I saw this unreal show last week. Elizabeth and the Catapult. My friend Jeff invited me. It happened at a venue that I can walk to from work--the coffee shop where I love to do my writing! Jeff's wife Susan is the reason I am a writer and now Jeff is the reason that I am amped for live music again.
Nite Cat's been redone to fit about 40 to 50 people in it's back room and Mangold Entertainment who books for Peir Six and Rams Head is bringing in the music. They added a corner stage, heightened the ceiling so that the timber frame is now exposed and painted it black. I am not one to know about acoustics and the effect that building aesthetics have on sound, but if I were I'd figure that the reason for the change. That, and it looks cool.
So, the band. At one point I looked around the room and thought, this must be what it was like when people saw Jenny Lewis play for the first time. Elizabeth's vocals and presence are both that good and the band, musically, is just the right trippy blend of circusy sound and entertainment, and raw but cohesive beauty that vacates the center of my heart in a hot breathy way and makes my blood run funny and fast, so that the swell just makes me move or cry with joy. God-damn did I come back in to me that night, it was the end of a long day of intake, end of an even longer week--and I'd been trippin that day a little over having to make some big decisions and so almost backed out of our plans. Next thing I knew tho there I was listening to the opener this singer/songwriter guy with great long folky lyrics and funny stories about his granpaw and a voice that actually sounded better without the mic. That part of me, the poetry in the middle of the night the mamamoon star earth worshiper who speaks and believes in the ancient tongue, in live fires and barefeet, in six or seven people sleepy in my kitchen for pancakes still punchdrunk with wildeyes, that inner spiral me lit up in a way it hasn't all year, and seriously, like I said, my breath quickened.
The only other time that happened this summer was when Brooks played me his solo stuff on his Ipod.
By the time Elizabeth, whose head from behind the piano and under her fedora kept bobbing up and down like a muppet at the end of the show when the grand performance in the big hall came on, and who also had the widest sexiest smiling eyes that closed and opened just right the kind with a secret and laughter in there, started really singing that fabulous loud voice smooth as the curve of quiet night sky, the words came to me and the poetry was all bubbling up and I was, a couple times, so touched I was laughing out loud.
Ahhh, muse-ic. What you do to my soul.
The next night I wondered back in, just to see if anything was happening... And got to watch Charlotte Martin perform. She was good, a lot like Tori Amos which I admire the beauty and talent of but not enough to listen to multiple songs in one sitting cuz they just start to sound the same. I was happy I went tho, it was a great way to spend Friday night and at one point she asked the audience who there was from Easton or the general area and only me and two other guys raised our hands. It was packed house. I was impressed. The guy that opened for her, Matt Duke, was equally good in an intense I just pricked my finger on a stickerbush kinda way and it hurts and I dont want to look but have to...He disturbed me but made me laugh too, the best thing he did was cover you are my sunshine which makes me think he's tender and actually hasn't found his comfortability with this, yet? I'd see him again if he headlined.
I'm going on vacation tomorrow for 10 whole, sweet clean days!!!! I am seeing three shows, too, at least...! I'm thinking a lot about when I was little and used to dance in my tights in the driveway to the boombox Lisa Lisa or Prince or Miami Sound Machine, then in middle school at the sock hops on Friday afternoon god how good was Rob Base!? and then later still when I was teenagy and pissy and would throw myself brutally in to the middle of the pits at the old firehall shows. Fishkiss Mustard Seed Magic or S.Q.U.I.D VRKOLAKA (i looooved the drummer!) of course the PeeTanks, too. Sonic Youth at Michael's. The Beasties too many times to count. The HFStivle when it was only $6 for ten or 12 bands!? Getting Veruca Salt's autograph when they played the second stage. Stars in my eyes....Flannel shirts and Doc Martens.
What it's like in the winter to stay long up late, with poetry and paints and witching hour muse-ic all fluent and braided and what I have in common with the most eternal space.
It's Wednesday in October in Choptank, I've been up on and off since 2am. The fog is lifting, there is a great pale blue sky coming on the West horizon. I have 24 days left here. I am alive, shining.
Change's gonna come...!
Thank you life & of course holy amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment