| Thursday, December 01, 2005 |
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How are you tonight? All of you? Awesome....
Kristin Hersh played the second of two nights celebrating the 25th anniversary of 4AD records last Tuesday. The previous night had been Throwing Muses songs, and this was her solo work. For some reason, Throwing Muses, which the rest of LiveJournal attended, didn't really grab me. I remember enjoying Dizzy and Bright Yellow Gun at the time, but nothing really stuck or twisted.
1999 or thereabouts, and I am wandering around a bookshop wondering when I last ate when i hear Your Ghost. I had heard it before, of course, but something about this time - probably exhaustion and levels of self-pity toxic enough to make central London unfit for human habitation for decades to come - makes me truly appreciate it as only people who claim truly to appreciate indie rock could. There's something borderline humiliating about the whole process, but sometimes it seems you just have to go with it. "Your Ghost" found its way onto one of my first mix CDs, and then Echo, and then Sky Motel. Of all the floral-dress-scraped-knees music produced at the fag end of the 90s, Hersh seemed the best-suited to the particular shade of mood I favoured.
Which is why I was there on Tuesday and not Monday, I suppose. The reasons of the rest of the crowd you'd have to investigate separately. There was something slightly odd about the whole proceeding - somewhere between a gig and a record fair. At the merchandise stand the unnervingly attractive and polite young man behind the counter asked if I wanted a bag. When answered in the negative he looked puzzled and pressed one on me, explaining that they were special anniversary plastic bags and thus highly collectable. Inside the hall, you could pick out the scent of individual cigarettes. There was very little dancing. Mind you, it's not exactly a pounding bpm buffet in the mind of Hersh.
You know the story of this song? I wrote it after I got talking to an old woman on a bus. She told me the reason why she never travelled anywhere - this was on a bus - was "You know what they did to Jesus".
Support was a short set from Paula Fraser - who has a wonderful voice and generic cowgirl material. Setlist: Waiting for you/ A place where I know/ A game of broken hearts/ Pretend (standout)/ Deep was the night/ Watercolour/ The well.
When last I saw Hersh, she had black hair and a child in tow. Also, for some reason I didn't clock how tiny she was, possibly because I was too busy marveling at how bad a sound mix can be. This time, as she slowly winched herself onto her stool using rapelling ropes, there was no mistaking it. I made calculations involving chest cavity size and lung capacity, and then HOLY GOD STOP IT WE HAVE CIVILIANS IN HERE TIME OUT STRETCHER BEARER.
The woman has a set of pipes on her. Leaving aside for a moment the quasi-acoustic nature of the gig (amplified acoustic guitar, accompanied by cello and violin), there was surprise in how much the performance resembled her studio work, in the sheer yowling roll of her voice. The rasping lower register, the slurred, soft "s" which gave tales of drunken loss of self a disturbing Jimmy Stewart undertone. Honeshtly, Mish Donnelly, I'm shtunned.
At the risk of descending into cod Hershism, the songs from Sky Motel and Sunny Border Blue seemed most vital, but that was probably just me: the sense of having a gap and a whole bag of pieces, none of which interlock or cover. You'd probably want to scream as well, although possibly not quite as loud.
By now, I should wake you when I’m hungry
Right now I should but I’m not
We could be a silkworm tightrope
We could but we’re not.
The queue for the cloakroom was perfect in its precision - neatly looping back past the first line, a place for indiething and indiething in its place. Behind me, an alphette expressed astonishment that at another recent gig she was told off for dancing. I imagine just what horrors might have driven somebody to pick a fight at a C86 revival evening. I ponder the behaviour of the young lady joining her pals in front of me for the encore, who appeared to believe, perhaps correctly, that a large number of people had inexplicably turned up to witness what was in fact a conversation between herself and la Hersh. I wonder what a post-menopausal L7 will throw into the crowd. Time and tricola bear all their sons away.
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