“Welcome to the Bitter End,” a smooth voice quelled the gathering crowd as Thesaurus Rex’s Calvin Rezen looked up into the vast night sky and whispered an awe-inspired, “...God?” Laugh all you want, for laughter is a game that imitates life. Paul Rizzo may as well be God, and the Bitter End may as well be heaven. Or, to quote the wise Varun Jhunjhunwalla during our pre-show interview: “Is anyone real?” An ode to virtuosity and humility and philosophy over three nights and ten acts, consider the Winter Rexidency a mastering of collaboration, absurdism, and experimentation, presented by the some of the most talented music cats I’ve ever had the pleasure of interviewing:
Oh shit, wrong picture… wow, I can’t believe they let me keep that one on the record.
That’s more like it.
I enjoyed watching Varun Jhunjhunwalla, Dan MacDonald, and Calvin Rezen house a bag of Taco Bell almost as much as I enjoyed watching them perform. Calvin assured me I could partake in the feast despite my vegetarianism, since “There’s technically no meat in these at all.” He grinned, and Varun and Dan laughed along with me. Oh, the fun we have, thinking about the horrific concoctions we fuel our bodies with every day. But this is the exact sort of dark irony that Thesaurus Rex thrives upon.
They are on a roll, hot off of recording their new album, Mr. Certainty and the Shadows of Doubt. “We found this new workflow,” Varun told me, “which has been pretty sick, where we’re way less precious about it, kind of just get in the room, do as much live as possible… Which is why we’ve been having so many band meetings, is we’re gonna try to stick to the old school approach. And I think as a result of that it’s so quick.” It was more observational than cocky coming from Varun as producer with an impressive repertoire. “With a couple more band meetings, we could pop out another album in like 2 weeks”.
The Winter Rexidency was a puzzle and an opportunity to capitalize on that momentum, what Calvin calls “a late night workshop.” Running from 11:00pm to 2:00am every Friday evening during a historic arctic chill, the challenge of balancing attendance and creativity lingered. “How do we do it so that the people who are overlapping from the show before us have a reason to stay?” Calvin thought it through, “But at the same time, we want a nice break and to have our friends come play.” Yet as the frost bit down on our Friday nights, the crowds grew in size and enthusiasm, up to a sold out final performance. “I’m actually happy that we’ve had as many people stay as we have… It’s 1:30 in the morning and people are just down to clown.”
This variety show philosophy guided the shape of the Winter Rexidency. Act I: The Greatest Hits. Act II: The Blue Comic–often coming with surprises in store. Act III: The Singer-Songwriters. Act IV: Your Favorite Band’s Favorite Bands. Act V: The Old and the New.
Act I: The Greatest Hits
The show begins with some Thesaurus Rex classics that everyone loves, introducing the crowd to the rag-tag group of guys. Anyone who knows me knows I’ve been raving about my adoration for Thesaurus Rex, and specifically Varun Jhunjhunwalla, for months now. I have a personal preference for melodic complexity that is sometimes lacking from indie rock acts by nature of the genre, and the first time I saw Varun play at Elsewhere scratched an itch I didn’t know I had. Calvin calls him “a true music cat,” and he smiles at the compliment as he shuffles his handwarmers back and forth.
While Calvin makes Varun (and everyone else) laugh with a witty turn-of-phrase, Varun tells jokes with a guitar—dramaticising the mundanities of deft skill, or as Varun puts it, “using the power of shred as kind of a joke.” A live performance is where Varun truly shines, cradling his guitar like a baby, stretching and supporting with expert hands, throwing down a truly sanctimonious riff, and capping it all off with a cheesy smile like it was no big deal and anyone could have done it, like it was the most obvious thing in the world if you could just catch it from the right angle. This is why you’ll occasionally catch me laughing out loud after a particularly good guitar solo; Varun performs a clever caricature of a rock star, but he actually has the musical chops to back it up. Covering the Rexidency was just a very clever excuse to watch Varun Jhunjhunwalla play for as many hours as possible.
The set list is another avenue for humor, and Calvin points to Varun for that. When I asked about a personal favorite of mine that hadn’t been played yet, “It’s Getting Late So Early These Days,” Calvin told me that Varun felt very strongly that they should only play that song from September and December, “when it’s literally getting late so early these days.” Varun jumped in, “Yeah like pre-solstice… otherwise it’s not funny, you’re looking outside and it’s 8pm and it’s sunny. Or Christmas Isn’t Coming… it’s like yeah, it was last month, what are you talking about.” I mean, duh. You aren’t leveraging the solar cycles to make the bit funnier?
I fell more and more in love with Dan MacDonald every time I watched him play. He’s got a relentless energy that never drops, driving everything forward one way or another. It’s all slamming fists and flying arms and kill shakes, making it nearly impossible to photograph; on my camera the sticks appear invisible. “Oh, that’s actually not a camera problem,” Calvin interjected, and Dan cracked a smile. “Yeah they’ve been testing this at MIT and they can’t actually capture my drumsticks,” Dan explained. Varun jumped in, “They’re invisible sticks, we’re actually playing with tracks.”
“Sometimes I lose my sticks, and then I might not even be holding one,” Dan quipped, but that’s actually not quite a joke. I’ve seen at least one smashed up stick on stage during the Rexidency alone. I almost asked if I could have it as a keepsake. When he’s not obliterating sticks, Dan is providing valuable support pantomiming Maddie’s Doordash dinner or the horse that ran her over. A dramatic hair flip here and a goofy smile there. “My whole thing is I need to either play drums really hard and smash and break sticks and just do all this shit”,,Dan started, “or dance along to the song. smile and have fun. And if I’m not having fun, I’m gonna play like shit.” Dan’s strength as a performer lives in the contrast between his frantic drumming and his goofy pantomimes. I almost can’t believe it’s the same person.
I could go on about vocal range and breath support and refreshingly clear diction, but what truly sets him apart is his writing… and I can’t lie, it’s intimidating writing for another writer, especially one as talented as Calvin Rezen. It normally doesn’t occur to me that an artist wouldn’t like the particular portrait I’ve painted of them, but as I’m writing this, I’m striving to be clever enough to make him laugh or smile.
Herein we arrive at the true allure of Calvin as a frontman: he makes his audience feel so smart when we capture a joke he’s dropped, like clever little raptors. But after spending an hour with him, I’m left wondering how many jokes I’ve missed. He’s running intellectual circles around me, cracking me and his bandmates up, pulling out spoken-word poetry on command just for the mental exercise. Never sanctimonious, he offers this selection of goods with an outstretched hand, waiting to pull you up among the clouds with him.
Calvin is often described as witty or clever by his greatest fans and worst enemies, but he’s more than that. He’s dramatic and visceral and expressive and obviously very very humble. If all the world’s a stage, Calvin’s always playing for laughs. And he’s winning.
Act II: The Blue Comic
After Act I cabaret truly began (willkommen!) Siide Quest arrived from another dimension, and I was enraptured even before they pulled out the 3.5 DND Monster Manual, bookmarked to the page for “Harpy” while he played a song about his sexual awakening caused by the creature. Damn, I love show and tell. I’m no stranger to DND-inspired musical content, but Siide Quest is unique in their command of the authentic awkwardness of roleplaying. It’s all the stronger because they lean into it rather than attempting to conform a fundamentally un-cool art form to a societal acceptable version of coolness. Siide Quest occupies the space between sincerity and satire in their cape and wizard hat.
It’s hard to top a horny bardcore show-and-tell, but Thesaurus Rex really raised the stakes on Night Two when they introduced the one and only Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. His skin was looking surprisingly tight for a man who has been dead for at least two years. I’m hoping he drops his skincare routine in the comments. After leading the crowd in a chant to save the iguanas, it wasn’t long before lavish petticoats and weighty tassels were shed as the scantily clad Mozart educated us in the fine art of ~harmonic sophistication~. Emma Magnus of The Fricks returned on Night Three with Courtney Campbell as Kit and Caboodle. With an orgasm-evoking voice like Judy Garland, it’s no wonder Kit was able to charm Caboodle the Reluctant Clown. The wedding was beautiful. You should have been there.
Act III: The Singer-Songwriters
The singer songwriters were a grounding and stablizing presence after whichever chaotic comic (clothed or unclothed) came before them. Short and sincere, simple and sweet, the singer-songwriters were a touch of springtime on the coldest winter nights. No one is more grounding than the King of Central Park himself, Jules Avalon, a fellow busker with Varun, who kicked off the acoustic spot on Night One. I could see flowers blooming from the ground at his feet from the first strum of his guitar, playing warm simple ballads about the mountains or his beloved dog.
On night two, Jesse Leor showered us with breathy vocals and percussive acoustic guitar, like a slightly psychedelic Howie Day. Jesse’s comforting 60s pop aesthetic shines particularly brightly during an acoustic set. Raw and emotional, Jesse wove timeless melodies on a timeless stage. Rounding out the Rexidency on night three was Shevya Awasthi, an Indian pop linguist effortlessly blending Hindi and English with a voice as smooth as silk and a smoulder that owned a stage. She was more of a simmering act for the audience, a concentrated pinpoint of power and intensity you couldn’t take your eyes off. To photograph Shevya was to bow before the new Queen of Desi Pop.
Act IV: Your Favorite Band’s Favorite Bands
After a grounding singer-songwriter set, Act IV bands work to raise the energy back up from a simmer to a rolling boil, and no one is as hot as Ok, Tyler (according to Calvin and also anyone with eyes). It’s got heavy moments dripping with depth and big genuine smiles, covering sincere New York moments like Crying in the West Village.
Luke McCrosson, featuring as bassist for Thesaurus Rex during the Rexidency, also plays with Ok, Tyler. “And also… I don’t know how many other bands”, he laughed. An adept bassist adapting to the unique stylings of each band without sacrificing his own artistic throughlines, Luke is jazzy, he’s funky, and he’s having so much god damn fun up there. He’s relaxed and skillful, like when you watch a surfer catch a particularly good wave. For some reason I wanna hang ten with him.
Luke learned Thesaurus Rex’s whole discography–two whole albums–in two weeks. “Well, technically all but two songs off the first album,” he clarified with a breezy smile, as if that somehow made it less impressive. “These are just great songs,” he answered, “It’s a great bassline… that makes it easier.” Luke and Thesaurus Rex both couldn’t speak highly enough of the person who wrote those basslines, Eden Ray Marsh, who they called a prodigy.
On Night Two, Luke caught a break when Varun stepped up to play the bass for Boys Go To Jupiter. This isn’t unusual for the two groups, according to Calvin. “They’re always on our stage