TOADSTOOL SHADOW
Toadstool Shadow is a both a music & arts collective and a conceptualist art project. The concept is that there is another realm, hidden all around us, that we can neither see nor comprehend.
Currently, Toadstool Shadow is creating an original three-part fairy tale opera about a visionary rabbit. The musical genre is psych pop, like if the Brothers Grimm time traveled to San Francisco in 1967 and started a band.
In part one, Rainbow Nights, seven-year old Bunny gladly takes shelter under a large toadstool after being caught in a rainstorm. As the rain stops, night falls. Bunny then makes his way home through the rainbow night, encountering a strange world of elves and faeries. Arriving home, amazed but exhausted, Bunny knows, like Dorothy, that there is no place like home. In 2019-2020. Toadstool Shadow performed abridged versions of Rainbow Nights twice in Yellow Springs, Ohio with a live band, actors, and stage set. The 12-song Rainbow Nights album was released on a full moon in July 2020.
In Folk Songs of the American Wood Elf, Bunny, now 19-years old, deliberately goes back under the toadstool and returns to the visionary landscape of his youth. As Bunny never knew whether his childhood experiences were real or delusions, he brings a video camera to record everything. Its songs are a taxonomy of visionary phenomena with songs about mermaids, leprechauns, unicorns, robot elves, magic carpets, and faeries. In September-October 2021, the 40-minute musical movie of Folk Songs of the American Wood Elf played in five Ohio towns and cities. The 12-song Folk Songs of the American Wood Elf soundtrack album was released on a full moon in August 2021.
Part three, Journey to Glass Mountain, is in development. Its story is a closely guarded secret.
Currently, Toadstool Shadow is creating an original three-part fairy tale opera about a visionary rabbit. The musical genre is psych pop, like if the Brothers Grimm time traveled to San Francisco in 1967 and started a band.
In part one, Rainbow Nights, seven-year old Bunny gladly takes shelter under a large toadstool after being caught in a rainstorm. As the rain stops, night falls. Bunny then makes his way home through the rainbow night, encountering a strange world of elves and faeries. Arriving home, amazed but exhausted, Bunny knows, like Dorothy, that there is no place like home. In 2019-2020. Toadstool Shadow performed abridged versions of Rainbow Nights twice in Yellow Springs, Ohio with a live band, actors, and stage set. The 12-song Rainbow Nights album was released on a full moon in July 2020.
In Folk Songs of the American Wood Elf, Bunny, now 19-years old, deliberately goes back under the toadstool and returns to the visionary landscape of his youth. As Bunny never knew whether his childhood experiences were real or delusions, he brings a video camera to record everything. Its songs are a taxonomy of visionary phenomena with songs about mermaids, leprechauns, unicorns, robot elves, magic carpets, and faeries. In September-October 2021, the 40-minute musical movie of Folk Songs of the American Wood Elf played in five Ohio towns and cities. The 12-song Folk Songs of the American Wood Elf soundtrack album was released on a full moon in August 2021.
Part three, Journey to Glass Mountain, is in development. Its story is a closely guarded secret.