From: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org (believers-digest) To: believers-digest@smoe.org Subject: believers-digest V2 #147 Reply-To: believers@smoe.org Sender: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk believers-digest Monday, September 21 1998 Volume 02 : Number 147 In Today's believer's digest: ----------------- Re: Next Stop Wonderful CD [Ned Gilchrist ] Seattle review ["Charlie Sweeney" ] Ooops! ["Charlie Sweeney" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1998 22:12:31 -0400 From: Ned Gilchrist Subject: Re: Next Stop Wonderful CD Had Same Experience in Barnes and Noble in Alpharetta, GA. I got the only copy they had and they didn't have it until Friday. Also ordered one through Songs.com (link through Susan's swebsite) sent off for it on Wednesday and received in mail Friday of the same week. Pretty quick. Great solution! Ned Gilchrist Christopher Russell wrote: > Suzanne Simpson wrote: > >and the nefarious Blockbusters (where I had to buy it) > > had only one copy per store. > > I had a similar experience at the new Virgin Megastore in Manhattan which is > across the street from my apartment. They had ZERO copies on display which > was maddening. (Virgin always disappoints me) and I chose to walk several > blocks south to TOWER RECORDS where they had a gazillion copies right up > front in their "New Releases" Section. This particular Tower is one block from > the Bottom Line so perhaps there is some influence there. > I'm sure I will be checking up on Borders and other major retail outlets to make > sure they're doing Susan justice. > > HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org > Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at songs.com HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at songs.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1998 22:19:33 -4000 From: "Charlie Sweeney" Subject: Seattle review Here's a review from Fred Ingram- I'm getting some bounces and my software is having trouble transfering them properly so here is a copy. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at songs.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1998 22:20:49 -4000 From: "Charlie Sweeney" Subject: Ooops! Oops, too much mail, not enough time! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I just saw the BEST live Susan performance I've ever seen. The set was great. It covered the full range of her history and styles. She was witty, involved, and full of charm and intensity. The venue was Gift of Grace Church. A small hall in the basement of a church, it probably seats about 100-125. Tonight it was pretty full. Susan came right on stage, and without a word, sat right down at the piano and sang a song I'd never heard before called "Last Go Round". This was in the classic Susan style. It's a poignant love song about feeling a moment so intensely that it feels like "the last go round" - suggesting that maybe it is and maybe there's sadness and loss to come. She then got up and did her hard strumming version of "Tappan Zee", with a funny rap at the end over the chords about how to tell him - Western Union? Singing Telegram? It was right on. "Old Mistake" was beautiful. Very, very similar to the new album. I love the version on the album, so I loved it live. She joked about how she's got a "tiny, tiny" amount of renown in the singer-songwriter community, but it's for writing "bummer love songs". She then went into another new song called "Gotta See the Body" - about how she had to "see the body" of her ex-lover's new flame, before she can grieve. There's this sinister undertone implying that she might want to see that body dead. The song captures the crazy sadness and anger that come from a breakup, with a touch of humor. Then came "LOTGSG". THIS is the version people have been writing about on this list! It was quiet and sad and really moving. I can only say I wouldn't mind ANOTHER recorded version of this song. Unlike anything on her current CDs, it captures the sadness of lost innocence and the pain of the assault suffered by the LOTGSG. Another new song - "Year of the Bad President". It's a sort of musical photo album of what was going on in the subject's (Susan's?) life the year Nixon resigned. Falling off a bike, sneaking a look at her neighbor's fathers porno magazines, and watching the President resign on television. She understands when her mother says things will never be the same as they were. The listener knows that this is true for the singer, as well as for the nation. "St. Mary's" was beautifully done. "Society Ball" was terrific, and included a nice "trumpet" solo like she does on "Tin Angel". She closed the first set with "Cole Porter". She included a nice piano melody riff from "Anything Goes" at the end. The second set kicked off with one I've always wanted to see live - "Great Out There". She played the percussive guitar fantastically - the intensity just built and built. Similar to the way it does on Tin Angel. She did "Bring Round the Boat" on guitar. One change I noticed was she inserted a word in the last verse - "Linda's boyfriend/fiancée walks in the door. He just drove the 14 year old babysitter home..." She stumbled for a split second on the addition of "fiancée". Probably not wise to try to read too much into it. Maybe she was trying to convey that the relationship is more serious than "boyfriend" alone implies. Given that they're living together and there are young children in the house, could it also be she's saying that couples with young children should be engaged if they're living together? A bit of Dr. Laura traditional values coming through? "Bonsai" was amazing. She introduced the song with simply "This song is close to the truth". Her performance nearly brought tears to my eyes. She sang so strong and with such power and feeling. That song made the strongest impression BY FAR on me in the whole show. If the version on the album were like this, I'm convinced it could be a mainstream hit. The melody is affecting and catching, and the words tell a story through the simile of the bonsai that is compelling and sad. She did "Sorry About Jesus" in a style very similar to the album. She used the breathy, conversational singing style that has been much discussed on this list. I actually think it is appropriate for this song, which depicts an awkward conversation between two friends who had lost touch and, in looking at their past relationship, realize on the recounting that there were some good reasons one of them "memorized the bible". The narrator who's apologizing about Jesus is not confident and strong, and the singing style fits. The next song was "Ain't I Lonely". She really got into this one. Afterword she said she was "channeling Buck Owens". It's clear that Susan loves her voice and loves singing and pushing and playing with the different styles she can do. Back at the piano for "Much At All". She introduced this as the companion piece to Cole Porter. It paints the picture of the singer in Cole Porter two years later, after the relationship she was pursuing comes and ultimately goes. I had never thought of the two songs that way, and it does make sense, both lyrically and musically. Susan appeared to completely go into the character and feeling on this song. She paused at the end, looked away and seemed almost to be composing herself before she continued. "Movie of My Life" was next - similar to the album, very good. It was clear many in the audience hadn't heard it - they were delighted at the cleverness of the lyrics, laughing along the way and applauding strongly at the end. "Born A Little Late/Boomer Song" closed the first set. Lots of verbal asides "they were all at Yasgur's farm in '69 (yeah, right)". She did a funny rap between verses about the stock market. Her encores were Cole Porter's "I'm In Love Again" (which included a verse as "Louis Armstrong", gravelling into the mic and loving every minute of it). She then did a song called "This Magic Moment". The neat thing about "Magic Moment" was she customized the song for Seattle. She talked about how the Swedish folk who settled in the Ballard neighborhood in the early days of Seattle used to go down to Puget Sound, look across at Bainbridge Island and the mountains, and kiss and appreciate the magic of the moment. She went back in time to the Indian tribes who lived here thousands of years ago, and how they would look across at Bainbridge and the mountains and do the same thing. And how each of us in the audience have probably done the same thing. The song captured the feeling of "Last Go Round" and "Pleasure to Be Here" of appreciating each of life's magic moments. She said this was her favorite Seattle show ever, even better than the "Summer Nights at the Pier" show she did with Joan Armatrading a couple years ago. I wasn't at that show, but I've been to a couple others here and in Berkeley, and this was by far the best I've ever seen. I went home singing Bonsai and tapping out the rhythms on the steering wheel, with some extra TBT CD's for my sister and a friend. Fred Charlie Sweeney (=}===# Virtual Guitarist-Something Black charlies@voicenet.com http://www.voicenet.com/~charlies "Caught in my struggle for higher achievement and my search for love, that don't seem to cease" ...Joni Mitchell HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at songs.com ------------------------------ End of believers-digest V2 #147 ******************************* --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------- This has been a posting from the Susan Werner believers-digest To unsubscribe send mail to Majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe believers-digest" in the body of the message