singing in a sultry, whispering soprano about a crooked Betty Crocker, rooftop lovers, fat cats with Cheshire grins and Jimmy with "his blue jeans tighter than sin."
Unforgettable stuff. " -- Jeri Rowe
Relish
December 11, 2003
"Local singer Clare Fader has been a busy young lady in the three years since the release of her debut CD, The Elephant's Baby. This disc - a remarkably twisted blend of pop, jazz and cabaret, featuring the surreal genius of Damon Carmona, a local pianist and arranger - has sold in the thousands, with sales recorded as far away as the Ukraine and Brazil.
To promote the disc, Fader formed a band, The Vaudevillains, and began touring up and down the East Coast to overwhelmingly favorable reviews. She then formed an online record label, Raconteur, which is handling her new disc, Seventh and Trade, her first studio recording with her band.
The disc, recorded by Robert Kirke and arranged in part by Carmona, is another wondrous exploration of the cabaret of the fantastic. It is flirtatiously naughty, slyly seductive, beautifully performed, ingeniously arranged - and a great deal of fun. " -- Ed Bumgardner
Winston-Salem Journal
, November 15, 2002
" Winston-Salem's own Clare Fader is coming to MTV. No, the cable network is not expanding its music videos to include the cabaret-style tunes that Fader has made a career with, on her own and with her band The Vaudevillains. But Fader's music will be featured prominently on several episodes of The Real World: Las Vegas. " -- Tim Clodfelter
Greensboro News & Record, November 7, 2002
" Wouldn't you know it? Fader's career as a musician is about to get a big boost from television. Seems the producers of "The Real World," the reality-based program on MTV, called Fader a few months ago. Fader says she's elated for the attention a TV show could give her music -- and appreciates the strangeness of the twist her career is taking." -- Jamie Kritzer
Creative Loafing, August 2002
"Clare Fader and The Vaudevillains play what might be termed NuCabaret (one can throw "nu" in front of everything these days) -- cello, ukulele, gypsy guitar, upright bass, accordion and percussion, all adding texture to Fader's Edith Piaf/PJ Harvey melding."
McGill News, Summer 2002
"Clare Fader calls her band the Vaudevillians, but there's perhaps a touch more Berlin in the 1930s than vaudeville in this quirky collection of songs about romance, sex and decadence. It's cabaret music for the 21st century, and outside of recent Tom Waits, it's likely you haven't heard anything like it in quite a while. Not suprising, since Fader's allegiance lies with musical styles from the first half of the last century."
Independent Weekly, July 10, 2002
"Fader is part Dietrich and part dark carnival, with her slyly sexual originals and obscure covers backed by resonating cello tones, ukulele, upright bass, accordion and various percussive embellishments. "
The Spectator, July 10, 2002
"Clever name from Winston-Salem-based band which one Washington Post critic claimed: "if anyone can bring back the cabaret, it's Clare Fader." Well, it isn't gonna be Liza Minelli. That's for sure. Hedwig gave it a good run for his money. But it appears all bets are on for Fader and her ragtag backing band The Vaudevillains (upright bass, guitar, drummer and cellist). "
Dirty Linen, June/July 2002
"[The Elephant's Baby] is indescribably witty, urbane, slick and all around unique. Fader has the proverbial way with words and her imagination is a frightfully bizarre living room full of animal noises, weird lovers, threatening furniture, strange childhood stories, and the occasional romantic holiday. It's all played out as cabaret (she calls her ensemble The Vaudevillains), part New York 1999 and part Berlin 1927.
It's a cabaret act that has gone off its meds. It allows for nursery stories with masochistic leanings, simple love songs that catch you off guard, and a subtle sexuality and blatant carnality that are disarmingly sweet and slyly dark...
Arranger and conductor Damon Camona has assembled an orchestra of strings, woodwinds, percussion, reeds and brass that harkens back to the Carl Stalling ensembles of Looney Tunes fame. He has them spinning like tops, turning on a dime and a whim...It bubbles, growls, pops, and snaps, evoking merriment and foreboding in equal measure, lush to a fault, edgy to distraction...
[Fader and Carmona] seem to have fed each other's strange sensibilities to produce one of the more unique American Recordings I have heard in recent years." -- by Cliff Furnald
Asheville Citizen-Times , 3/1/02
"The Winston-Salem band has a neat nostalgic cabaret sound and style that's fast making them a big act around here."
Fish Piss (Montreal) , Fall/Winter 2002
(review of The Elephant's Baby)
"The arrangements are as lush as they get -- horn sections, strings, swells and flourishes, all meticulously recorded both here and in Winston-Salem by dozens of musicians. Appropriately, the subjects of the tunes are romance ('Wedding Day Lament,''Drunk on Skin') and idiosyncratic characters ('Alice,' 'Johnny'), though my favorite, 'Isle of Summer,' is about out fair city. In short, anyone who sighs and says, 'They don't make songs like they used to' would be pleasantly disproved by the album."
Montreal Mirror , 11/15/01
(review of The Elephant's Baby)
"Former Montrealer Fader shows off her cabaret/vaudevillian stylings in this beautifully produced disc. Damon Carmona does the arrangements and they're quite musically (and instrumentally) rich, with cowbells, tin whistles, bodhrans, marimbas and French horns all contributing to the album's lush sound. "
Great uncertainty' fuels Clare Fader's music
By Scott McLennan, Worcester Telegram & Gazette , 11/11/01 "Listen to Fader and her band The Vaudevillains, and you'll feel as if you're romping through a place where decadence and decay are setting in just before the darkest hours. In Fader's musical universe, it's never too late for one last drink or illicit kiss before the walls finally tumble and the floors cave in. ; On her debut recording, "The Elephant's Baby," she concocted a woozy, Bohemian sound that absorbs elements of jazz, folk and pop, all tugged at by dueling influences of retro-chic and the avant-garde. Tom Waits, you have a sister in arms."
By Ben Monaghan, Portland (Maine) Press Herald , 11/08/01
"One of the more exciting shows to come to town is happening Wednesday when Clare Fader arrives at The Skinny with her out-there brand of German cabaret, as twisted and theatrical as any you've ever heard. I fell in love with this CD immediately. Fader writes lyrics and melodies that are charged with imaginative flights of fancy into worlds as surreal and otherly as a smoky Berlin nightclub circa 1932. Every song embodies its own story, the perfect soundtrack for a show that only exists in Clare Fader's maze-like mind, turning blindly on her coy and clever lyrics, sung with a theatrical precision and brilliantly arranged and conducted by Damon Carmona."
Music to Soothe the Soul
By Cathey Bost, Winston-Salem Journal, 9/18/01
"Her face suggests Marlene Dietrich. Her performance style recalls Edith Piaf. Evoking these icons enables Winston-Salem singer and songwriter Clare Fader to turn local performance venues into cabarets like those in Berlin or Paris, circa 1938. Her trademark charm, expressive eyes and voice (there's a husky edge to her soprano) have gained her admirers."
Taking the Risk: Cabaret group adds a twist to show at Reynolda House
By Ed Bumgardner, Winston-Salem Journal, 9/14/01
"It's not enough that The Elephant's Baby, the debut album by Clare Fader & The Vaudevillains, has made cabaret popular in the Triad - an accomplishment tantamount to a miracle. It's not enough that Fader, who recently won a grant from the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, is starting her own music label.
Fader wants to do what seems nearly impossible - record the Vaudevillains' performance tonight at Reynolda House Museum of American Art, mix it to disc and have CDs of the show, complete with artwork, for sale as the concertgoers leave. This idea is the equivalent of a high-wire walker doing his thing in a gale force wind without a safety harness or a net."
Asheville Express, 9/5/01:
"Coy, feline, and a little ominous, she belongs to the world of crumbling staircases and dark nights, alone with a snifter of absinthe."
TAKING OFF: Fader's musical lark spreads its wings
By Ed Bumgardner, Winston-Salem Journal, 8/4/01
"The album, The Elephant's Baby - a marvelously bawdy blend of pop, jazz and cabaret, liberally spiked with an irresistible sense of musical sophistication and unbridled fun - has sold more than 1,000 copies, most in the Triad. Its success has turned Fader and her band, The Vaudevillains, into one of the most popular musical acts in Winston-Salem. It's an act that is able to attract favorable responses from old and young audiences. What started out as a lark has turned, much to Fader's amazement, into a cottage industry....
She has had some interest from a variety of fairly large publicity companies and independent record labels. But Fader, heeding the advice of a musician friend who is unhappily ensconced on Atlantic Records, has decided that she would rather maintain control of her music, her career and her life."
By Brian Sine, Triad Style, 7/25/01:
"The best CD of the year to date is by far the latest from Clare Fader & The Vaudevillains. The CD, Live at the Reynolda House, captures the sensuous and unrelenting sounds that make their live show so wonderful....If you haven't heard of them, they are what happens when cabaret meets rock and roll in the 21st Century."
By Brian Sine, Triad Style, 5/30/01:
"A Clare Fader & The Vaudevillains show is more like a meeting of Frank Sinatra and the Rocky Horror Picture Show with a dash of sultry Marilyn Monroe thrown in. The music is the focal point and at times it is mesmerizing and introspective and others it is candid and humorous, but the overall show is always entertaining and not to be missed.
The Vaudevillains are to Clare Fader what the E Street Band is to Bruce Springsteen or what the Heartbreakers are to Tom Petty. Fader gets the majority of the attention, but make no mistake, all five make the group."
• By Ed Bumgardner, Winston-Salem Journal, 3/2/01:
"Good things are happening for Clare Fader and her band, The Vaudevillains. Four months ago, only those select few in the know knew about Fader, an Irish-born, Canadian-bred singer and songwriter with a keen ability to create cabaret delivered with a saucy twist....
The album is also opening new doors for Fader and the Vaudevillains. On Saturday night, Fader, billed for the occasion as Cabaret Clare, will start a monthlong, Saturday-night residency at the Mona Lisa Room, the small dining area and performance space above Fabian's, the gourmet restaurant on Reynolda Road that has been running trio jazz, to great success, on Friday nights."
• By Joya Wesley, Greensboro News & Record, 2/1/01:
(out of five)
"Each song tells an intriguing, if somewhat bizarre, story. You might call them show tunes without a show.
Animals, candies and a variety of intoxicants all play into Fader's humorously-crafted lyrics in songs with such titles as 'Animal Charm,' 'The Wine,' 'Wedding Day Lament' and 'Drunk on Skin.'
Fader -- born in England, raised in Ireland and now living in Winston-Salem -- has a clear, sweet voice and sings in an appealingly theatrical style"
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"The Elephant's Baby is a quirky mixture of all the things Fader finds fascinating. There are Celtic tones, complete with a tin whistle, which music arranger Carmona found under Fader's couch in Montreal and decided to add to the music.
A few cuts sound as if you're in a Berlin nightclub during Germany's Weimar Republic. Some reflect German composer Kurt Weill's influence on Fader's music. Others are plaintive, smoky-sounding love songs with an edge - a sharp edge."
• Ed Bumgardner, The Winston-Salem Journal, 12/29/2000:
"Local Pop Album of the Year: The Elephant's Baby
All in all an album worthy of national attention. It's that good. Buy it. "
Allison B. King, ESP, 12/22/2000:
"It's a piano-infused, big band world that sounds like an over-the-top Bob Fosse
musical you never want to leave .... Fader's own expressive voice is a wonderful instrument by itself."
• Ed Bumgardner, The Winston-Salem Journal, 12/15/2000:
"The disc is without doubt an extraordinary achievement, a phantasmagorical tweaking of musical traditions that reaches for the stars -- and manages to grab a handful of supernovas.
It's some mighty deep water that Fader is walking on -- music that is serious, sophisticated, entertaining -- and a bit off the wall, but in an appealing, nonthreatening way. It stimulates the imagination, conjuring up well-sketched images of things old, contemporary and yet to occur.
One moment it sounds familiar and whimsical; the next it is mysterious and involved, carrying singer, song and listener way, way out, baby, to the intellectual fringes in ways that modern music is rarely encouraged to do.
Throughout it all, the disc maintains an almost childlike sense of wonder, of playfulness, a trait that becomes as seductive as it is intriguing. "