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April 2008. Portland Tribune
Artist finds safety hidden in memories, by Eric Bartels
Rocker and performance artist Sally Tomato is reluctant to reveal her real name, her age or too much about where she came from beyond admitting that she grew up in a small Oregon town.
But she dug deep for the raw material behind the multimedia rock opera that premieres this weekend.
“Toy Room,” named for the place where the young Tomato would find peace as the last of six children, also is the name of the CD recently released by her band, which also goes by Sally Tomato.
The music is the work of guitarist Carlos Severe Marcelin, but the stories are pure Tomato: her difficult childhood, an abusive husband, a period of dangerous debauchery.
“The hardest part was dragging the story out of Sally because a lot of this stuff was difficult to come to terms with,” Marcelin says. “It was a victory for her.”
Friends told the band the tale needed to be told in a theatrical way, and a rock opera was born.
“We talked about it as a band and said, ‘Yeah, that sounds great,’ ” Marcelin says.
In five performances, actors will portray Sally in various stages of her life while images are projected on video screens and the band calls on musical styles ranging from blues to punk to electronica.
Marcelin, 35, admits the narrative is conventional enough: lost innocence followed by poor choices and then a redemptive return to authenticity.
“It has a lot of classic symbolism,” he says. “The fact that it delivers a solution and a message at the end makes it worthy of being told.”
“There is a message,” Tomato says. “What we’re trying to tell people is when you’re in an unfamiliar place in your life that isn’t comfortable, go back in your imagination and remember who you are.
“I learned to make the best of any situation. I never feel like I had a bad life. Other people told me I did.”
While the band didn’t set out to make a rock opera, Marcelin is confident in the product. The Florida native studied classical composition and theory in college, but also has been in rock bands since he was 12.
“It’s a risky genre, but we’re doing it because we need to,” he says. “I’m amazed at how cohesive and powerful it is. It’s hard to be objective, but I cry when I listen to it.”
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