Kenzi Everitt
Audio By Carbonatix
True to its name, Fox Drickey’s immersive multimedia show, Metamorphosis, continues to evolve.
“It knows itself so much better than it did the first time around,” she says of the performance. “I wrap it up in a bow, where maybe it was a little bit more open-ended the first time around.”
Her first performance of Metamorphosis quickly sold out its April show at the Enigma Bazaar. She’s bringing a tweaked and modified version of it to the Mercury Cafe on Friday, October 28.
Metamorphosis has roots in the turmoil Fox was experiencing a few years back, a time of creative and personal uncertainty. She has emerged triumphant, changed her name from Kris to Fox, contemplated the concept of gender identity and what it means to her, fasted, traveled to Peru, and toured with her band, now known as King Bee. She’s moving on to a new chapter of her life, and a new version of Metamorphosis. But she’s grateful for the struggle that led her to artistic fulfillment.
“I feel like I’ve really come to completion with that era of time,” she reflects. “I feel less like I’m living in this apocalyptic landscape and more like there’s a new garden that’s growing. … I feel like I have endless creative energy.”
In her writing, Fox describes the show as “an extraordinary culmination and expression” of what she terms her “metaphysical death experience.” It’s a “venture into another world, a rolling avalanche of chaos that led to loss of identity and extreme dysphoria, followed by a creative explosion, soul retrieval and return home.”
The multimedia piece incorporates two songs from Fox’s State Change EP released in 2021 under her former name, Kris Drickey. She considers it a catchy alien love child of Joanna Newsom, Joni Mitchell and Bjork. She’s also including new songs in the Friday show.
“I’m getting ready to record an album in December,” she says. “The rest of the songs are new songs that are not recorded yet, from an album called Amethyst Heart.”
The show is also the fifth chapter of her short story The Tugboat vs. the Tidal Wave. The story, which appeared on Fox’s own Honeycomb Liminal Radio podcast, concerns an ensouled tugboat pitted against a sentient tidal wave. She also continues to tweak the podcast in a quest to perfect it and impart it with more longevity. Anyone who attends the performance is encouraged to listen to the podcast ahead of time to absorb the rest of the story.
“We pulled the series off the internet, and we edited it and kind of redid the intros,” she says. “We had done everything super on the fly back in March, when it was just like erupting from me as fast as we could possibly put it together.”
The show also includes a Greek theater-evoking “Rainbow Chorus” to help propel the narrative, and the audience will be able to play games before the show in an effort to break down the barrier between spectator and performer. Fox’s backing band includes members of The Whimsy of Things, Ghost Tapes, Other Black, Dragondeer, Covenhoven and Chimney Choir, the last of which Fox was a founding member. The backing band was once called Fox and the Babes, and has morphed into King Bee.
“That’s been the name the whole time,” she explains. “We’ve just been waiting for it to arrive, and how perfect we have this second Metamorphosis show in which to announce it and just lean into it.”
The show coincides with Halloween, Dia de los Muertos and Samhain, the Celtic harvest festival in which pagans believe the veil between this world and the afterlife is at its most thin, so they are turning what’s already a spectacle into a full-blown costume party. She has a vision for the performers that centers around a rainforest.
“I’m going to be this Golden Sun character,” she says. “The band will be of the plant kingdom, and the rainbows are going to be the animal kingdom. We are all infusing the preshow games and ritual with rainforest magic.”
She sees “Metamorphosis” as a bit different than, say, a band working out its songs in a live setting before settling down in a studio to record. It’s more like creating a world that unfolds in a variety of media.
“This project has so many dimensions,” she says. “The storytelling and the music and the performance are all informing each other.”
As to whether this is the final version of Metamorphosis, Fox isn’t sure. She wants to be seen by more than just a couple of audiences. The plan is to make high-quality recordings of it and apply for grants, so that it might be taken out on the road in the future. She and her collaborators will continue to edit and adapt it based on what’s happening in the world, to keep it from growing stale. The podcast also has another season planned.
“We would love to share it more times,” she says. “It really is such a fully formed entity and very intricate. It’s fun to have a podcast story that winds up in a show, and just the interactive element of it. It feels like really good medicine for people.”
“Metamorphosis” with King Bee, The Milk Blossoms (duo) and postshow dance party with DJ Reed Fox, Mercury Cafe, 2199 California Street, Friday, October 28, 7 p.m., Tickets are $28.