From: owner-curiouser@smoe.org (curiouser) To: curiouser-digest@smoe.org Subject: curiouser V3 #2 Reply-To: curiouser@smoe.org Sender: owner-curiouser@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-curiouser@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-List-Info: http://www.io.com/~mcurry/curiouser.html curiouser Sunday, January 7 2001 Volume 03 : Number 002 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Susan McKeown and the Chanting House at Fez [meredith ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2001 14:54:03 -0500 From: meredith Subject: Susan McKeown and the Chanting House at Fez Hi! Last night Susan McKeown and the latest incarnation of The Chanting House returned to Fez in NYC. woj and I traveled south with a friend of mine from work and his SO, and let me share with you all the valuable lesson we learned: when snow is falling from the sky on a Friday evening, no matter how light or how small the accumulations, if you're planning on traveling to New York City, TAKE THE TRAIN!!! When it took us two hours just to get to Norwalk from Milford (normally a 20 minute trip), we gave up and jumped on the train in Stamford. Argh. Good thing Susan's set wasn't until 10, and the woman at the door at Fez was actually nice about holding our reservation for us. The good news is, the show was very much worth the trouble in getting there. As Mike Curry put it afterwards, "you mean they got better AGAIN?!" Last night's lineup consisted of Susan (of course) on vocals, guitar, and bodhran; Jon Spurney on guitars and piano; Lindsey Horner (yay!) on electric and acoustic bass and bass clarinet; and Alison Miller (occasionally of Mila Drumke's band, among many, many other things) on drums and percussion. (I must state that Jon and Alison both looked quite fetching in their leather pants. I wonder why Lindsey didn't wear his? ;) The set included a few songs from _Lowlands_ ("The Hare's Lament", "To Fair London Town", "The Snows They Melt The Soonest"; several staples of the Chanting House repertoire from the past few years ("Seven Cold Glories", "Fuck You", "Wheels", "The River"), some surprises (a jazz number called something like "Ribbon Bow" (Mike, can you confirm the title from the set list you grabbed?), "Curiouser"), the ubiquitous "Son Of A Preacher Man" and "Snakes", and ... a new song!!! It's called "South", and after it was done we all looked around at each other, stunned. When I saw Susan later I was moved to bow down at her feet - - I think she was a bit surprised at how much people liked it (the applause after it ended was particularly loud and long). She said she had just put the finishing touches on some of the lyrics that afternoon. Musically, it's what Mike called "her goth song", but I was reminded a bit more of something you'd have heard on the Peel Sessions in the early 90's. It was all electric guitar, electric bass, and drums, minor key (Don Keller, are you listening? ), with some serious vocal stuff going on on top of it all. It comes from the same planet that brought us "Heart", "Salome" and "I Know I Know". Subsequent listens to woj's recording have confirmed that it indeed rules. Yes, folks, a new Chanting House album is in the works! Susan said she'll be writing this month (I went back and counted up all the unreleased original songs she's been performing over the years, and I guess she could use a couple more to round things out), and in February and March she and the boys might do some low-key gigs at places like the Living Room and/or Arlene Grocery to try things out. Must keep eyes peeled for those schedules in the next few weeks. So that was that. It was good to see most of the usual suspects in attendance. The room was full, though not as packed as in some previous shows. I guess the weather kept people away (I sneeze in their general direction, ). They missed a good one. +==========================================================================+ | Meredith Tarr meth@smoe.org | | New Haven, CT USA http://www.smoe.org/~meth | +==========================================================================+ | "things are more beautiful when they're obscure" -- veda hille | | *** TRAJECTORY, the Veda Hille mailing list: *** | | *** http://www.smoe.org/meth/trajectory.html *** | +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ End of curiouser V3 #2 **********************