H.G. Welp
Heaven Can Wait
LES, NYC
March 23, 2024
I’ve said it once before, and I’ll say it again — I cannot stand the venue Heaven Can Wait. Last thing that got me out there was the anticipation and excitement I had for witnessing Luke Herbermann with a full band. This time what drew me was the request of a friend.
That friend performs under the name H.G. Welp. I know of Welp’s work through one avenue, and one avenue alone — he’s the fella that provides the scores for Matthew Gasda’s plays, of which I have seen none too few. It’s an interesting dynamic to go the solo performance of someone’s work you only know filtered through the programmatic use of another. To say I had no expectations would be an understatement — how is one to expect anything when the defining feature of what is to come is absent?
As I entered the venue, a space of which my expectations are… low, to say the least, I was greeted by the building hub-bub of the pre-show crowd, steadily out of which materialized all sorts of strange things: Out of the early-spring, late-winter-attired mass — jackets, scarves, all manner of dense covering — there began to show, first in strips and flashes, the glittered expanses of bare skin. I had not been informed ahead of time that I was walking into a burlesque show.
The sudden strangeness of all this compounded once Welp began his set in earnest. To confidently finger the category his music should be placed in would be a foolish task. It bounced around genre to genre, feel to feel, linked only by the consistent bumbling croon of his voice. The scope of Welp’s bent arcs through doo-wop, indie sleaze, and jazzy dissonance — all laced with a knowing, ironic silliness, best exemplified by lyrical content like “She’s online, but very kind.” Or, “She loves theory, misery, and James Gandolfini.” And a long power-ballad about Downtown Alt-Film/Lit scene queen Besty Brown.
On stage, between bouts of dancers, Welp was joined by another scene staple, Meg Spectre, whose backing vocals and ginning ingénue presence brought the extra Lynchian vibe needed to stitch the music and stripping fast to the bizarre iPhone backing tracks.
All in all, as unique, indescribable performances go, I could’ve done worse with my Saturday night. Welp’s playing a very bizarre game, one that managed more than a few times to reach those difficult transcendent heights under which the audience must nod along or simply throw their hands up. I’m a deep advocate for the strange — there’s a pleasure in not understanding something, a joy in confusion, and always a place for the uncategorizable.
Despite his moniker, H.G. Welp assures that if there’s one reaction the audience cannot have, it’s a shrug.
