From: owner-bklist-digest@smoe.org (bklist-digest) To: bklist-digest@smoe.org Subject: bklist-digest V1 #33 Reply-To: bklist@smoe.org Sender: owner-bklist-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-bklist-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "bklist-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. bklist-digest Thursday, March 27 1997 Volume 01 : Number 033 Today's Subjects: ----------------- REVIEW: Outside the Beauty Salon [Gordon Wong Subject: REVIEW: Outside the Beauty Salon Brenda Kahn's latest CD, Outside the Beauty Salon, is just, simply, a beautiful album. Shifting her focus away from her earlier themes like vignettes of Americana (except for one song, "Heather"), Brenda Kahn has moved to themes about love and relationships (good and bad). Included in this release are the songs from her 7" single ("Hey, Romeo" and "Door Locks") which she released to her loyal fans while in limbo with Sony. Unlike other more well-known artists whose single is the only song worth listening on the album, every one of Brenda's song is worth listening to. You ask ten people and they'll come up with 10 different songs that they like. That is a true testament of the talent of Brenda Kahn. If this CD represents what she can do without the watchful eye of a major record company, then I'll tell you where all the major record companies can go. My favourite song on the album is "Wedding Ring" (just beautiful). A close second is "I Believe In You". I like this part of the song: I met a man who keeps a rat on a string Says he does so For to teach that rat to sing I try to visualize this, and I just wish I was there to see it. My third favourite song is "Alice" (the CD title comes from a line in this song). Not to belittle the other songs, they're all great. For those who were slightly disappointed by "Destination Anywhere", you'll like this one. Go and buy it now. When you're in a CD store and you're faced with a choice between Pat Boone's ventures into heavy metal and Brenda Kahn's "Outside the Beauty Salon", I hope you don't make the wrong choice. Note: The CD contains a hidden 1 minute track ... it's part of the 13th track ... but you'll have to wait out about 5 minutes of dead air to hear it. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 16:59:07 -0800 From: Gordon Wong Subject: BK PROMO SHEET (circa 1992) (part 1 of 3) Source: Sony Germany Web Site, Promo sheet for EIB CD (in German) Translated to English by: Sava Velickovic (a bklist member) One of the most unusual releases of the last few weeks is an album that appeared quite silently and unnoticed. Behind "Epiphany in Brooklyn" there is no pompous technical world, but life, warmth, cold, experience and passion. Brenda Kahn's world is a barren land of biting dogs, asleep hotel owners, and workers who kill their time on Essex Street. It is a world where tattooed waitresses dance, policemen get bored and Brooklyn is just around the corner. "Epiphany in Brooklyn", the long-awaited Major-Debut-Album is for the non-consecrated a special type of sound-event. Devoted traveller, since she ran away from New Jersey in the mid-eighties, B.K. presents her experience in nearly every song of hers. So, for example, we will meet a definite Motel 6 outside Louisville ( In "I dont sleep...", a basic road song ), bored cops in Ashland, Ohio (" Anaesthesia"), there is a whole load of anger in "Madagascar", we will meet those who hang around street B ( "My Lover" ), and the feeling that hangs over Brooklyn when you don't know anybody, and are 2000 miles away from the A street - "In Indiana". As much interesting are the snapshots of different characters she meets on her way. The "white trash chicken on the donut shop", that opens the album and the "hungry junkie with a face like Van Gogh " or the sad poet from Madagascar or, or, or ... Brenda Kahn knows how to paint music pictures and to get to the heart of the things with her lyrics - in such a vivid form that you can really feel the stinking smell of the streets. "Epiphany in Brooklyn" was produced by David Kahne ( Columbia ) in NY, with the exception of 2 songs, which the artist herself did in Minneapolis. " I Dont Sleep..." and "Mint Juleps... " appeared before on the 7" EP "Life in the Drug War Trenches" ( St Paul's Crackpot Records). Brenda follows herself on guitar, supported on both series of recordings by her band: Caleb Palmiter (Bass & arrangements) and Steve Foley ( Drums), Noah Hoffeld (cello), Matt Wehling ( Mandoline) and Gregg Pryor (trumpet on Madagascar). ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 19:06:19 -0800 From: Gordon Wong Subject: BK PROMO SHEET (circa 1992) (part 2 of 3) Translated by Sava Velickovic for bklist members; original in German The album catches BK in lively moments of creative energy in which every song has her "raison d'etre", reason for her presence, justification for her existence. This is a rare thing - so all the attention the album gets is well-deserved... "Souls hold together the tiles", she once wrote, "in the bathroom of life, we are all grout". As soon as she took a guitar in her hands for the first time in her life, she started writing songs. " Basically for me, it was a way to survive", she once wrote. " It was simply a possibillity not to have to do something else. and for me it was the only way to communicate." Elvis Costello, Lou Reed, Blondie and most of all Syd Barret were her greates influence. A desire to travel makes a great part of her life, and it found a way to her songs as well. When she was 16, a frustrated Brenda took her guitar and fled to Europe. France, The Netherlands, and of course, England were the stations where she stopped on her trip. First in Amsterdam, " I became aware for the first time that nobody knew where I stayed - and if I would die the following day it could last forever and nobody will know it. It was a kind of revelation, because I always thought my parents were in my body, and they would always know where would I be. They would always be able to control whatever I did. But it was really not like this." Brenda's self-recognition had mixed with self-confidence, curiosity and intelligence - so it formed a young artist whose music had formed from art, politics and literature. Dostojevski, Mao ans Hobbes spiced her words. At the London School of Economics, she studied Political Science for one year. At the same time, she appeared at London Club, and during the Christmas holidays, she took a two-week trip to Israel and Egypt, where she climbed the pyramids. ------------------------------ End of bklist-digest V1 #33 ***************************