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Kris Jackson & Joshua Fischel are The Fiction. Photo by Sander Roscoe Wolff.<\/em><\/p>\n Joshua Fischel is nothing if not ambitious. He gave birth to a new kind of musical theater in RIOTstage<\/em>, cobbling together huge, sold-out shows at the Expo Arts Center in Bixby Knolls, and, in the MADHaus, performing the entirety of Elvis Costello’s rarefied art-song album Juliet Letters<\/em> with a string quartet. <\/p>\n His efforts on behalf of North Pine’s Third Fridays Twilight Walk landed him the gig of a lifetime: programming Live After Five<\/em> for the Downtown Long Beach Associates (DLBA). His tireless work on behalf of the arts in Long Beach earned him a Go Long Beach<\/em> award from the Mayor. <\/p>\n It isn’t surprising, then, that he should shave off his notorious beard for this Thursday’s pre-Pride performance of Hedwig and the Angry Inch<\/em>. More on that in a moment. <\/p>\n Between tours of Europe, managing all the local goings-on, and the joys of family life, he’s somehow found time to write and record Quixotic \u2014 <\/em>an album in collaboration with local sound engineer Kris Jackson. The Fiction<\/em>, then, is Fischel and Jackson, with contributions from various friends along the way. The idea was to combine live and electronic techniques. <\/p>\n “When we first started, we wanted only electronic drums and analog instruments on top of the beats,” said Fischel. He said they added drum beats after deciding they needed to “mix things up a bit,” creating a dance record with serious concepts. <\/p>\n Within songs that have origins going back more than eight years, Fischel sensed a certain prescience. <\/p>\n “The first song on the album is called Go Down<\/em>,” Fischel said. <\/em> “I wrote that song nine years ago and it sounds like I’m talking about the present. It’s really trippy,” Fischel added, noting that most songs he writes aren’t written about himself, but rather the world at large. <\/p>\n “Theres a song called Jericho<\/em> and it’s like I wrote a new biblical parable. It’s a story of a false prophet who comes to a town, runs it with an iron fist, and expects the gods above to reward him for it. It’s more of a metaphor for the state of our world. Hate, racism, classism, homophobia. It’s my favorite song I’ve ever written, hands down.” <\/p>\n Fischel and Jackson started working on the chorus first. <\/p>\n “We started by recording this huge harmony part that serves as the Chorus and kind of represents the voice of God, if that’s possible,” said Jackson. “Joshua wanted a dance-like 808 drum-machine feel so I programmed that and we proceed to track the verses and some churchy-sounding organ parts, later overdubbing more instruments, including Justin Lannelli on bass.”<\/p>\n Jackson said every arrangement is different from the rest, citing the album’s main influences as Queen, ELO, The Beatles, Lyle Lovett and Radiohead. Fischel is particularly proud of the vocals on the album, noting their use of “every kind of technique you can think of.” <\/p>\n “They are as big as the universe at times and also come down to extremely intimate moments,” he said. <\/p>\n A few weeks ago, Jackson and Fischel hosted a listening party at MADE, a shop on Pine Avenue that features artwork, music, books, jewelry, and food all made by Long Beach artists. Fischel said the crowd was “intimate” but listened intently and provided valuable feedback in the question and answer period. He said one of his friends compared the album to Abbey Road<\/em> \u2014 “a very nice comment.” <\/p>\n As mentioned earlier, Fischel is organizing and starring in a concertized performance of Hedwig and the Angry Inch<\/em>. It was, originally, an off-Broadway musical first staged in 1998 and, in 2001, was successfully adapted into a film. He first saw the film at the Art Theatre in 2001 and was hit hard by the idea of being an outcast, noting the play isn’t about being transgender, but accepting good and horrific memories and working with them while moving forward. <\/p>\n He said he identified with the characters, especially Hedwig’s Berlin roots, as his family is composed of European Jews, only a few of whom escaped the Holocaust. When he was six, Fischel said his Grandmother pointed to a photo of about 200 or so relatives at a family party in Berlin when she was a young woman.<\/p>\n “She pointed to herself, one of her brothers, her cousin and his wife and said ‘These are the only ones alive,'” said Fischel. “No one else made it.”<\/p>\n Mayor Robert Garcia recently awarded Joshua the Go Long Beach<\/i> award, which Fischel calls a “real honor” as well as a bit of a surprise. <\/p>\n “It really seems that our current city government embraces the arts and understands its worth,” Fischel said. “Name me one world class city that doesn’t have an incredibly vibrant arts scene. Not one. We really have this chance in Long Beach. Now is the time.” <\/p>\n Mayor Garcia’s glowing comments about Fischel brought his mother to tears and made Fischel feel he would have made his father proud. <\/p>\n “My Dad passed away in 2012,” Fischel said. “He would have absolutely loved this new phase of my career.”<\/p>\n The Fiction album Quixotic<\/em> is expected to hit the streets sometime in June. Bug the good folks at Fingerprints Music for the official release date.<\/p>\n Thursday’s Live After 5 will take place at HOWL, located at 237 Long Beach Boulevard. The free show will include Hedwig, and performances by Harriet Brown, Spare Parts For Broken Hearts, and Danielle LoPresti & The Masses. Music kicks off at 5PM and runs ’til 11PM. See you there.<\/em><\/p>\n {FG_GEOMAP [33.770079,-118.18982800000003] FG_GEOMAP}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Joshua Fischel, mastermind behind RIOTstage<\/em> and Live After 5<\/em>, is releasing a new album with friend Kris Jackson. The Fiction’s<\/em> new album, Quixotic<\/em>, will be hitting the streets next month. In the meantime, he’s shaved off his beard to star in Thursday’s free concertized performance of Hedwig and the Angry Inch<\/em> at the event space Howl. It is not to be missed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":67959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[430],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-live-after-5","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2640"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=2640"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}