i should tell you.

one of the main things about portland i’ll miss when we move away (at some point) will be the collection of friends that i have that enjoy musicals. when the portland dates for the rent farewell tour were announced jessica asked me if i wanted to go, i didn’t have to do any of the work, that’s probably a first for me.

rent is a unique experience in my mind, it comes off entirely cheesy but has a lot of heart. the theme of survival while keeping trying to figure out who you are, and how to compromise who you are without losing yourself, is something almost everyone can connect with. the characters, and there are a lot of them, are well developed. you quickly get a good sense of who they are and what they stand for. rent is also a true musical, there is very little spoken words, almost all of it is sung. the songs are strong and full of hooks that are some of the strongest earworms out there. the biggest drawback to rent is that it is wrapped in a cliched nineties wrapper. the songs have grungy pop rock overtones and the costumes are perfect for when they start making “that 90’s show”. all of that makes it somewhat difficult to watch at times, a little cringe worthy. luckily the story is strong and you really care about the characters and how it all works out.

this touring production of rent has a couple of the original actors, anthony rapp and adam pascal, people only theater nerds care about. they have been doing these characters off and on for over 13 years, including the movie, so they know this material. the familiarity works against them i think, their performances were very automaton like. it was a bit like seeing a disneyanimatronic version of rent. also they are well into their late thirties, so it’s a little hard to believe them as early twenties, especially with the bald spots.

the rest of the cast was good, none of them really stood out though.  most of them coming from the broadway closing cast, so they also had a bit of woodenness  about them. this was my third time seeing a production of rent, although i think i’ll be glossing over it with memories of the original broadway production, and the time i saw it from the front row (while getting spit on, damn 525,600 minutes).

she barks.

well over a week ago i went and saw pj harvery and john parish with jessica who scored some awesomely cheap tickets. i knew going into it that it wasn’t going to be regular pj harvey show, this show focused on the two bluesy, mildly bar rock albums that pj has made with john parish. the first of which i like okay and the second one is just meh.

the show was good, not great. they all seemed to be so happy to be there in the half empty roseland. the showmanship of pj was the highlight of the show. she was much more subdued than when i saw her before, but she has that spark that you can’t take your eyes off.  it’s a bit of a shame that we didn’t get even one pj solo song. they did play a john parish song, which was surprisingly good, but not good enough to make me look into him.

we left happy, yet wishing we had a more rockin’ time.

we did some great things.

albums getting much play by me recently.

karin dreijer andersson’s (from the knife) solo project, yet it’s not that far away from the knife’s icy electronics.

i found this album on some blog and was surprised to find that it contains a song i liked in the ghost world movie, but wasn’t on the soundtrack. fairly amazing sixties girl pop by patience and prudence.

like the earlier grizzly bear albums it took me a while to warm up to veckatimest. much poppier than the previous albums, but just as sonically dense.

i’ve been on a bit of a sixties kick. i found millie small on a rocksteady blog. i love her voice and the rockstready pop sound.

i didn’t quite get dirty projectors until it got their earlier albums, and now their fractured pop sound makes sense. they are kindred indie rock spirits with bjork, and sort of related to antony. bitte orca isn’t their best album in my opinion, that would be rise above. rise above has a rough jagedness that appeal to me, bitte orca is jaged sounding, yet smooth and polished.

ps22 stole my heart.

i’ve been in a very bjorkish mood lately, egged on by the release of voltiac. morgan told me about the ps22 choir covering a couple of bjork songs. i had no idea i would become obsessed with watching them. i love how they seem to be feeling every word.

one day

joga

decided to call this place acorn.

octavia e. butler was a fantastic science fiction writer, and it turns out she could also write a great post-apocalypse adventure and make it seem like fantasy. parable of the sower follows lauren as she treks north after her community was burned and family killed by drug addicts. in a society where trust doesn’t exist, lauren collects a small troop of folks that she aspires to start a new community with. the journey is through a terrible landscape of barren towns, roving gangs of desperate cannibals, wild dogs and countless unexpected dangers. as cheesy as it sounds this book is about finding hope in a hopeless would, it succeeds because of octavia’s brilliant writing.

to tell the truth, not at all.

a good companion piece to persepolis, chicken and plums tells the story marjane satrapi’s great uncle, nasser ali khan, who’s life changes after his tar is broken. satrapi’s writing and graphic style is full of wit and heart. she pulls off a feel good novel about death, and it never gets schmaltzy.

dozed off.

i’ve been avoiding this post for some time. i started it several weeks ago as a review of the animal collective show that josh and i attended. i was a little let down in the show. i am not a fan of the new album, but i was hoping they would bring in noise live. it makes me sad when a band i love so much starts disappointing me.

grouper opened the show, she is a local drone rock queen. her layered vocals and guitar loops were lost in the acoustics of the roseland. she would be better appreciated in a bar, or someones basement. hopefully not being overshadowed by animal collectives equipment.

animal collective played a mellow set with songs mainly off the last two albums and “comfy in nautica” from panda pear solo album. they were so static on the stage they became part of the stage. the set was so sterile, nary a scream, heavy bass or excitement.  i expect more experimentation from them, especially in a live setting. not once was i suprised. the music was so lulling that i fell asleep for a moment during “fireworks/essplode”.

then there was the lame ass stage setting. a couple of lit up tables,a tapestry of the last album cover, and an inflated orb for projections. it was almost like a one trill hill’s version of a hippy light show. the last couple of tours have had pretty impressive light show in a very radiohead jr kind of way.

when the set was over, they left the stage for a few minutes.  brian and noah came back on stage and said that they couldn’t play an encore because something was wrong with david’s ear. apparently the only song they could play without him was “comfy in nautica”, and they had already played that. while i understand about david’s ear, i would like to call b**sh*t on not doing an encore.  noah has three solo albums out, you can’t tell me he couldn’t have pulled off a couple a songs. brian is a competent guy, he would’ve improvised. hell, they should’ve just started playing, not caring about it being perfect. that’s what the animal collective i fell in love with would have done.

i may sound very negative about the show, i didn’t hate it. i just thought it was fine. they rocked softly, i feel asleep. i will certainly think twice about seeing them again.

he likes my corn.

grey gardens is a great production for portland center stage to close out the season with. based on the 1975 documentary by the maysles brothers about a pair of eccentric, distant relatives of jacqueline bouvier kennedy onassis. bordering on exploitation, the documentary showcases big edie and little edie bouvier beale as they live in their run down east hampton manor house, practically penniless. seems like odd fodder for a musical, but it works on a lot of points. it also misses a few.

the first act, set in 1941, is a fictional telling of little edie’s engagement to joe kennedy jr falling apart thanks to big edie’s intervention. the first act is used to establish how far the pair had fallen, and to show the manipulative power of big edie. the music and songs of the first act are traditional cole porter/gershwin era music, lots of brass and jazz hands. some of which are a bit derivative, but they do a good job of setting a tone and feeling for the time. unfortunately the act seems a bit short, not giving enough time for any real character development.

the second act is where grey gardens really succeeds. set in 1975 and using dialogue directly from the documentary, we get a glimpse into the world of the beales. it’s the music that really makes this act work, more in the vein of steven sondheim and a bit of philip glass. the songs and music take on a darker tone, with more prominent strings and percussion. some tin pan alley is thrown in, i believe to give it a connection to the first act.  some unusual cadence is used, and some of the songs are sung purposefully slightly out of tune. the songs are catchy and somewhat haunting, even several days later i’m still humming a couple of them. the second act is also rather short, and no plot exists at all, really it’s just a snapshot into a day of the beales.

the eccentricities of the beales was played for comic effect, something i found a little off. while their story is fascinating, i always thought it was a bit tragic, so all the people laughing at them made it seem even more so to me. kind of like a bully picking on the weird kid.

though a bit uneven, and could have used a bit more plot deveolpment, i still greatly enjoyed my visit to grey gardens.

i have to let it seep in.

john hodgman gave a speech last night at the radio and television correspondents dinner in d.c. last night, he spoke after pres. obama. he gave a obama a witty nerd salute.

moms on drugs, good listeners.

crazy enough has been getting great reviews and was extended three times.  i was worried that all the praise was really the result of portland being in love with a portland product. portland has a tendency to do that. storm large’s one woman show at portland center stage took me a bit by surprise, by living up to the praise.

done right a one person show is one of my favorite forms of theater; i’m in awe of someone who can stand on stage and hold a theater’s attention for hours. it is well known in portland that storm large (yes, that’s her given name) is a great performer with an incredible singing voice. in crazy enough she tells the story of her mother’s mental illness and how it affected her life. storm was at ease on stage and has the banter down, she is funny and personable. at times the more emotional dialogue would come off a little too rehearsed, she was definably more comfortable with the conversational parts. the songs, that were mainly used to express the emotion of a story, are strong and catchy. a couple of them were quite touching and sad, the one about her mother’s death had me totally choked up. a little too close to home for me right now maybe.

crazy enough is storm’s show and she shines in it.