Itchy Boys

Itchy Boys are opera-builders in New York City. It is a collaboration between Nick Fesette and Ball of Flame Shoot Fire (Winston Cook-Wilson, Jess Ronald Tambellini, Tim Good, Pat Kelly, and Peter Henry).

They have drawn ideas from improvisational comedy, various conceptual and popular music idioms, poetry and masks. No genre-play. No correlates. No signification. Rather than conglomerate and shift between/play with different styles, they twist them to disorient. Not collage but something with a diverse, urgent and multifaceted throughline. Everything is connected to the thing before, but in an almost indescribable way. They meet frequently in Bed Stuy and develop sound structures, narratives, and poems spontaneously. None of them know exactly what the finished opera will sound like or if it will be understandable by other people.

The instruments they use vary, but include: voice, keyboard, guitar, bass, drums, vocoder, whistle, flute, recorder, accordian, smashed objects, masks, cocaine, shoes, dream-therapy, couches, thoughts about death, violins, wristwatches, and movements.

Some characters permeate Itchy Boys' work: Marvin the mummy, the Old Man, Lucifer (aka Satan's living room), Slither Face, Pretty Bird, and 'Nick' face.

Members of the group often order from Sushi Tatsu. Fesette does not, however, eat Thai food because he has a nut allergy. They each have other occupations and lives and for the most part try to be good people, though several of them have been accused of being sociopaths at one time or another.