On a regular Thursday night in Baltimore, patrons of The Bun Shop were equal parts delighted and surprised to find themselves in the audience of two young women, yielding instruments and and hip half-shaved coiffures. Those who were enjoying a bun without knowing there would be a performance that night might have assumed they were about to be party to some angst-ridden folk. But their act proved to be something altogether unexpected.
Slam Up is a blend of slam poetry and musical comedy like you’ve probably never experienced before. Emily Lowinger and Cali Bulmash are the brains behind this act–or maybe the “Same Brain” as their latest full-length CD title would have you believe. In their song “A Lesson in Vocabulary,” Lowinger and Bulmash define Slam Up as, “a verb, go to the edge of your imagination then jump, in regards to food for thought, as in, ‘When we step on stage we slam up!’” Their act is certainly difficult to anticipate, even from one minute to the next. Lowinger brings the musical comedy while Bulmash delivers the poetic realness–and it’s where these two genres intersect and relieve each other that their act truly shines.
Jon Hain Photography
I asked them if they found poetry and comedy to be a natural mix. Bulmash admits that she initially had some serious doubts, but remarks, “Once we started working together I realized that it was not going to be a problem and in fact was necessary. I don’t think we could do it for an hour if we didn’t have comedy–or I know I couldn’t.” Lowinger adds, “That’s the point of our show, is you don’t wanna be oversaturated with one thing. But what I’m finding is that everything converges at a certain point anyway. You know, a song is poetry with music. What differentiates what we do from that? But people like to think of things very specifically.”
Slam Up actually has two tracks on “Same Brain” that deal with the paradox of labelling: “Goodbye Labels”, which eschews the nomenclature of sexualities, and then “Need My Labels,” a song about meeting someone and wishing you knew if they were gay or straight (lyrics: “Labels are bad/ They could S a D!/ But without them how do I know if you want to F me?”). This labelling dilemma also applies to their act as a whole. They struggled to choose a category for their album, and eventually settled on “spoken word/audio. However, Lowinger remarks, “I have a feeling if you look at other things in that category it’s not [the same].” They prefer to experiment with a fluidity between genres. Lowinger continues, “This epiphany that I had is that poetry is the essence of verbal art. Theater was poetry, like it wasn’t a thing you would distinguish as its own thing.” Bulmash then defiantly posits, “All art is stemmed from the mother of poetry. That’s a bold statement; someone challenge me [laughs].”
earlier this year @ the New York International Fringe Festival // photo: Liza Vink
Regardless of whether you agree with Bulmash generally, it is easy to see how poetry, and especially slam poetry, shapes their art. Both women mentioned spoken word poets as major inspirations. Bulmash lists Andrea Gibson, Anis Mojgani, and Climbing Poetree as her current inspirations, adding, “I kinda filter in and out of poets, but any poet that challenges my brain, because that’s what poetry is, they’re puzzles.” Lowinger admits to being influenced by Alix Olsen, especially her very sexual poem “Cute For a Girl.” But, beyond poets, the women of Slam Up have a bit of a thing for Louis C.K. (in their track “Louis C.K.,” Lowinger sings “I’m a lesbian, but I’d still fuck ya”) and a general appreciation for the dark and absurd side of comedy.
For an act so balanced and polished, it comes as a bit of a surprise that the genesis of Slam Up was more of a big bang than a slow evolution. As their creation myth goes, Lowinger and Bulmash were acquaintences in high school but never considered collaborating until recently when Lowinger saw Bulmash perform spoken word at Bonnaroo. Lowinger approached her soon afterwards with a vague plan to “drop everything and go on a crazy artistic adventure, details TBD.” Bulmash agreed and they started planning a tour of their act. In fact, Lowinger and Bulmash were so high on the dream of touring that they didn’t even have a show written when they started emailing venues to book shows for their first ever three-month tour, earlier this year.
This unbridled enthusiasm led them to bite off maybe a bit more than they could chew, booking 45 shows in 29 states over the span of three months. The chaotic pinnacle of this tour occurred in Eugene, Oregon, where a car breakdown led to ten days in the home of a ride share, a shared mental breakdown, two extreme haircuts (at a barber, but Lowinger admits she “almost pulled a Britney”), and then an impromptu show organized in a few hours that ended up being one of their tour’s best.
performing XXXmas seXXX // photo: Liza Vink
For their current tour promoting the “Same Brain” album, Bulmash and Lowinger are attempting to preclude as many breakdowns as possible by covering a quarter of the distance in two thirds of the time. For the future, they hope to smarten up about finding a niche for their unique material. Bulmash says, “We’re gonna burn ourselves out if we don’t shift gears a little bit towards…music festicals, pride festivals, things with built-in audiences. and the colleges audiences that will support us longterm…because let’s be real, who supports spoken word poets? It’s colleges.”
For now, Slam Up’s future looks bright. They’re not necessarily making a huge profit, but donations and sales of their rad t-shirts are giving them the means to do what they love: perform, make human connections through comedy and poetry, and travel across America spreading their tales of love and TMI.
If you’re sad you missed them last week at The Bun Shop, be sure to get your buns down to DC for their shows on October 26th and 27th. Full details can be found on their website, slamup.org.
