Badass string quartet Two Star Symphony came over to class up my living room a few notches with its completely unpigeonholeable music. One part pirate shanty, one part Danny Elfman score for a Tim Burton flick, one part gypsy stomp and one part black metal throwdown - that's a good place to start, but then they're on to the next song and you've got to come up with another tortured analogy/recipe.

Cellist Margaret Lejune ("The Ringleader"), violist Jo Bird ("The
Rebel") and violinists Debra Brown ("The Cool One") and Jerry Ochoa ("The One Who Is Not A Girl") are some of the busiest musicians in town; in addition to gigging regularly in and out of town, they've scored dance pieces and theatrical performances and provided live scores to silent films including "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and "Girl Shy" augmented by a half-dozen other musicians - "The Two Star Symphony Orchestra," naturally.

I was tickled to have Two Star come by and play me some songs - so
tickled I almost fell off of my couch twice while filming this clip. Officially, of course, the parts where the picture is all shaky - that was an artistic choice. Anyway, it is a bad idea to walk around on your couch, and a good idea to listen to Two Star Symphony. If you can point me to another band that's this talented, original, hard-working, accomplished and down-to-earth, I'll eat my Casio.