Friday, October 18, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

NIGHT BEAT: Supreme Beings of Leisure overcome strange childhoods

The Supreme Beings of Leisure's martini-trip-hop music is shaken not stirred. It's as swanky and slinky as an old James Bond soundtrack smashed into a Dee-Lite's record.

But even if the funky, catchy music sounds confident and cool, it is the product of two musicians who were unconfident outcasts when they were kids. (The duo expands into a five-piece band to perform on Sunday at the House of Blues.)

Singer Geri Soriano-Lightwood grew up in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a first-generation child of Afro-Latin Dominican heritage, which made her a pariah in her upper-middle class, Irish neighborhood in Chicago, she says.

"It was a different world then," she says. "There was still a lot of racism. I still got a lot of name-calling at school. So I never did fit in, by virtue of the body I was born into."

Soriano-Lightwood moved to the melting pot of Los Angeles as a young adult. There, she says, "I'm just Geri."

Supreme Beings keyboardist Ramin Sakuri had it easier. His family moved from the Midwest to Los Angeles when he was 3. He laughs at the strange world that his infancy might have been.

"It's kind of weird, being half-Iranian and half-Japanese, and born in Indiana. You just don't see that very often. And I'm sure the people out there were, like, 'What the hell is this?' "

The singer and the keyboardist could have wallowed musically in their unpopular pasts. Instead, they made themselves one of the most joyous acts in contemporary music. Soriano-Lightwood sings with the brash depth of a futuristic lounge queen, with a debt to Shirley Bassey. Behind her voice, Sakuri's lush and brass melodies sweep along.

Sakuri and Soriano-Lightwood make no bones about their obvious influences: She by Bassey; he by the sneaky horns and romanticized strings of Bond composer John Barry.

"I'm just hoping, someday, (the Bassey-Bond label) will stick, and we'll get one of our songs in a James Bond film," she says. (They've tried unsuccessfully to get a song into a Bond film before, when the group first formed in the late 1990s.)

Sakuri and Soriano-Lightwood don't take seriously the question of whether they are cool. I suggest to Sakuri that he was trying to look cool in a publicity photo shoot, and he just jokes away.

"What do you mean, 'trying?' Dude, I am cool," he says and laughs. "I am the epitome of cool. Or -- a big goof."

Radio programmers haven't jumped on the trip-hop, futuristic-disco bandwagon. So the Supreme Beings have made do, selling enough albums to remain on a music label, and getting spun in dance clubs and in the background of such TV shows as the spy drama "Alias."

The duo's new sound adds disco to the Bond sound, instead of replacing it. The Supreme Beings' self-titled debut in 2000 set a European tone of down-tempo, sultry bedroom lust. Soriano-Lightwood sang without a trace of vulnerability, giving her a sense of ultimate power, even if she was declaring, "I've got nothing but blues for you," and, "Oh no, I'm never the same now. Never the same girl twice. Not the same girl you loved last night."

Back then, the Supreme Beings were a four-piece outfit. The band has since split in half and lost its darker half.

The new album, "Divine Operating System," booms with big, fat bass lines and Soriano-Lightwood's getting down and funky, as if she's forging "Saturday Night Fever 2002."

"We didn't want to be a one-trick, or one-trip, pony," Soriano-Lightwood says. "We definitely want to mine the '70s, and that whole funk and soul vibe and disco."

But mostly, she just thinks they've made a more upbeat, "poppier album."

"We're not cool. We're pop tarts," she says and laughs. "The first album is definitely for after the party. It's the chill record. This album is for the party. I guess you play them in reverse. I guess what we're setting up" -- for the next album -- "is 'Music to Get Dressed By.' "

The disco is so prevalent now that the Supreme Beings' publicists are pitching "Divine Operating System" to gay publications. Soriano-Lightwood is nothing but pleased about that.

"Hey, man, every diva needs a gay following," she says. "I'm all down with that."

Opening for the Supreme Beings on Sunday are the electro-rockers of the Baldwin Brothers and dance-clubby Ben Neill. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are a pittance of $17 at the box office, 3950 Las Vegas Blvd. South, and through Ticketmaster. To charge by phone, call 632-7600.

Best and shaky bets

Bob Dylan makes his who-knows-how-manyth Vegas appearance on Sunday at the Hard Rock. His concert set list, if typical, will be comprised of an unguessable selection of memories from his poetic oeuvre. Showtime is 8 p.m. Tickets are $80.50-$155.50 at the box office, 4455 Paradise Road, and through Ticketmaster. To charge by phone, call 693-5066. ...

After the Supreme Beings play the House of Blues on Sunday, another, fine trip-hop group, PH Balance, plays the Cooler Lounge, along with the local Fuzz and Friends. Showtime is 10 p.m. Admission is a $5 donation at the Cooler Lounge, 1905 N. Decatur Blvd. For more information, call 646-3009. ...

James Brown makes his way back to town tonight at the House of Blues. This ought to be interesting. I saw him two New Year's Eve weekends ago, and he made no sense, barely sung and he carried a lady in the audience around in his arms. What wacky thing will he do today? He starts doing whatever at 10 p.m. Tickets are $55-$90 at the box office and through Ticketmaster. ...

If you want to see something that's intentionally wacky -- and for free -- check out "Stromboli's Island of Donkeys and Dolls," billed as a "gender-bending cabaret performance troupe." That fun starts at 8 tonight with local poet/public defender/Mercury columnist/NPR commentator Dayvid Figler at the Double Down Saloon, 4640 Paradise Road. For more information, call 791-5775. ...

And on Saturday, the Cooler marches out the very fine, synthetic, alt-rock band Helio Sequence (sounds like Stereolab plus Oasis, sort of). Also playing: Enon, somewhat reminiscent of Olivia Tremor Control; bad-ass ambient band El Guapo; and one of several, local Blue Man Group spin-offs, Thirsty. Showtime is 10 p.m. Admission is a $5 donation at the Cooler Lounge.