antony in portland!

from the oregonian’s music blog, they should have asked me to write this. how do i get that job?

The Oregon Symphony is set to open PICA’s TBA festival in September in concert with Antony and the Johnsons.

A symphony spokesman said that the joint concert would open TBA in Schnitzer Hall.

Antony and the Johnsons are a NY group led by the Brit-born Antony Hegarty. Bjork often appears with the group. I mistakenly used the word “goth” to describe him, but I’ve been corrected.

Wikipedia says: “One theme explored in the band’s music is aspects of transgender life. This is expressed in songs such as ‘For Today I Am A Boy’, in which a young boy dreams of growing up to be a woman.”

“Antony’s unconventional voice evokes comparisons to singers like Aaron Neville and Nina Simone. He has many fans in the music industry, including Kate Bush, Björk, Philip Glass, Marc Almond, Kembra Pfahler and Laurie Anderson as well as Lou Reed, Devendra Banhart, Rufus Wainwright and Boy George, who are guest vocalists on ‘I Am a Bird Now’.”

i can’t believe my luck. i flew to new york last year for something like this and now it is happening right down the street! i was already planning on buying a pass to the tba festival, keight brought me to a few of the performances last year, and i enjoyed them all. i hope some of my friends from justonestar can make it out here for it. it was great seeing them in new york last year.