Melissa Ferrick on Concert Window

I just enjoyed such a nice Sunday evening treat right in my living room: Melissa Ferrick on Concert Window.

This was the second time I watched something on there (from Moisture Fest) and I think it's a great way to experience music, casual but totally excellent.

I only discovered Melissa Ferrick the other week, when she opened for Joan Armatrading. I'm totally hooked on her lovely music. Emotionally eloquent, sweet, sad, and uplifting all at once..

Tonight she was great -- every song she sang was fabulous (I think my favorite was "Wreck Me"), and when I finish this post I'll be downloading even more of her albums!

DK and the Joy Machine CD: Shy One

The new CD by DK and the Joy Machine is so good! The songs on Shy One cover a range of styles, all sung by Dian Killian (DK). Some of the lovelier ones are more bare and wistful while others are more lively and have a fuller sound with back up musicians. Some standout tracks are "June Apple"; "Four Walls"; "Salty South"; and the instrumental "Devil's Dance."

I don't usually post about albums, but Shy One is so good I couldn't resist!

Rise in the Fall

The poems in Ana Bozicevic's collection, Rise in the Fall, are stupendously, achingly beautiful. They carry a range of emotional content, poetic sensibilities, and intellectual subjectivities -- there is so much there, yet the lyric voice has an identity, or integrity, throughout. It holds as a whole in a way that is itself holding. That is, these poems may be provocative at times, they may contain confrontational or biting moments, but there is a presence throughout that never quite releases the reader from the loveliness of its poetic embrace.

My copy of Rise in the Fall is now marked up with so many underlinings of the gorgeous language -- I couldn't keep my pen away from the phrasing and beautiful moments.

Such as:

"On the Christmas of my death when
I swam by myself in the peeling
blue of the pool, and
the pines addressed me, saying:
take me to the riot"

or:

"I'll stand here and look at you
and invent nothing"

and:

"I thought I was supposed to be
Well-oiled. I though there's something
In toothpaste that wakes us up."

and:

"Oh I'm too tired to worship at your kittenish emptiness."

These excerpts to not quite capture the power of the poems in their entirety, all of which burst with energy, imagery, masterful language.

This collection is illustrated, hauntingly, by Bianca Stone. These images add an otherworldy virility to the text.

Joan Armatrading at the Concert Hall

Wow, such an amazing concert tonight. Epic greatness. Joan Armatrading was deep and gorgeous and electrifying and intense and beautiful. I am so glad I got a chance to see this concert. I have loved her music since the 80s and it is so familiar to me. I was pleased that she performed many of my favorites (her Love and Affection, The Weakness in Me, Willow, etc. all brought tears to my eyes). I was roused by Drop the Pilot. I also very much enjoyed and was enthralled by the songs that were less familiar to me. The crowd was totally in love with her and went crazy at numerous moments. I had such a great time, I wish I could go back and hear her perform again!

She did do an unusual thing, where she stopped the concert to go over a slide show showcasing her career from the early 70s up to the present. I didn't mind it all, but would have preferred the time spent singing more songs instead. Also, where we were sitting on the far left, the sound was slightly distorted.

Opening was Melissa Ferrick, who was great, and whose albums I am downloading STAT.

Margaret & Dusty

Oh, the poems in Alice Notley's Margaret & Dusty have such a bitter-sweet sting. There is the intelligent playfulness of the language, and softly lurking themes of death and loss, combined with a fresh ingenuity of perspective... This a truly beautiful collection, truly lovely. A gift.

Here is an excerpt from the poem "In Ancient December", this is the last stanza:










Can you worship loss? I can't remember it. I forgot to
sing it off from happening I had to arrange the flowers,
thousands everywhere, & thinly & it being purple I forgot
to see it ten thousand times. She forgot to. She
forgot to too. She would have forgotten anyway. She
didn't forget at any rate, she didn't anything. I didn't
either. I woke up I woke up again & I can't remember I
guess that's just it, but I didn't forget to sing this
time, but I forget what I'm singing. What am I singing?
Singing singing? What am I singing?

Alice Notley at the Poetry Project

Tonight I attended a wonderful reading given by Alice Notley at The Poetry Project. She read new poems from a series soon-to-be-published that were so gorgeous. She does amazing things with voice and character. These poems were in dialogue with each other, but each stood on its own as a kind of soliloquy. Lovely, stunning work, with dark undertones, and crispy edges.

I wanted to go home and read this work myself, but of course it isn't available yet. Instead I purchased a very different volume, Margaret and Dusty, which I just started and so adore.

Alice Notley is an intriguing and complex writer whose previous work I will always want to revisit and whose new work I will always desperately anticipate.

Supermensch

The other night I watched Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon. It told the interesting story of a very well-connected entertainment manager. Gordon started off in the 60s and rose to prominence through representing Alice Cooper. He resorted to lots of pranks and stunts to get publicity for his clients, and his instincts were often spot on.

Supermensch is full of celebrity talking heads speaking about what a great guy he is, and I came away liking him. I guess I would have liked more social context, more about the history of the music industry. But it was pretty good.