ABOUT NOSFERATU (1922) – “To watch F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) is to seethe vampire movie before it had really seen itself. Here is the story of Dracula before it was buried alive in clichés, jokes, TV skits, cartoons and more than 30 other films. The film is in awe of its material. It seems to really believe in vampires.

“Max Schreck, who plays the vampire, avoids most of the theatrical touches that would distract from all the later performances, from Bela Lugosi to Christopher Lee to Frank Langella to Gary Oldman. The vampire should come across not like a flamboyant actor but like a man suffering from a dread curse. Schreck plays the count more like an animal than a human being; the art direction by Murnau’s collaborator, Albin Grau, gives him bat ears, clawlike nails and fangs that are in the middle of his mouth like a rodent’s, instead of on the sides like on a Halloween mask.

“Murnau’s silent film was based on the Bram Stoker novel, but the title and character names were changed because Stoker’s widow charged, not unreasonably, that her husband’s estate was being ripped off. Ironically, in the long run Murnau was the making of Stoker, because Nosferatu inspired dozens of other Dracula films, none of them as artistic or unforgettable.” – Roger Ebert, 1997

ABOUT THOSE INVINCIBLE CZARS – They’ve become known and lauded for their sprawling catalog of original material and for arrangements of classical works such as Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite and 1812 Overture. They are currently documenting their silent film works in a new CD-R series, rehearsing a re-working of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition to be performed as a double-band with Austin avant jazz-rockers Bee vs. Moth and developing more original material.

The group’s original songs and instrumental pieces are highly composed “mini-symphonies” chock full of memorable melodies, meticulous arrangements, dynamics, and humor. They fuse riff rock, classical music, loungey grooves, spacey klezmer, country shuffles, and circusy polka. They draw from a myriad of disparate influences from Prokofiev to Primus, Louis Armstrong to Van Halen, and Bach to Zappa. The band applies the DIY attitude of post-punk groups like NoMeansNo and Fugazi to their musical explorations, resulting in a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

The group’s annual dance-it-yourself Nutcracker Kids’ Show has become an annual tradition and other seasonal events like the Olde Fashioned Independence Day Indoor Picnic set them apart from their peers. They even co-present an unofficial showcase during South by Southwest each year called the Bizarrebecue, presenting the best of international art rock in Austin during SxSW.

The Invincible Czars are known by many for their original new scores for silent movies which they perform live at indoor and outdoor theaters.  In their 11 years of existence, the band has performed at private events, nightclubs, parks, theaters, museums, radio stations, community centers, museums, grocery stores, restaurants, television stations, sky scraper plazas, bedrooms and radio studios from San Francisco to New Orleans.

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