Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

music

Open Mic-ing: Time, and the stuff that happens there

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Tuesday night Gina and I went out to our first open mic in a while as Arcati Crisis. Between a holiday break, my never-ending February malaise, and a death in her family, we’ve probably seen less of each other so far in 2010 than we have in any year since early in college.

As a remedy, our first order of business was to head to one of our favorite open mics – at Time Restaurant on Sansom Street.

Time is one of the nicest rooms hosting an open mic in Philly at the moment. Beautiful atmosphere, great wines and beers, an actual stage(!) with drums and an upright piano, and an always chill audience who actually listen. Plus, a super-cool pair of attentive hosts in Mark and Pete G.

Then there are the artists. Time tends to be a hub of cool musicians, and you never know who you’ll run into. Tuesday it was Cris Valkyria, Casey Alvarez, Dante Bucci, Victoria Spaeth, and a lot of other familiar faces. New ones too – Benn Rabb visiting from Connecticut, and the nicest possible dude named Nathan, whose CD (and last name) is still in Gina’s possession.

Unusually, there was only a single microphone stand around for the night.

If you’ve ever seen (or even heard) Gina and I, nearly every one of our tunes has heavy duty harmony throughout. When I saw the single stand, I had a prima donna moment where I was like, “How can we even do this? WTF?”

I decided to turn a weakness to a strength. What if we did our hardest core of hard core harmony tunes together – face-to-face on a single mic? Wouldn’t it just make the spectacle of us a little more spectacular?

Well, I think it did. And, honestly, it was a lot of fun. We’re so used to our unamplified, unmodified voices that many times striking a perfect blend through a PA system can be more than a little daunting. What better solution than to just put the two of us into a tiny space and let us feel things out?

We played a good set, and had a good time. If you’re a Philly songwriter – or, a Philly wine-lover who also digs singer-songwriters – Time on Tuesday nights is prime destination.

Time Restaurant. Tuesday night open mic starts around 10pm. 1315 Sansom Street, Philly, 19107.

Funk-Breaking with Katie Barbato

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Well, here we are in March, with any February funkiness finally shrugged (even though the streets are still not quite cleared).

I have so much weekend to tell you about (Presenting at TrendCamp! Our first Arcati Crisis show of 2010! Another performance upcoming at Tin Angel!), but first I want to focus on my funk-breaking.

Even the cheeriest, most pro-active person (i.e., me, possibly you?) can fall prey to a crummy mood – where nothing we do seems to be worth doing. That was my February Funk.

Of course, funk is not exclusive to or contained within February. Nay, THE FUNK can capture you at any time of year. We’re just most susceptible when it’s dark and icy and we haven’t had a garbage collection for 16 days.

When you are me, and spend your spare time opening up your head and letting art out, THE FUNK is a pretty crippling condition. My internal editor is vicious enough already without any added incentive!

Luckily, I have the good fortune to be friends with many other people who have art inside of their heads, one of whom is Katie Barbato. Katie Barbato

I’ve blogged about Katie before. She is an outstanding songwriter, a typically flawless singer, and leader of The Sleepwells, one of my favorite local bands.

Katie, too, had fallen prey to THE FUNK, and invited me over to her apartment for a serious funk break-up session. There was fresh hummus, sugar cookies, a stunning view, and Katie and her amazing songs.

And calling it quits with THE FUNK.

Over several hours Katie and I curated our own special mashup of VH1 Storytellers and Rock Opera, following a narrative from the dumbest things we could do to contending with the apocalypse to the stories of what we had lost in 2009.

Sometimes I can be so insular in my shared songwriting space with Gina that I forget that there are others out there channeling their feelings into songs – and that their feelings can be pretty similar to my own.

Not only did Katie share feelings, but she shared some stunning tunes. A few familiar ones, as well as some brand new ones being birthed. Katie writes with such beautiful, intuitive voice-leading – it was a special treat to follow along from across the couch instead of from across the bar. I should have been jotting down the names of tunes as we went, because I came away with several new favorites.

By the time we made it to our last songs and I played the mated pair of “Shake It Off” and “Regenerate” their equal parts rage and resignation came hurtling through me so strongly that my whole body was trembling for minutes afterwards.

As I wrapped myself up for a walk home through twinkling flakes of snow, I realized that Katie and I had shaken off THE FUNK. It was replaced with the purpose and self-respect I had been missing.

Every day since then has been awesome. Thank you, Katie, for sharing your songs and having the sense to shake us out of THE FUNK!

Gentle readers, if you too find yourself mired in funkiness you should seek out the coolest person you have interests in common with and have them BREAK YOU OUT!

I have a bit more news about Ms. Barbato and The Sleepwells, but that will have to keep for another few days. Let’s just say, you’ll have a chance to see a version of our funk-breaking shtick for yourself very soon…

St. Vincent stuns at First Unitarian

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Last night I saw St. Vincent play the final show of her US tour to a captivated audience at the First Unitarian Church.

I have never seen a show at First Unitarian before (blasphemy for a Philly music-lover, I know). The show was upstairs in the church proper – a church in the warmest and most inviting sense, and with wonderful acoustics. It was a perfect fit for St. Vincent’s precise, melodic orchestrations.

Backed by a woodwind player, violinist, bassist, and a spectacular drummer, St. Vincent stunned me throughout her set. I think I was most stunned because I got to take the show in alone and with no context – alone in my head, contending with such a remarkable show.

I like going to concerts alone. For all the fun of sharing a music experience with friends, their proximity can take me out of my connection to the music. Are they comfortable? Can they see? Do they know this song? Why don’t they want to dance? Sitting solo at the end of a pew my connection to the music was direct – some songs found my gaze raptly on her fingers, others eyes closed and inside of my own head.

As for context, I don’t really know anything about St. Vincent – I didn’t even know what instrument(s) she would be playing! That left me completely agog at how her five-piece recreated lush album arrangements with both fidelity and embellishment.

Most of my St. Vincent listening is spent repeating first half of 2009’s Actor, so I was worried I’d be bored after she tore through spotless takes on “Save Me From What I Want,” “Neighbors,” “Laughing With a Mouth Full of Blood,” and a crunchy “Actor Out of Work” for her first four tunes. That boredom never came. Even as we tread into songs I recognized less, each was intelligible and compelling. Neither foreknowledge nor committing songs to memory were pre-requisites for enjoying the performance.

I came away completely in awe of Annie Clark AKA St. Vincent. Her vocals were perfectly controlled throughout the show, on par with or besting her delivery on disc. Especially impressive was her guitar work, which is obscured beneath lush arrangements on LP. At the show it was much more prominent. On “Mouth Full of Blood” she navigated a series of classical-style walks and hammers, but she also worked fuzzed out riffs on the later “Marrow,” and an evocative solo and blast of utter noise on encore “Your Lips Are Red.” Also, her clean guitar tone was simply to-die-for.

Clark was winsome between tunes, gently thanking a crowd that receded into rapt silence after each bout of thunderous applause. She was clearly delighted to be playing for us, and was disarmingly frank when she confessed to the effect of, “Philly shows are great.”

I have to applaud local promoters R5 Productions for the presentation. The show was sold out, but not oversold – everyone was comfortably seated. The mixing was utterly perfect, whether that was due to St. V’s front of house guy or a well plotted sound system (probably both).

Altogether, a fantastic experience. I’m so happy that snow and slow SEPTA didn’t leave me couchbound for the night.

It’s good enough for whales, dude.

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We just got through sitting in our parked car eating dumplings, a queer little Saturday night date in the midst of this insanity of rock shows and serious theatre and made up awards.

Based on two visits, I love nearly everything from Vanessa’s Dumpling House on Eldridge Street, but my shrimp dumplings were not what I expected. I’m not sure what that expectation was, but it wasn’t a dumpling with dozens of teeny shrimp all nestled inside with no seasoning to speak of.

Ever since I saw District 9 I’ve been a little leery of shrimp eating, and the dumpling of a thousand shrimps was not making the shrimp-eating experience any less ooky.

I turned to E for some comfort.

P: These dumplings have, like, thousands of tiny shrimp inside of them. It’s a little creepy.
E: Like sea monkeys!
P: You’re not helping.
E: Or krill!
P: Okay, now I’m done.
E: Hey, it’s good enough for whales, dude.

E and the band were pretty good, although I can already tell she’s not going to like the video because she wasn’t happy with her vocals (she’s been pretty sick since Thursday). Every time I mention a good spot she has a bad spot to match.

I’m always inconsolable after a performance, for better or for worse. Either I know in my heart it was awful, and no coaxing can convince me otherwise, or I’m sure I was excellent and need no further discussion on the topic (Monday being a prime example).

I won’t rattle her cage any further about it being good or not. We’re off to peek into bro’s cast party to catch up with various sibling units before bed.

Filmstar @ Fontana’s

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I am in Fontana’s in the middle of Chinatown in New York waiting for Filmstar to play, and Emily Cavanagh is talking to me from the stage.

Well, not just me, but it might as well be, because she has that kind of stage presence where she is drawing us in instead of pushing herself out.

We are in the midst of a Santa bar crawl, she informs me, clad in a short red skirt and candy cane striped, fur-trimmed arm warmers.

Emily’s three piece is fun and jazzy, and I am marveling at the merry-go-round of NYC music. I might hate it here (not really) (okay, really), but there’s such a wide range of music to hear. I mean, there’s a show with this fun jazzy stuff followed by Elise and the band glam-rocking through a Filmstar set.

I don’t feel like that happens in Philadelphia. It’s still more segregated – the jazz kids stay on the jazz side of the line, the acoustic kids hang out with their own, and the bands drive the big shows.

There are more Santas here by the minute. The room is now filled with Santas. Some are bearded and authentic, while others are half-hearted in hats and vests or just striped stockings.

Emily is kind of killing it, first with “Branch,” then “Down the Line,” and something about “Sunday Morning.” I think I’m going to have to say hello to her.

But, first I have to go sit in our parked car and give the appearance of knowing how to drive a car, because our parking pass expires three minutes before parking is free. And god help me if anyone calls that bluff, because I don’t think I know the window wiper fluid from the gas pedal.