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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday January 28, 2009 - 15 Artscene · WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2009 Sign up now for guitar, bass, drums, and piano OAKVILLE'S MUSIC STORE 324 Kerr St. 905-339-3515 w w w. g e a r m u s i c . n e t Peace, love and long, beautiful Hair W.E.S.T. presents groovy musical By Melanie Cummings SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER Danny Deakin made several trips to the Wikipedia website in preparing to play lead character George Berger in the iconic rock musical Hair. It's the latest production by West End Studio Theatre (W.E.S.T.) and grooves its way onto the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts stage Feb. 5-8 and Feb. 11-14. As a prelude, Deakin and some of his fellow cast mates recently gave a sample performance in front of the Green Bean Café, singing some of Hair's timeless tunes such as Let The Sunshine In and Aquarius. For the 25-year-old actor, the Vietnam War, slang terms for the bevy of drugs referenced in the script and U.S. presidents Lyndon Johnson and `Tricky Dick' Richard Nixon, sent him searching for information about a hippie era that tackled sex, war, politics, race and social restriction. On top of it all, with 52 songs to learn as well, Hair was a daunting play to memorize and rehearse, said Deakin. He took it all in stride though. "When you get a chance to do a Tony Award-winning show, why not ride on the coattails of excellence." Themes of love and equality radiate throughout the hippie counter culture story set in 1960s New York City. For Deakin, the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll part of the story is a stretch for the Oakville native, who shares the spotlight with a cast of LIESA KORTMANN / OAKVILLE BEAVER HAIR, THERE AND EVERYWHERE: The cast of W.E.S.T.'s production of Hair is busy preparing for the show's opening on Feb. 5. 23 other actors. They range in age from 16 to 55 and hail from Oakville, Burlington, Hamilton, Guelph, Mississauga, Toronto and Peterborough. After months of preparation they too mimic the tribe of Hair. "Together, we're a huge dichotomy of people who would otherwise not connect, yet still, we have become family," said Deakin. Berger sets the mood at the outset of the story, mocking the educational hierarchy from which he was expelled and the unjust conscription of his friend Claude, played by Jamie Westell. "Its messages are still relevant today, war and the muddled reasons for participating in it, the labels we slap on each other from gay to black to poor, the misinformation we get handed to us from so-called authority figures... maybe we haven't come that far," asked Westell. While the story is a charged one, with racial slurs, swearing and one nude scene, they are purposeful, not gratuitous, he stressed. The shocking language is used as a device to point out the ridiculousness of it all, he added. "Hair is in your face, bold and unapologetic, but all wrapped up in song, with humour and laughter, too," said Deakin. For tickets, call 905-815-2021. Prices are $29 for evening performances (8 p.m.) and $22 for the matinee (Feb. 8 at 2 p.m.) Daddy coming to practice voodoo By Ryan Bolton SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER They call themselves the world's best little big band and big or small, they're bringing the whole band to Oakville. The jiving septet hailing from California are known as Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and they will be performing Friday at the Oakville Centre for Performing Arts. Known for their new-age '40s swing and as flagship members of the "swing revival" in the middle and late '90s, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy is coming back to Oakville for its new tour of Cab Calloway songs. "We did a performance with them a couple of Christmases ago and we really wanted to invite them back," said Ken Coulter, theatre manager at the Oakville Centre for Performing Arts. Releasing the Christmas album Everything You Want for Christmas, BBVD came to Oakville in 2007 to show the city what a swinging Christmas really means. "Oakville is such an incredible music community between our 80-plus members in the symphony orchestra... there are lots of players in town that enjoy that kind of big band style music." Back on the road for their new tribute album, How Big Can You Get to the music of Cab Calloway, a popular American jazz singer and bandleader in the '30s and '40s, BBVD have always been influenced by Calloway's music. "Cab Calloway has been a huge influence on the band pretty much from when the band started," said Glen "The Kid" Marhevka, BBVD's trumpeter, in a phone interview from Buffalo. Although the CD won't be released until April, the band is looking to see how the fans find the new music. "We're going to be performing a bunch of stuff off of (the new CD) on this trip." See Big page 17