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Sandra Bernhard |
| Craig and Eddie's assortment of the shows, albums, and writings of this unclassifiable star. | Go back to
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 Everything Bad
and BeautifulThis fun-filled night at L.A.'s famed Silent Movie Theater was one of the best of her recent shows. As always, her song selection was impeccable, and she was in gorgeous voice. All the usual topics were explored, explained, and exploded: Evil politicians, pop music, the Bushes, inspirations, movies, celebrity, memories, and more. |
Soundtrack
FOR SALE as of July
2006! |
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 Excuses for Bad Behavior, Part 2.A rolicking night of Sandra's brand of comedy and music at UCLA's Royce Hall. She has uncanny taste in choosing songs to cover, always picking something anthemic and glorious and making it her own. Tonight was no exception. Her opening number, "Here I Go Again," was stellar. After riffing on such current events as the Democratic caucuses, Bush's military record, the Golden Globes, and her beloved L.A., Sandra launched into the show proper. "Can't You See" and "Everyone Comes and Goes" were two memorable, original songs well featured in the act. The soundtrack was recorded Sept. 2003 at the landmark Cinegrill in Hollywood and can be bought at Sandra's site. |
"Here
I Go Again" Crazy Day in the Valley Surreal With Love High Alert at 20th Century Fox Invitations Recent Tragic Events Condoleezza Rice The Dixie Chicks 30th High School Reunion Arizona "Can't You See" Cicely Bernhard: Platinum Member Canadian Mishigas Dylan's Candy Bar Making Out With Britney "Everyone Comes and Goes" Jane Seymour What's Up With Comme? "What's Going On?" "Little Red Corvette" |
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 Hero
Worship.A loosely structured song-and-standup show that's enjoyable from beginning to end, in the same vein as The Love Machine. Comic highlights are the sassy, heartfelt ruminations of "9/11," the delicious pop-culture critiques in "Fashionating" and "Tranny Hookers," and the nostalgic trip of "All the Great Times." Musical highlights are Sandra's original songs "Angie Harmon" and "Next Time" and her super cover of Elvis' "Kentucky Rain." Like The Love Machine, this show's soundtrack was not commercially released but rather available for purchase in the lobby. If the show was performed in L.A., Craig and Eddie didn't hear about it, so they bought the CD in an online auction instead. It came from the seller in a plain, handwritten jewel case. Craig designed the more attractive cover you see here out of Sandra's dazzling glamour photo for MAC Cosmetics. Update 2004: Sandra now sells this soundtrack at her Web site. |
"Holding Out for
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Hero" 9/11 Benefits Billboards Fashionating Tranny hookers Mugshots "Angie Harmon" Famous quotes All the great times "San Francisco" Youthquake "Next Time" Tambourine sounds PETA Melissa Rivers The Weather Channel Al Jazeera Moments Inner strength "Kentucky Rain" "Little Red Corvette" |
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 The Love Machine.Craig and Eddie saw Sandra perform this latest set of songs and monologues at the Knitting Factory on Hollywood Boulevard in December 2001, and they bought the CD in the lobby after the show. Sandra's singing keeps getting better, and in person we're reminded how sexy and beautiful she is. In between sassy, insightful comments on the world around us, Sandra and her United Colors of Benetton band performed three great original songs along with such stellar covers as Elvis' "Kentucky Rain" and Prince's "Little Red Corvette," which Sandra makes all her own. The soundtrack album (track list shown) that Craig purchased on the way out contains quite a different show from February 2001, so it seems The Love Machine is still a work in progress. (In early 2002 Sandra performed the show off-Broadway under the new name Inshallah.) |
"Across 110th
Street" Disastrous trips "Kick Your Manolo Blahnicks Off" Burberry bitches "Downtown Train" The saga of Channel 35 "Good Day to Die" Modern feminism "Get It While You Can" Shabbat in the city Seussical and the saga of Rosie Cruiselines "Shock of the New" Queer as Folk "Nikki Doesn't Call Me Anymore" Nail salons "You Shook Me All Night Long" (with Roseanne) "Salt of the Earth" "Little Red Corvette" |
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Craig hopes
that as the show evolves, Sandra's musical director, Mitch Kaplan, will
arrange music for the monologues, not just for between them. One reason
I'm Still Here...Damn It! fell short of the supreme Without
You I'm Nothing is it lacked the pulse and sparkle that great
music can lend her stories. So far, The Love Machine is making
the same mistake. Instead of the band giving Sandra a musical
backdrop, which her dramatic instincts can make the most of, they sit
as still as
statues while she talks. The show's division between talk and
song
is stubborn and unnecessary. Sandy telling a story is just another way
of her singing, really, so why not add a musical dimension? |
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 I'm Still Here... Damn It: DVD.
The main feature of this plastic-cased DVD is the groovey 60-minute HBO production of one of Sandra's performances in San Francisco. The CD soundtrack (see below) was recorded at a different performance, so both are worth having if you're a fan. Too bad the 30 minutes of footage that HBO originally trimmed out for time constraints wasn't put back in the show to make a seamless 90 minutes. Instead, you see the missing 30 minutes on a separate section of the DVD. |
Main Feature: Same as the HBO broadcast of the show, clocking in at 60 minutes. Bonus Chapters: |
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 May I Kiss You on the Lips, Miss
Sandra? Craig bought this book the minute it hit the shelves in December 1998. A few of the chapters are prose versions of the I'm Still Here stories (see soundtrack below). "Chapters" is a bit of a stretch, actually. Some are no more than a single sentence. The book is formless and random. Sandra writes in staccato bursts, striving for the emotional immediacy of, say, great pop songs rather than the depth of literature. She hits the target more than once, and some of the gems will stay with you all day. |
From the book jacket: Fragile, raw, daring, brilliant . . . Sandra Bernhard rocks. The actress, philosopher, comedienne, and cult goddess is back and feeling fabulous with a labor of love that'll knock her followers off their feet and draw new ones to her like a magnet. Here
is Sandy as we know and love her, and as we've never quite seen her
before: heartrendingly honest, with the mouth of a diva, the soul of a
fighter, and the insight of a girl who has lived life big.
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 I'm Still Here... Damn It!
The stage show, the HBO special, the soundtrack album... From San Francisco to Broadway... Sandra has been getting a lot of mileage out of this rich, evolving material. No two performances have been alike. The CD preserves one splendid show off-Broadway on Valentine's Day 1998. It's cabaret, stand-up, rock 'n' roll, and storytelling, and it's wry, brash, and heartwarming. No one but Miss Bernhard could have pulled it off so often and so well. A highlight is Sandra's tribute to "the big-titty bitches of rock 'n' roll"; you'll wish the Heart medley were longer. At the end of the soundtrack is a bonus: Dance music fans will enjoy the last track, a surprisingly deft club remix. Craig and Eddie flew up to San Francisco to see Sandy on Valentine's Day 1999, exactly one year since the show that's featured on the CD. Not surprisingly, the show had changed some. For instance, Sandra talked about the recent birth of her daughter and wowed the audience with the Journey anthem "Don't Stop Believing." The closing number, "Midnight Train to Georgia," gave way to a raucous protest song ("Fight the Power"?) for which Sandy donned a black Afro wig and sky-high boots. She brought the house down. |
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| Live at the House of Blues. From "Who Knew?" to "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)," Sandra belted out familiar and new songs at the Sunset Boulevard nightclub. Craig and Eddie aren't sure of the date, but they think it was sometime in 1996. Her performance was all music, no talk, so it didn't compare to the stage shows. Audience members unfamiliar with Sandy were surprised by how well she sang, while the Sandy fans had a great time but nonetheless felt something was missing. |
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 Excuses for Bad Behavior, Part 1.
This is a 1994 collection of studio songs and monologues. Most of the music was written or cowritten by Sandy herself. Highlights are the funny "Who Knew" and "Manhattan" and the cautionary "Lonely Town," in which Sandy sings the blues of three characters: a bar floozy at closing time, a transvestite hooker, and a suburban family man barely suppressing his rage. No, "The Woman I Could Have Been" is not a revamp of the zany, hilarious romp through San Francisco that Sandy took us on in one of Without You's greatest moments (see below); it just has the same title. |
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| Dance fans should have a listen to the compilation CD Divas of Dance, Vol. 3, which contains the smash Frisco Disco Remix of "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)." | |
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| Giving 'Til It Hurts. Craig and some friends left UCLA one evening and drove up to Ventura, a beachside city north of Los Angeles, to see Sandra perform this show in 1990-1991 (Craig can't remember exactly when). They were all still listening to Without You I'm Nothing regularly, and they couldn't wait to see Sandy's next show. |
| It was based on the same formula: songs, stories, jokes, and role playing. Craig thought for sure the soundtrack would be made available within a few months, but it never was. If only he'd made a bootleg! His memory is fuzzy, but some moments still stand out. Sandy spoofed Peggy Lee in the opening number, staggering out on stage on the arms of two beefy stagehands, eyes half closed. She snapped her fingers with one hand, gripped a cocktail with the other, and purred through "Fever." Later she was riveting as a coked-up single gal trying to keep it together at a Red Onion happy hour. |
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| Live at Royce Hall. Sandra took center stage at the landmark UCLA venue around 1991, where she sang and told jokes and took questions from the audience of adoring college student fans. Craig can't remember whether this performance followed or preceded the show "Giving 'Til It Hurts," but he doesn't remember them having much in common. This was Sandra spontaneous and silly, keeping in touch with her college fan base and trying out new songs and jokes. |
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 Without You I'm Nothing.The stage show for which Sandra will always be loved and venerated above all others, even if she lives to be 200. The motion picture adaptation has its admirers (it made some prestigious lists in 1989), but it is the stage show that makes Sandra's unique genius gloriously evident. There has never been anything like it before or since. I'm Still Here gushes forth from the same spring, but even it doesn't compare. This soundtrack (Enigma Records, 1989) is sadly out of print and nearly impossible to come by; Craig was lucky enough to have bought a cassette way back when. Recently, he bought an original CD through eBay. Sandra is so sexy and effervescent here and having such a good time. It's tough picking highlights from a consistently brilliant show, but Craig is especially fond of: "Time of the Season," where Sandy dishes flirtatious insults to the audience; "The Woman I Could Have Been," where Sandy's a secretary in Frisco in the '70s on a wild date with the boss; and "Ain't No Mountain," when she rushes into the Hollywood hills to cheer up and eventually seduce a famous star (hint: He's depressed over Ishtar.) Update 2004: This amazing album is available as a limited-edition reprint from her site. |
The commitment Childhood reminiscences White Christmas Time of the season Me and Mrs. Jones The woman I could have been Mighty real The women of rock 'n' roll Ain't no mountain high enough Apocalyptic white trash Finale: the lion sleeps tonight Encore: little red Corvette |
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