When David Bowie kills someone to your song, rock immortality is pretty much a given. Now David J of Bauhaus, whose "Bella Lugosi's Dead" scored the goth shriek opening of "The Hunger," turns his sights on another member of the undead in "Silver For Gold (The Odyssey of Edie Sedgwick)."

A stripped-down Met Theatre main stage becomes a Chelsea Hotel room in Purgatory, where Edie (Monique Jenkinson) recounts her journey from sheltered Santa Barbara princess to anorexic icon, as a mythical equine being (Steven Oliver Price) guides her to transcendence. On platforms above them, the Silver for Gold band, featuring David J and three others, plays a sequence of Edie-inspired songs with titles like "Chain Smoking the Memories: and "O.D. Royale."

This is a concept album as theater event, merging David J's melancholy erotics with a visual sensibility drawn from Jean Cocteau and the tatty glamour of the Factory.

"Silver for Gold " begins and ends with two of the more striking images I've seen on an L.A. stage.

If David J can leverage some major talent to this project, he could become the next guitar hero to cross over to theater.

Charlotte Stroudt
LA Times