[from Boston, MA via Richmond, VA]
Prelude:
A
long-time closet favorite of mine - her melodies are soothing - her lyrics are
smart, interesting and relatable - she's stunning - realized tonight that her
incongruently deep speaking voice may be what makes her songs within my range
Austin
City Limits tapings:
Only
my second because they make the tickets practically impossible to get (not for
sale so have to have connections), this of course creates the requisite mystique,
plus they generally only book high-quality musicians and have a tremendous
sound system, the crowd (seated and genteel) is basically middle-aged
musicheads and suburban people who otherwise don’t go to see music
Impressions:
Quite
awkward with gangly and ungraceful height and shoulders hunching up to her ears
- her face matches her deep voice with sharp features, a defined brow and
oft-blinking eyes – despite all of this she is an attractive person - pretty
rigid on the stage outside of her mildly ribald between-song commentaries and a
seemingly intentional stage presence (smiles, rock star poses, etc.) for the
last song – seemed to be using ‘fuck’ to convince the audience that she is not
mainstream
Started
with single “Freeway” from her new album - the song that her fans supposedly
hate, “The Great Beyond,” was clearly a departure (almost proggy classic rock)
– but then I realized that she’s genuinely got a prog rock bent what with the
moog and organ accompanying on every song - had a token world-music song – did
a very nice job with “Save Me” and “One is the Loneliest Number” from Magnolia
- hit every song from my favorite album (Bachelor No. 2) except for “Hanging
Around” – the three encore songs were all from this album: “How Am I
Different,” “Nothing is Good Enough,” “Calling It Quits”
Moog
player was clean-cute-cute with Converses - organ player was old rocker with
long frayed hair in a Mean Eyed Cat t-shirt (a Johnny-Cash themed bar in
Austin) and velvet jacket - buddy on bass was 80s geek with bold tie and
striped shirt under business jacket - drummer was a healthy round bald guy with
heavy glasses - not sure that she has a regular band outside of the geek
Her
singing voice is very natural and effortless – it can be melodious and perfect
but then there’s a constraint or stiltedness to it (somehow a part of that
effortlessness) - something about this and her general minor-chord aura reminds
me of Townes Van Zandt - realized that part of the stiltedness is her voice sliding
into nasal restraint for the higher notes – I figured all of this out when she
did my favorite song "Red Vines" without her band, slowed down and
acoustic
Doesn't try to sound like the boys but definitely not a girly girl singer - she's a good pop song writer: melodies with some driving loops but some of her songs sound too much like her (repetitive or too clearly Aimee Mann) but some are lovely and take you in – high quality pop that endures
Doesn't try to sound like the boys but definitely not a girly girl singer - she's a good pop song writer: melodies with some driving loops but some of her songs sound too much like her (repetitive or too clearly Aimee Mann) but some are lovely and take you in – high quality pop that endures
Her
between-song banter largely involved mocking the pee-ers – admitted she was
very nervous - told a story about a song that she wrote for Shrek 3 that was in
part inspired by Snow White and the dwarves that she quite liked despite it not
being quite her style (try-try-try again theme) - but after they asked her to
speed it up and then asked her to make it sound like Fall Out Boy and then
didn’t accept it anyway she totally reworked it and changed the meaning to a
twisted fairytale theme
So
I was operating under the impression that she was a fellow child of the 90s in
her Doc Martens, jeans and funky little t-shirt and vest – not to mention she
sang a song about being 31 and realizing that your life isn’t what you expected
it would be and that you really ought to have your shit more together – but
upon some googling when I got home I figured out that she’s 47 (!!!), was in a
punk band called Young Snakes when she dropped out of Berklee music school and
then a new wave band Til Tuesday in the 80s…
(Photo courtesy of https://thechunk.com/blog/archive/austin-city-limits-taping-aimee-mann/)
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