This is an MP3 of the sound out our window just after 11 PM when CNN called the election for Obama. There was no crowd in the street, no rally, just the sound of people yelling from their apartments on an average New York City street.
Voting
The TV news is carrying stories about poll problems in some locations around New York City, but voting was pretty well organized and non-problematic this morning for us. We had to wait about 40 minutes. One celebrity sighting at the polls: Tim Robbins.
Update: Gothamist explains why Tim Robbins was sitting in a folding chair looking annoyed.
Theater Review (NYC): Oh, Whistle…: Two Ghost Stories by M R James
Starting this year, I'm adopting my Left Coast colleague Bob Machray's tradition of attending a Halloween-themed performance every Samhain season. I'm happy to report that my new custom has begun robustly, with a delightfully diverting evening spent in the company of Mr. R M Lloyd Parry. A marvelous reader and actor, this gentleman simply sits in a chair, surrounded by the leathery accoutrements of a bookish professor's study, and tells us two spooky supernatural tales by M R James, the great writer of English ghost stories.
Professor James, who lived from 1862 to 1936, was a master of English prose. His sentences weave patterns both elegant and forceful, often taking unexpected turns into obscure, frightening, or funny corners of the supernatural and the psychological. Listening to Mr. Parry read "The Ash Tree" and "Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad" brought me back to my first, youthful plunge into Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles." It also brought to mind the dark imagination of Edgar Allan Poe, although Poe's American characters are far more rough-and-ready than James's tweedy dons and landed gentry.
Parry starts with an avuncular mien but can also grow spectral before our very eyes, especially with the stage lit only by a few candles. (A tiny bit of stage lighting would have illuminated his face a little more without spoiling the effect.) He makes it easy to suspend your disbelief and tap into your childish sense of wonder. The technique and staging – a solo performer who both narrates and brings multiple characters to life in order to tell a taut but wild story – also recalls Patrick Stewart's wonderful solo performances of A Christmas Carol.
When Patrick Stewart brings a show to America, of course, it's bound for a Broadway stage. Oh, Whistle is being performed in the 30-seat black-box space at the 78th Street Theatre Lab. And the theater was not full. There are four more performances of this award-winning show (it won The Dracula Society's Hamilton Deane Award for best dramatic presentation in the Gothic genre, no less). Nov. 5th through the 8th are your last chances.
Go, fill up this tiny place, and make some noise while ye may. Soon enough the spookiness of the Halloween season will be gone, and in its place the sugary and far less evocative homeyness of Thanksgiving. Don't let Thanksgiving happen to you! Not, anyway, without first immersing yourself in the spooky mind of M R James, the master of the English ghost story.
Oh, Whistle…: Two Ghost Stories by M R James is directed and performed by R M Lloyd Parry. The final four performances run from Nov. 5-8 at 7:30 PM. On Nov. 7 there is an additional 10 PM performance of two different stories. Purchase tickets online or call 212-362-0329. Visit the Nunkie Theatre Company's website for more information on Mr. Parry's performances.
Burning the Future: Seeing the Lights Go Off On Broadway
The powerful new documentary Burning the Future: Coal in America explains how critical coal power is to the US economy and to Americans’ energy-greedy way of life. It also focuses on the terrible effects modern mining has on the lives of people who live in Appalachian coal country. Specifically, the film documents the contamination of the water supply and its effects on human health. It also condemns mountaintop removal mining in no uncertain terms.
This modern form of coal extraction relies on heavy explosives to get the coal from the tops of mountains, rather than using large numbers of miners to burrow underground for it. There are some who defend mountaintop mining, but a quick glance at a few photos is enough to convince many that the practice should be outlawed.
The economics and science of coal and coal mining are complex, but in terms of cost to the environment it’s safe to say that coal is a dirty source of energy. Most environmentalists believe the US should wean itself off coal.
However, the film raises another, related issue. One certainly sympathizes with people whose lands and water are being polluted, whose children are being sickened, by nearby coal mining operations. But enjoying a modern, comfortable way of life while living in relatively remote areas just might not be sustainable in the first place.
Two scenes in the film brought this home to me. Both occur on a trip to New York City taken by several courageous West Virginia environmental activists who have been invited to testify before a UN commission.
The final leg of the activists’ journey takes place via New Jersey Transit. Sitting on the train, one of them observes that she’s never been on a train before. To someone who grew up in the northeast, that’s almost unbelievable. Never been on a train? Not an Amtrak, a commuter train, a subway train? Never once?
But where she comes from, you have to get everywhere by car. Simple as that. Purchasing a car can be expensive, especially if you need a good one to get you around to all the places you have to go to in a day. However, purchasing second-hand cars from companies like autozin for example, can do the same job as a brand new car, for less money. If you’re driving around everywhere, you’ll want a reliable car.
The second scene occurs when the leader of the activists, the admirable Maria Gunnoe, stands in Times Square, looks up at the huge, brightly lit advertisements looming everywhere, and cries out for New York to turn out these lights. Don’t New Yorkers know that their incessant demand for energy is ruining the land elsewhere in the country?
It’s a powerful moment. One could, of course, point out that the bright lights of Times Square are one of New York’s biggest tourist attractions, and the city depends heavily on the tourist trade. But one can understand Gunnoe’s reaction, and one feels in one’s bones that she’s – at least a little – right.
No, the bigger point the scene raises is that, however much energy might be “wasted” keeping Times Square “Times Square,” city residents have smaller carbon footprints than people who live on houses with land.
People who live in houses need cars, every day. They have more rooms to heat and cool than city dwellers do. They might have the proverbial white picket fence, but inside their fences suburbanites waste huge amounts of water keeping their lawns artificially green. People who live in the suburbs or the sticks get none of the economies of scale that come with apartment living. And that was all fine when populations were smaller, gas was cheap, and the effects of our material prosperity on the planet were less well understood. I don’t think it’s fine any more.
In the film, one of the West Virginians worries that by the time his kids grow up, pollution may have made it impossible for them to continue living where they were brought up. I hope they can, he says.
From a family standpoint, that’s sad. But in a way, I hope they can’t. I’m certainly not cheering on the pollution, the destructive mining, or the continued dependence on dirty energy. Unless mining and burning coal can be made truly clean, phase it out, for the sake of the planet. But also for the sake of the planet, those country kids should move to a city. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb: by the year 2040, unless your business is farming, your family ought to be living in a city.
By then, I hope it’ll be really, really hard to find an American who’s never been on a train.
Music Review: Indie Round-Up – Laura Vecchione, Red Wanting Blue, and More
Laura Vecchione, Girl in the Band
Laura Vecchione’s second disc is a consummately crafted and craftily written set of tunes that straddle the borders between commercial country, country-rock, and alt/Americana. My colleague Michael Bialas detailed Laura’s devotion to and work on behalf of post-Katrina New Orleans. Notably, on this CD, she covers the traditional “Indian Red” a capella and flows it into her own “Fly Home Flag Boy.” “Magnolia” too evokes the “Crescent City moon” and “wrought iron lace and Spanish roofs.” It’s the same moon, of course, that shines over her Boston and New York City roots in “This Town” and the pillowy but catchy title track. My favorite, though, might just be the sneaky “Don’t Come Creepin’.”
Laura tried out some different styles on her previous disc; here she stretches a bit in her nicely subtle rendition of the Etta James ballad “A Lover is Forever,” while the closing number, the beautiful original “Stone By Stone,” also has a bluesy-jazz tilt to its folky bedrock.
If you haven’t met Laura Vecchione, this is a great place to start. Links to listen and purchase are at her website.
G Tom Mac, Though Shalt Not Fall
G Tom Mac is the strange moniker for the pairing of Gerard McMann, known for the goth track “Cry Little Sister” from the film The Lost Boys, and collaborator/producer Tony Silver. Perhaps because the duo has concentrated on creating music for TV and movies, there’s a variety of moods on their new disc, but a strong thread is their appealing fusion of industrial sounds with a skilled songwriter’s feel for pop music, along with a bit of gothic bite. A good listen altogether.
The Simple Things, The Simple Things
I’m glad I didn’t read The Simple Things’ press kit before listening to their music. “Imagine McCoy Tyner, Rickie Lee Jones, and James Jamerson coming together…” Sure, imagine those people…and then think about their opposites, and you might get something like The Simple Things. What we have here is a collection of spacious chamber pieces, feather-light yet highly focused. Singer Kaitlin McGaw alternates between a controlled wail (“Eyes For Me”) and an affectless Liz Phair delivery (“The Moon Is Torn”), both effective in their own ways. The music behind her is subtle piano and organ from Michael Gallant and tasteful, precise electric bass from Raymond Ruiz, who has a penchant for bass chords. The result is a very modern but accessible sound, contemplative and easeful but rewarding careful listening as well.
The Art of Walking, The Art of Walking
This music is so unobtrusive it’s hard to find something to say about it, other than simply that I liked it. One could safely say that Brian Malvey, who is The Art of Walking, makes excellent use of the studio in creating settings for his appealingly reticent songs with their often winning melodies. But that doesn’t tell you what they sound like. Let’s leave it at this: somewhere between Death Cab for Cutie and Sufjan Stevens, you’ll perhaps find The Art of Walking, treading on soft feet.
Red Wanting Blue, These Magnificent Miles
Listen to the first couple of bars of “Gravity,” the opening song of Red Wanting Blue’s eighth (yes, eighth) album, and if you were new to the band you’d be tempted to say, “Oh, no – another Pearl Jam clone – didn’t that go out of style around the turn of the century?” You’d soon be proven wrong, though – Scott Terry’s throaty baritone turns out to be its own thing, and so is this band’s music.
Based in Athens, Ohio, the group certainly has the earnest heartland-rock sensibility that you can’t avoid when you traipse through the Midwest. (“The road’s paved the same way for sinners and saints.”) But they vary the moods well. Try to resist the elemental rock of “New Cool.” And with solid songwriting, superior musicianship, and their own slant on the basics of rock, they carve out their own niche, with crashing symbols and ringing guitars framing catchy tunes and socially conscious lyrics.
A final note: if you decide to pick up this album, consider spending the extra few bucks for the physical CD. It’s one of the more impressive artistic packages you’ll find on an indie release.
DVD Review: Sunshine Superman: The Journey of Donovan
The story of Donovan's life is a fascinating journey through a period in pop music that continues to shape the creative lives of several generations. A new video biography by Hannes Rossacher makes a good case for Donovan as a kind of nexus for many of the musical and musico-social strains that began to mingle in the 1950s and touched off the most resonant and lasting explosion of popular music in our history – that of "the 60s."
Sunshine Superman: The Journey of Donovan is an unusual biopic in that the subject himself narrates the whole way, onscreen in a series of interviews in which the interviewer is unseen and unheard. As he takes us through his life from his childhood in postwar Glasgow through the present day, it becomes clear that Donovan has a healthy opinion of himself, his work, and his influence. But whatever his true or deserved place in the pantheon of rock godhood, this film demonstrates that he was certainly centrally located.
Along with the well-known facts and high points of Donovan's career – his hit singles, his bizarre encounter with Bob Dylan in the film Don't Look Back, his collaboration with the Beatles and famous trip to India with them to visit the Maharishi, and so on – there are also amusing tales, like getting squirted with a water gun by Keith Moon and Roger Daltry while trying to perform on a TV show. There are also numerous interesting clips of promotional videos, films in which Donovan appeared, and TV appearances ranging from Pete Seeger's show in 1966 to Later…with Jools Holland three decades later. There are concert and festival clips, culminating with a 2008 all-star jam on "Season of the Witch" at New York's Cutting Room, interviews with his wife and others, a brief account of his attempt to avoid taxes by "never living anywhere," a visit to his luthier in California, and more.
And the wardrobe… just seeing the extravagant hippie-wear Donovan used to don for his concerts and videos is nearly worth the price of admission.
Disc 1 is the three-hour documentary itself. The latter part is decidedly less interesting than the earlier sections, but it's hard to imagine how this could have been avoided, considering when the high points of Donovan's career occurred. (Halfway through the film, it's still 1968.) It's in those earlier sections that Rossacher, aided mightily by Donovan himself, makes the case for the artist's central significance. As he worked on his early hits – produced with legendary producer Micky Most – Donovan collaborated with many legends and legends-to-be. Backing him up on the famous recording of "Hurdy Gurdy Man" are Jimmie Page, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones, soon to become three quarters of Led Zeppelin. Elsewhere we see him befriending Brian Jones. There's Donovan in India, teaching the Beatles finger-style guitar. Here he is recording his later hit "Barabajagal" with Jeff Beck's band backing him up.
A brief montage of famous films that have prominently featured Donovan's songs attests to his continuing significance for creators and audiences today. (The most recent major example is the use of "Hurdy Gurdy Man" in the film Zodiac.) More obscure are the clips found on Disc 2, which, like the film, will be of interest to Donovan fans, completists, and students of the 60s.
Sound and video quality are excellent, even on the old clips. Latter-day Donovan remains hale and hearty. His stage style is winning, but, lifted out of the feel-good flower-power milieu that spawned his biggest hits, a little short of mesmerizing, so don't expect to be blown away by awesome live performances. But Disc 2 is packed with extras – not just videos and concert clips and TV appearances, but extended versions of some of the film's sequences, private moments, a family photo album, and, most valuable, several really nice unreleased songs in video form.
You get a lot of bang for your buck with this two-disc set. It provides a close look at Donovan's life, music, and, maybe even more interesting, his times. I recommend it highly not just for Donovan fans but for all fans of 60s music and anyone interested in the period.
Theater Review (NYC): The Pumpkin Pie Show
I wanted to see The Pumpkin Pie Show because it's the long-running product of the fevered brain of Clay McLeod Chapman, who wrote the script of the remarkable musical Hostage Song. While the two shows couldn't be much more different in mood and presentation, both dig for the gory innards of the human soul.
Hostage Song was a drama with rock music about two Western hostages in Iraq crawling towards a twisted kind of redemption, blindfolded the entire time. Pumpkin Pie is a series of stories written by Chapman and performed by Hanna Cheek (who was so good in Hostage Song) and Chapman himself. Stories are what they are called, and although they are for the most part monologues, stories is perhaps the best word. Each of the tales marries the narrative movement of a short story with the distinct first-person voice of a dramatic monologue.
At each show the two actors perform a different half dozen or so out of a total of fourteen stories they've honed over the past ten years. At the outset, actors and audience don't know which we're going to get, so each show is different. But the tales (at least the six I saw) have in common a strong element of the macabre, and usually a good dose of humor too.
The cast, Cheek especially, are good at transforming themselves into a variety of twisted characters – an overly attached mom, a drunk bridesmaid, a creepy guy who lives under a pier – and the unrelatedness of the tales gives the evening something of the air of an exercise session. But the tales cast their spells effectively, plunging the audience into Chapman's often disturbing, sometimes sickening, and occasionally touching theme park of weirdness. We overuse the roller coaster analogy – for adventure movies and the like – but The Pumpkin Pie Show really is like a thrill ride, full of creepy delights, alternately tickling your brain and turning your stomach. You must be this tall to enter.
Thursdays through Saturdays through Nov. 1 at Under St. Marks, 94 St. Marks Place, NYC, with a special expanded performance on Halloween night. Get tickets online or call 212-868-4444.
MuchAdo About WhisperAdo
The long-awaited new CD from Whisperado has begun stirring towards existence. Meaning, we’ve started recording basic tracks, up at Scott Miller’s studio in the wilds of New Jersey. Your favorite songs from our shows will be on the new disc… and meanwhile, of course, you can still buy a copy of our first EP, Some Other Place. Get it at iTunes in the form of high quality MP3s, at Cruxy if you want to download actual WAVs (plus PDFs of the CD artwork), or for a physical copy, we recommend CD Baby. Your purchase will help fund the new disc. Onward!
Theater Review (NYC): To Barcelona! by Michael Niederman
It's 1937. Three idealistic New York City workers (and card-carrying Communists) have traveled to the French-Spanish border. They're about to cross into Spain to join up with the government in its doomed struggle against Franco's fascist revolution.
Michael Niederman has written this new play rather like an old-fashioned melodrama. Emotionally charged, suspenseful, and tackling big issues, its style and structure are well suited to the subject. Indeed, Niederman sets the tone with a lengthy story by the excitable Albert (Gregory Lay) about an inspiring performance he attended of a play by Clifford Odets. Yet at first we think we're hearing about a union meeting; only as Albert's description unfolds do we realize he's been under the spell of the theater. This effect has a magic of its own.
In a rustic inn (beautifully designed by Blair Mielnik) the three friends get drunk and disorderly as they shore up their courage to enter Spain the following day. As they alternate between reinforcing each others' resolve and arguing passionately, their differing revolutionary shadings become clear. 
Albert has the most fiery personality, but he prefers revolution from within the system. The steadier but more radical Leonard (the charismatic Alex Emanuel, who calls to mind a young Ronald Reagan) believes violent overthrow is needed. Meek Carl (Marty Keiser) has a more conflicted soul.
The arrival of a mysterious American stranger – another useful theatrical cliche – further exposes their rifts. Is he a fellow-traveler, or some kind of spy?
Act I frolics along like a roller coaster. Despite the serious subject matter, it's very funny. Lay is especially brilliant as Albert – brash, loud, so excitable he literally collapses. His volatility gives a few scares to the Waitress, a relatively small but key role played by Anna Gutto, who was good in the recent Sa Ka La and shows enormous depth here, speaking only in French while trying to communicate with three scruffy and unpredictable Americans who don't speak a word of it.
Act II shows us the edgy Albert and the vulnerable Carl on their own. Here the role of Carl expands into the play's second really meaty one. He's a Hungarian immigrant struggling mightily between his socialist ideals and his simple desire for a family and a decent life in his adopted United States. The stranger, Marion Welch (an effective Eric Rice) with his influence on Carl becomes the engine of the plot. 
As the new day dawns, will Carl join his friends as they head off, very likely to their deaths on a battlefield in a strange land?
The long scene between Marion and Carl is the one section that didn't quite work for me. The intensity and cunning with which Marion pushes and plays Carl feels like it's contrived for dramatic effect. Nevertheless, like the rest of the play, the scene is acted very well; Keiser is especially impressive and touching, and we do eventually learn what Marion is up to (and it rings true).
According to the program notes, Niederman aimed with this play to honor his own grandfather and the thousands of other Americans who illegally went to Spain to fight against Franco. They viewed their struggle, and we can view that point in history, as a crucial moment at which Fascism might, conceivably, have been stopped before the nightmares to follow became inevitable. With this old-fashioned, powerful play, it's safe to say that the playwright has achieved his goal.
To Barcelona! runs through Oct. 26 at the Workshop Theater, 312 W. 36 St., NYC. Tickets are $18.00 ($12.00 students/seniors) at Theatermania or call 212-352-3101. Photo credits: Erica Parise.
Moments of Redemption
A couple of things happened today that helped, a little, to restore my faith in America as a fit place for humans.
It wasn't the polls, which continued to show Barack Obama ahead in the popular vote and (more importantly) on the electoral map. It wasn't the Wall Street rebound; after all, stocks were due for a bounce after a huge wave of panic selling.
No, I'm talking about little things. Little things that mean a lot.
First, there was a telling moment at an Obama rally in Ohio. "Now, my opponent…" the candidate began. "Boo!" called out some of the crowd. "Now, we don't need that," said Obama, hushing them quickly. "We need you to vote." And the crowd responded with a cheer. Here, in a couple of seconds, was a partisan crowd being reminded of, then drawing upon, their better natures. Primed to grab for the bait, instead they rejected the option to answer in kind the vitriol that's been flaring up at some of McCain and Palin's recent events.
Second was something the economist and journalist Paul Krugman said during an interview on NPR after winning this year's Nobel Prize in Economics. Asked who should have foreseen the severity of the economic crisis, he answered, "I should have." He went on to say that a lot of people should have, and singled out Alan Greenspan for ignoring warnings. But Krugman first pointed the finger at himself.
Mea culpas are far too rare in American society. In Japan, businessmen who fail at their jobs tend to apologize and resign. In America, they get golden parachutes and rarely admit personal responsibility. In America, candidates' economic advisers take purely partisan lines and won't admit that an opposing point might have any validity whatsoever.
Paul Krugman did something different today, something more honorable. It was a very little thing. But like the Obama crowd's sudden veer towards positivity, it was a bright spot in a difficult and dark time.
Humanity rears its mild, non-hate-filled head. Twice in one day! Imagine that.
NOTE: Discussion of this post is ongoing at Blogcritics.
Laura Vecchione and Chris Trapper
More live music: again at the Living Room last night for Laura Vecchione‘s CD release show. Laura’s first CD made my “Best of 2006” list, and now she’s touring the country 
and shopping a brand new disc which, if last night’s show was any indication, is superb. (More on the CD in a future post.)
I complain that some of my favorite artists rarely if ever come to NYC. That’s because some of them are relatively obscure and tend to live in places like Texas and Oklahoma.
Still, I wouldn’t trade NYC for any of those places. So often I go out to see a band or a singer-songwriter and discover that somebody else really great 
just happens to be playing that same night at the same club, or just around the corner. Last night we arrived for Laura’s show and found that Chris Trapper was playing right after her.
Elisa introduced me to Chris’s music (with the Push Stars) not long ago and I was hooked. So we stayed for his solo set. I laughed, I cried. (Seriously – some of his songs are very sweet and sad, and one of them was so sweet and sad it made me tear up.) If you’re not familiar with Chris Trapper’s music, what are you doing here? Go listen.
Malcolm Holcombe and More
Live Music
Our live music treasure hunt continued on Saturday at the Living Room, where we heard Malcolm Holcombe, a gravelly-voiced, almost scarily intense singer-songwriter from North Carolina. Elisa described him as “transformational” in that he pulls you completely into the world of the song he’s singing, and that’s a rare thing. 
He attacks his guitar like he’s kneading a recalcitrant loaf of bread, then turns around and picks with hushed sensitivity; with vocals like Tom Waits and songs recalling John Hiatt, he’s a force of music not to be missed. Here’s a recent profile on Holcombe in the Wall Street Journal.
Last night was our monthly Whisperado’s Mud Room event at Kenny’s Castaways. It was an especially special night of specialness because it brought together Whisperado (my original band, with David Mills and Patrick Nielsen Hayden), my old musical friend Jon Kolleeny, my upstate buddy John Scarpulla on whose debut CD I recently played bass, and the latest project in which I have become involved, a new Byrds tribute band called Eight Miles High, led by the indefatigable Roy Goldberg. A bleeping good time was had by all. My only problem was that since I was singing in two different bands over the course of the night, I needed to avoid the drying effects of alcohol consumption. Someone needs to invent an alcoholic beverage that doesn’t dehydrate the body. Perhaps it’s time for a Manhattan Project along these lines. Maybe DARPA should get involved. The economy needs the boost, doesn’t it?
Book Review: Capote in Kansas – A Ghost Story by Kim Powers
Capote in Kansas is newly available in paperback, and I jumped at the chance to read it because it’s about Truman Capote, one of my favorite writers, and his friendship with Harper Lee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of To Kill a Mockingbird.
In the novel, Kim Powers starts with some basic facts and incidents in the lives of the two great writers and constructs a fictional, fantastical tale of what might have transpired between them during Capote’s last days. Unfortunately, what might have been a lovely and haunting story collapses under the double-team pressure of mawkishness and bad writing.
It’s well known that the two writers spent summers together as children and that in her masterwork To Kill a Mockingbird Lee based the character, Dill Harris, on Capote. What may be a little less well known is that Lee accompanied Truman when he traveled to Kansas to research the horrendous Clutter murders for his groundbreaking true-crime book, In Cold Blood. Combining facts, speculation, and his own inventions, Powers weaves a tale of ghostly visitations, strange obsessions, long-nursed grudges, long-distance communication, and the secret dreams and nightmares of great but frustrated writers.
It’s rich material to work with, but lazy writing and sloppy thinking sabotage Powers’ efforts. What is one to make of a paragraph like this, which begins with a pleasing poetic image but then explodes into an incomprehensible mess:
[The p]hotos [were] so gruesome she had tried to turn their reality into vague, abstract shapes: turn pools of blood into fluid circles on a field of black and white, turn bodies and faces into geometry, not people whose names she now knew, who had been spared no dignity in death – and no further dignity as she and Truman bore witness to the last, and most intimate, moment of their lives.
Powers also have an annoying habit of trying to draw cheap dramatic effect from piling on one-sentence paragraphs:
     The coroner had to admit he had never been shot to death, so couldn’t honestly describe how it felt.
     And that’s what Truman wanted: honesty.
     That thing in death, their deaths, that he had never had in his life.
It this was a story about fictional characters, I might have been able to overlook some of its stylistic failings; one can forgive flawed writing when it’s employed in the service of a ripping yarn. But Powers is writing about two monumental figures of 20th-century American prose, and while we don’t demand that a writer giving us a version of such people should be able to match their abilities, we should at least be reminded of why we love their work – and reminded by evocation, not sad comparison.
Book reviews can be a joy to write especially if the book left you with more than you entered with, however, some people struggle with putting the words together for a book review/report and that’s where sites such as collegepaperworld.com come in handy for them and their writing woes.
A Visit to Fort Totten
New York City Parks Department tours kick ass.
A few weeks ago we had a special bus tour of Fresh Kills, the huge Staten Island landfill, now closed, capped, and being planted in preparation for eventual conversion to parkland, but not generally open to the public at this point. This weekend, another Urban Park Ranger took us through the old fort at Fort Totten, a Civil War-era granite fortress on the Willets Point peninsula on the north coast of Queens.
A short distance across the water from Fort Totten, on a spit of land jutting south from the Bronx and now in the shadow of the Throgs Neck Bridge, is Fort Schuyler, which dates from the 1830s and is now the SUNY Maritime College. The two forts were built to defend against a British naval attack on New York City from the east via Long Island Sound.
In the War of 1812 the British had burned Washington, DC, not New York. But the former New Amsterdam was too important a mercantile center to risk leaving vulnerable. During the Civil War the North feared a British alliance with the Confederacy. Hence the sense of urgency. Fort Totten was hastily built – as far as it went – in 1862.
New York City's basic character – tolerant, money-centered, socially and ethnically polyglot – hasn't changed since the 1600s. It's still the financial nerve center of the nation, for one thing. That makes it target number one. The feared British attack never came, but Osama bin Laden took up the gauntlet in 2001, with nightmarish results.
Archways at Fort Totten are made of huge granite blocks quarried in Maine. The white "drippy" stuff is limestone. The floor is made from the same bluestone as you can still see on some sidewalks in neighborhoods like Park Slope, Brooklyn.
We bounced back from that. But today Wall Street has dug itself another grave, this time by outsmarting itself with smart-ass credit tricks. (Good thing we rebuilt DC after the War of 1812 so the Feds could bail out the financial firms in 2008.) New York will climb out of this hole too, of course – we always do. Four centuries of history say so.
So old Fort Totten was never used. In fact, it was never finished. Though it was a state-of-the-art fort at the time, military technology was changing very fast. The invention of rifled cannons made even the thick granite walls of a fortress like Fort Totten penetrable. Like a 21st century electronic device, Fort Totten was out of date before it could even go online.
The old Officers' Club, almost completely restored, is now the home of the Bayside Historical Society.
However, the site became extremely important for defense and research. Underwater mine technology, for example, was developed there. (Mines were deployed off Fort Totten only once – during the Spanish-American War.) During World War II, Fort Totten became the headquarters of the Anti-Aircraft Command of the Eastern Defense Command, and later the HQ of the North Atlantic region of the Air Transport Command. During the Cold War, it became headquarters for more than half the country's Nike missile sites.
This old house… not so restored.
Today an Army Reserve Command remains, and the Fire/EMS department uses part of the site for training, but much of it is a park. Some of the buildings, like the Officers' Club, which dates from 1870, have been restored to glorious condition, but on the whole the site has that tumbledown, half-abandoned feel of a left-behind presidio. It has grand officers' houses, humbler dwellings, a chapel, and named streets, and people are working and playing there, but no one really lives there anymore, so it feels half-abandoned.
Over time, if will and budget allow, Fort Totten Park will be fully repurposed for recreation. But in the meantime it stands as a half-ghostly monument to the culture and achievements of the United States Military, and at the same time a demonstration of the way the human animal will instinctively repopulate and re-use a patch of land whose old function has passed.
Early to Late: The Week in Music, Part II
We picked up right where we left off yesterday, which was in Renaissance Spain. The Sephardic Jews are those who lived in Spain and Portugal and were forced to leave, or convert, at the end of the 15th century. Helping to keep the traditions of Sephardic music present and vital five centuries later is singer Mor Karbasi, who played her first ever New York concert this afternoon at Spiegelworld. The music resembled Arabic music at times, flamenco at times, and everything in between. She mixes new compositions with ancient tunes, accompanied by guitar, violin, and percussion. She has a beautiful voice and beautiful moves to go with them.
It was also a good excuse to finally see a show at Spiegelworld, in the big round tent with the round rows of seats and the trapeze hooked on the ceiling. The murky, humid weather kept the South Street Seaport crowds relatively light, although nothing fazes our beloved tourists. The auditorium for the concert was full, though. So hopefully Mor Karbasi will be back again. Meanwhile, British readers have plenty of chances to see her.
Early to Late: The Week in Music, Part I
I’ve been remiss in my live music blogging. I didn’t intend this blog to become just a second outlet for the CD and theater reviews that I already publish at Blogcritics. This week has turned out to be an excellent opportunity to change that.
It started with Soul of the Blues, my monthly series at Cornelia Street Cafe. This Wednesday’s show began with a tight set from Halley DeVestern and her band, playing blues-funk-rock songs from their upcoming CD. Halley sounds as great as ever, and you can hear a few of the new tracks at her Myspace page. Then Soul of the Blues favorite Matt Iselin hit the stage with his high-energy, creative piano pop. And finally, sight unseen, I had booked Kojo Modibo Sun, pianist Scott Patterson’s new band. I had played with Scott in Kevin So‘s band, so I knew he was a good musician, but I had no idea what his original project would sound like. It turns out to be a killer blast of soul-rock, largely inspired by Scott’s two-month trek on the Appalachian Trail, which won over a whole set of new fans who’d mostly come to see Matt. Watch for this band in the future. They play tonight at the Harlem Tea Room, 7 PM. Highly recommended.
The next night, Thursday, Elisa and I hit the Music Hall of Williamsburg, where our friend, publicist Crissa Requate, had invited us to catch Matt Morris, an artist on Justin Timberlake’s label, opening for Joan Osborne. Matt, who’s from Denver, played solo, and it’s a fairly big room, but he won over the seen-it-all crowd of Joan Osborne fans with his gorgeous voice and assured songwriting. Rarely will you hear a singer with as much control and sensitivity in switching between his regular tenor and his falsetto. I’ll be writing more about Matt in the near future. Meanwhile, New Yorkers can mark their calendars to hear him on Oct. 25, again with Joan, at the Highline Ballroom.
And on Friday night, they rested.
Then came Saturday, when we heard some of the oldest music (15th and 16th century) in one of the newest venues, the Times Center on 41st St. The Times Center is a strangely situated concert hall: the back wall, behind the stage, is clear, and through it you see, first, a courtyard with birch trees, and behind that, the lobby and elevator banks of the new office tower. It’s all painted a calming light-orange, but while you’re watching the concert you’re also watching, behind the action, the building maintenance staff pushing wastebaskets in and out of elevators. Far to stage right, you can also glimpse racks of suits in a brightly lit clothing store. The whole thing is like some sort of conceptual art-film experience, except it’s not.
The acoustics are excellent, and, because of the design, there are no bad seats. We heard three fine bands. I say “bands” because the GEMS Early Music/Early Season 2008 concerts are structured a bit like rock shows, where several bands play one set each. The first of the three, however, was an all-vocal quartet called New York Polyphony. They sang beautiful old liturgical settings by John Taverner, William Cornysh, and Christopher Tye. The Taverner piece was rather long, and consisted of plainsong sections (all four singing the same melody, as in Gregorian chant) alternating with multi-part (polyphony) sections. They followed it with an interesting modern take on the same structure, a much shorter but similarly designed piece by the modern-day English-Norwegian composer Andrew Smith. This brief interlude of modernistic close harmony made a nice contrast with the old stuff. I love hearing new musical sensibilities expressed with ancient sounds.
The group also makes a point of allowing the individual timbres of their four voices to stand out, rather than trying to blend so much that they sound like four iterations of the same voice. This came out strongly in the polyphonic sections of the music. It’s an effect that helps increase the entertainment factor, and that’s always a good bet with Early Music concerts. One feels a bit like a member of a secret club at these concerts, a club your average classical music listener doesn’t know about. Such concerts also tend to be more informal than classical music concerts, and this was no exception.
Following New York Polyphony came an enlightening performance of Beethoven’s Trio in B-flat, Op. 11, on period instruments in its original arrangement of fortepiano, cello, and clarinet (not violin). Ed Matthew of the Grenser Trio talked about his “classical clarinet,” a much lighter instrument than the modern version, with only five keys. Between that and the very light sound of the old-fashioned fortepiano, one felt one was hearing the music much as its very first audience must have heard it.
After the intermission came the act I had most looked forward to, Ex Umbris, a large group playing music of Renaissance Spain. This sort of thing is always a good time. It’s really party music, and the group treated it as such. Everyone plays a variety of instruments and also sings. There’s dance music, programmatic music, funny lyrics (provided in translation with the program), and an altogether humorous and delightful presentation.
Tell me, Moorish bitch,
tell me, slayer,
why do you kill me
and, while I’m yours,
treat me so badly?
Highlights of the set included Grant Herreid’s wonderful playing on the vihuela (the flat-backed Spanish lute), Nell Snaidas’s sweet soprano, and the playing of a sackbut (an early trombone which I think I’ve only seen before in museums), bagpipes, lots of recorders, and Priscilla Smith’s shawm-playing and pre-Raphaelite hair.
Everyone in the place happily
danced this way for five or six hours,
and at the end of such great fun
the bishop forgave them all.
Ah, the shawm. A concert just isn’t a concert if no one plays an instrument you’ve never heard of before.
Indie Round-Up: Cadillac Sky, Lewis, Dupree, Dunn, Minissale, Vigil, The Break and Repair Method
It's been goshawful busy over here at the Round-Up, with summer and fall releases piling up and lots of good music bursting insistently out of the piles of magical plastic. There's something for nearly everyone in this week's edition, from bluegrass innovators and a blues traditionalist to a solo disc from a member of Matchbox 20 and a couple of sharp "comeback" CDs. Onward to the music…
Cadillac Sky, Gravity's Our Enemy
One of the most rewarding experiences a new music aficionado can have is to come upon a band that both fulfills and transcends a beloved genre. Cadillac Sky is every bit a bluegrass band, but the Texas quintet quietly expands the frontiers on its second CD, and the result is one of the best discs to have hit my mailbox this year.
They establish their country and bluegrass credentials right away, with principal songwriter Bryan Simpson's high-lonesome keen opening "U Stay Gone." Close harmonies, banjo picking, a call-and-response section, and a mournful fiddle solo from Ross Holmes all follow, building into and out of hummable choruses – and that's just the first song.
The tempo picks up with the nervously jumpy "Goodbye Story," which is topped with sweet-as-molasses harmonies, another inventive fiddle solo, short features for Simpson's mandolin and Matt Menefee's banjo, and a clever breakdown section. "Bible By the Bed" is a gentle, sad ballad with a standard country music structure under a catchy, pop-inflected melody which devolves into a tasteful, wordless coda.
"My Precious Waltz" brings a spooky Eastern European flavor, aided by a guest appearance from Dan Cantrell on musical saw. It serves as an introduction to the fast-picked "I Hate How Happy She Is," which draws a twisted classic-rock sound from a set of acoustic bluegrass instruments and also showcases banjo wizard Menefee, while Simpson wails, "Why can't she be as miserable as me?"
That sense of humor is one reason these extremely skillful musicians never sound too studiously virtuosic. The CD continues with sad songs, inventive instrumentals, and some very un-bluegrassy moments, like the quirky instrumental break in "Wouldn't Put It Past Love," the old-time jazzy verses of "Inside Joke," and the unexpected minor-chord changes and plucked rhythms in "The Wreck." Simpson's also handy with traditional country-music songwriting rhetorical devices, as evidenced by "It Won't Be Over You," which closes pithily: "When my bones grow weary of this world / And my days are numbered few / I might hang my head down in regret / But it won't be over you."
Donna Lewis, In the Pink
After making a couple of sultry splashes in the late '90s with hits like "I Love You Always Forever" and "Love Him," Welsh-born Donna Lewis took a hiatus to raise a family. Now she's back, picking right up where she left off with an excellent new disc of danceable electronica-pop. Many of the songs have a meditative bent but also just enough catch that one's ears stay perked up. The songs with the livelier beats (like "Shout" and "Obsession") should stand up to any sort of dance-club use or abuse, while the quieter moments (like "Kick Inside" and the folky "You To Me") have a thoughtful and slightly exotic quality, reminding me of Emiliana Torrini.
Lewis's breathy vocals get a little monotonous over the length of a full CD, but with this kind of music we're not usually asked to listen to one artist for 40-plus minutes anyway. Its natural habitat is the dance hall, or to set a mood. Within her chosen style, Donna Lewis, working with producer Gerry Leonard and mixers Kevin Killen (and on one track, Hector Castillo), is top quality.
Robbie Dupree, Time and Tide
You have to go back further than the '90s for Robbie Dupree's splash. The hits "Steal Away" and "Hot Rod Hearts" came on his 1980 debut. Their smooth but rhythmic jazz-influenced pop fit right in with Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers, a style you don't hear too much these days.
Dupree has never quit, and his new disc should please loyal fans. Its nine tracks, mostly co-written by Dupree and session keyboardist David Sancious (Springsteen, Sting), sway gently with easygoing grooves. Vocally Dupree sounds as good as ever, if a bit mellowed, and there's a sprightly vitality to the arrangements. Some of my favorites: "Wrapped Around Your Finger," which resembles Sting's soft funk (though the similarity of the title to an old Police song is, as far as I know, coincidental); "Sugar Tree," which has more of a Doobie Brothers vibe; and "Blue Monday," which evokes memories of trips to the beach listening to Steely Dan and Boz Skaggs.
The ballad "Judgment Day" closes the disc on a thoughtful, vaguely haunted note of filial alienation. "My father was a sailor / He lived the life he loved… The years had made us strangers / And scattered us like stars." The character in the song never fully understands his father until the latter's death. Yet contemplative lyrics about the passage of time and resemblances to the sounds of past decades don't make this music an exercise in nostalgia. Dupree's sound and songwriting have a timeless quality. Solid writing and superior musicianship never go out of style.
James Dunn, The Long Ride Home
James Dunn's new record has a retro sound too, this time harking back to 1970s Los Angeles. Backing up the Jackson Browne-style vocals, though, lie classically solid songwriting and a smooth rock sound. The opening track, "Find My Way," is a dense, mostly two-chord drone that sets an effective mood but is a bit flimsy underneath. However, the album strengthens as it goes on. "Oak Tree" recalls Don Henley's "The End of the Innocence," and the disc really hits its stride with the undeniable "Oh My Don't Cry."
"The Long Ride Home" has a minor-key Southern rock flavor, while "Crush On You" revels in old-fashioned 50s-60s charm, which mixes nicely with hard guitars in the chorus. A highlight of the second half of the disk is the contemplative but moving "The Old Woman."
Phil Minissale, Home To Me
Phil Minissale is a young acoustic bluesman from Long Island, NY who's been rapidly ascending the ladder of recognition, and with good reason. Though his youthful voice hasn't acquired the gravitas we associate with traditional blues, these eleven songs are loaded with down-home honesty.
Minissale respects the traditions but writes his own songs. He tickles the guitar with assurance but without excess flash or flab, and happily offers the spotlight to his guest musicians, notably Ken Korb on harmonica and Red Molly's Abbie Gardner on dobro.
His approach to blues guitar traditions is reverent, but not so careful and precious that it sounds academic, as can sometimes happen with students of blues guitar. Finally, lest anyone claim that country blues is a game for the grizzled, let's not forget that Robert Johnson never made it past age 27.
Securely recommended for fans of traditional blues and folk.
Jason Vigil, Sometimes Always
Jason Vigil has matured both as a songwriter and performer since his uneven previous disc. On his new seven-song EP he's reined in the histrionics, resulting in a steady churn of catchy pop-rock. While you couldn't call his brand of earnest, guitar-based melody-making an original sound, it's tasty, well-made comfort food for the ears.
The Break and Repair Method, milk the bee
Matchbox 20 drummer Paul Doucette leaves the skins to Ryan MacMillan and steps out in front for his first solo CD, recording under the name The Break and Repair Method. Richly produced, with heavy emphasis on Doucette's powerful pounding on the piano and his slightly screechy, urgent voice, these ten tracks show a mastery of power-pop style and enough sonic originality to make the project stand out from the pack. (Part of that no doubt comes from co-producer Greg Collins).
Contributing musicians include Veruca Salt's Nina Gordon (whose own solo efforts have been very unjustly ignored) and Jellyfish's Roger Manning. But the disc has a consistent intensity that's all Doucette.
Indie Round-Up: Boggia, Coppola, Saunders, Jezzro
Jim Boggia, Misadventures in Stereo
Jim Boggia makes melodic, smart pop that's warmhearted but never overheated. He obviously internalized a lot of Beatles along the way, but he's actually mastered and incorporated a whole range of pop music strains into this engaging collection.
Boggia divides the disc into two "sides" (it's coming out on LP as well) and this doesn't seem like a gimmick, given songs called "8Track" and "Listening to NRBQ." Rather, it's a sign of a songwriter (and a bunch of excellent instrumental collaborators) who have music in their bones, make it for their own pleasure, and convey that feeling to the listener.
Boggia is the type of guy who'll take some background vocals he recorded for someone else's album, lift them out, and stick them between two songs on his own record because he liked them and they were buried in the mix on the other record. Then he'll close with "Three Weeks Shy," as potent an indictment of Bush and the Iraq War travesty as you'll hear in a song.
Lisa Coppola, Wisdom from the Pain
This country-rock EP boasts songs by John Waite and the Spin Doctors' Anthony Krizan. Coppola delivers them with steely determination and a twinkle in her eye. The most "country" song on here is "Your Love is Like a Rodeo," a fun tune on which, however, Coppola's voice sounds pinched. She's more engaging and convincing on the more soulful rockers "When You Were Mine" and "Temporary Heart," both of which are hit worthy. Cheap sentiment sinks the title ballad, but the closer, "Make This Moment (To Love Again)," while sentimental as well, has the charm of a classic pop bauble from the 50s.
Dudley Saunders, The Emergency Lane
Dudley Saunders started as a New York City performance artist, but the music he created for his act took on a life of its own, and now he's a recording artist with three CDs under his belt. This, his latest, is the first I've had a chance to hear, and it bears out some of the flattering words Saunders has gotten in the mainstream press. His voice has a tight quaver and a lot of focused power, like Jeff Buckley's. I didn't like Jeff Buckley – he always seemed to me a great voice in search of something to sing (I did like him when he sang covers) – but I do like a lot of Saunders's material here. A cross between modern folk and art song, it has a timeless quality, a soothing sound partially masking a humming tension. His voice is a finely tuned, subtle instrument, and his images flow like water:
buck-tooth call-girls on the corner
like red-haired roses in the rain
dropped off by a drunken mourner
on the wrong grave like a train
that old west bandits disconnected
from the engines and left scattered
'cross the tracks their vaults dissected
hoping that guy's looking at her
See the way he snaps you back to the scene at hand with that last line, like an actor with an audience in his hand. And then there's "Love Song for Jeffrey Dahmer." The visceral lyrics of these songs sometimes remind me of Leonard Cohen: "take me back home / 'cause you're the only rider / on the highway in my bones," Saunders sings in "Take Me Back Home Again."
Jack Jezzro, Solitude
The latest recording from busy bassist and guitarist Jack Jezzro is this solo guitar collection of standards, played in a relaxed (and relaxing) but not syrupy mode. Jezzro hits all the right notes on the way to striking this balance, in chestnuts like "Autumn Leaves," "Make Someone Happy," and the beautiful title track, a song made famous by Billie Holiday but that we don't hear often enough anymore. This disc would be a perfect gift for someone you love who has good taste in music, but really needs to calm down.
The Politics of “Why”
Children are always asking "Why?" They want to understand what they observe. They want to know what lies behind things. They want to be able to read some order and sense into the world.
As adults, we get out of the habit of asking why. Why? Because "Why?" can be a very uncomfortable question. Growing up means learning to function in society, which requires keeping our relationships with the people around us running smoothly, avoiding offense. That's great for greasing the gears of surface society. But it's bad for real mutual understanding.
Those of us who are politically engaged find ourselves arguing repetitively during election cycles and times of controversy. Back and forth we pitch our opinions, our arguments, even allowing them to devolve into insults and spitefulness. Why?
Maybe because we've grown out of the habit of asking why.
Instead of taking offense at one another's convictions, let's ask each other why. Why do you believe what you believe? You seem so sure of it. But how is it possible that you are so sure of your position, while I am equally sure of the exact opposite position?
My view seems so obvious to me that it shouldn't even need explanation. Yours seems the same way to you. Clearly, we're both making false assumptions about what's self-evident and what isn't. So let's stop assuming. Let's put our cards on the table. Let's be honest with those we're talking with, and with ourselves, about why we hold our opinions.
Have we thought them through? Or did we just inherit them from our parents or fellow students or teachers? Do we like them because they're aesthetically appealing? Because they come from rhetorically gifted writers or politicians or fake newscasters? Because they appeal on an emotional level? Or because they make logical sense?
Are they based on current information, or on old information?
While we're at it, let's go further. Let's not be ashamed to admit the validity of an opposing argument. It's not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of using our brains. An argument can be valid, yet weaker than an opposing argument. Just because I'm convinced I'm right doesn't mean everything you think is idiotic, and vice versa.
What makes us disagree about, say, tax policy? If we both possess basic common sense and a normal amount of compassion for the unfortunate – and let's assume we do – what makes you so sure a certain tax policy is beneficial to society, or fair, and me so sure that your policy is hurtful or unfair? Both of us can marshal some evidence to support our positions. But what is it that puts my argument over the top for me, and yours for you? What's our reasoning behind our opinions? And what are our feelings? Feelings are valid too – we're emotional creatures.
To take an even more divisive example, it's "common sense" to me that if a being can't survive outside its mother's body, it's not an individual, so a woman should have the right to end her pregnancy. And even if we do grant the fetus some rights, they obviously have to be subordinate to those of its mother, who is already a functional, independent human being.
I say "obviously" – but what that really means is, it's obvious to me. It's obviously not obvious to everyone. Some people believe that "life begins at conception" – that as soon as there is conception, there exists a new individual being with the full rights of any born person. But if that belief comes from a religious interpretation, which it usually does, wouldn't enshrining it in secular law be imposing your religious beliefs on me? Can't you understand that? I hope you can, because I've just explained the why behind my opinion.
On the other hand, if the law of the land allows abortion, and you believe abortion is murder, how can you help but oppose that law and want to change it? Can't I understand that? Sure I can, since you've explained why.
Let's try to understand. And without getting angry.
We may never agree on some issues, but if we lay out where our convictions come from, we ought to still be able to be civil to each other, get along, and maybe work towards, say, reducing the number of abortions by discouraging teen pregnancy. Or coming up with a tax policy most of us can live with.
It all starts with asking why.
Music Review: The Keith Reid Project – The Common Thread
In the age of the singer-songwriter, the lyricist has become a rare creature (outside of musical theater). Yet some of the greatest rock acts of all time had one member or partner who wrote just the words. Mick Jagger, Jim Morrison, Bernie Taupin, and the Grateful Dead's Robert Hunter and John Perry Barlow are just a few of the famous lyricists of rock and pop.
Keith Reid is and always has been the lyricist for Procol Harum, responsible for classic songs like "Conquistador," "A Salty Dog," and of course the eternal "A Whiter Shade of Pale." Though it's been many years since Procol Harum's heyday, the band has continued to tour and release new material over the decades, and Reid has also collaborated with numerous other luminaries. It's about time for a Keith Reid Project.
This disc collects thirteen of his non-Procol songs, co-written with big names of pop music like John Waite, Manfred Mann's Chris Thompson, Terry Reid, and Steve Booker (who co-wrote Duffy's recent #1 hit, "Mercy"). Given the variety of collaborators, and vocals from singers as diverse (though all male) as Waite, Southside Johnny, and Bernie Shanahan, it's no surprise that the disc is uneven in style in quality. But there's plenty to like.
Reid and Thompson's "You're the Voice" is a powerful, shimmering mini-masterpiece of sleek pop with a message. (The song was a huge hit for John Farnham in Australia and elsewhere 20 years ago.) "The Heartbreak House" nods towards Americana, as does the folky, haunting "Potters Field" with music by Michael Saxell. "Ninety-Nine Degrees in the Shade" grooves with swampy soul under Southside Johnny's gravelly vocals. Terry Reid gives "Too Close to Call" a touch of Al Green's spirit, while "In God's Shadow" is a strong mid-tempo rocker featuring Waite in an Eagles-like, seventies-style arrangement.
Other songs fare less well. "Venus Exploding" drowns in overwrought 80s-style "St. Elmo's Fire" production, and the title track fizzles out like a Randy Newman throwaway. All Chris Thompson's emoting can't raise the power ballad "It Might Be Your Heart" above average, though one can imagine a generic r&b singer having a hit with it.
"Silver Town" is a good one. Co-written with and sung by Booker, it evokes acoustic Springsteen in populist mode: "We built this town from a grain of sand / Far away from the reach of Washington / Now they say they need the land / And bite the hand that feeds the greed of Washington…." but "though the money's all run out / There's a wealth of folk in Silver Town." The closing song, "Right About Now," looks back ruefully on a lost relationship and demonstrates, as well as any, Reid's lyrical gifts: "Right about now you'll be waking / And making your breakfast / In the cold grey light of dawn / And right about now you'll see my letter / The one that tells you that I'm not coming home."
So far the disc is available in the US only as an import, but you can hear some of it at the label's website or at Keith Reid's Myspace page.