From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V12 #332 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Friday, December 15 2006 Volume 12 : Number 332 To unsubscribe: e-mail ecto-digest-request@smoe.org and put the word unsubscribe in the message body. Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: NY area ectophiles: Wainwrights @ Carnegie Hall ["Paul Blair" Subject: Re: NY area ectophiles: Wainwrights @ Carnegie Hall For the past few years I've been going to Jane Siberry's--uh, I mean Issa's... except, well, she was Jane Siberry back then--Christmas show in New York. She's not doing one this year, just popping in here and there to do a song at other people's shows, so I went to see the Wainwrights instead. They get a lot bigger audience than Jane did; Carnegie Hall was packed. But overall Jane puts on a much better show. Still, for some reason I feel the urge to write it all up. Guests: David Byrne was taken off the bill at some point over the last few weeks, but we still got Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed. A very tall singer named Antony with too much vibrato was interesting. The other guests didn't make much of an impression on me: Linda Thompson (nothing solo; one song with Teddy and Kami) Teddy Thompson Kamila Thompson Lily Lanken Joseph Gordon-Levitt Jimmy Fallon The music had obviously been rehearsed, but not the staging--Rufus kept wandering around from mic to mic, deciding where he wanted to sing, changing his mind, going across the stage to grab his lyric book, coming back, and leaving whoever it was he had displaced to go find another mic. It got pretty chaotic at times. Rufus was wearing a short green velvet coat, very Bavarian, with a bright red fedora. I don't know if he was aware that he looked like a walking Linux commercial. Most of the stuff before intermission wasn't memorable. I managed to pick up the setlist off the Rufus Wainwright message board; here it is, with my edits and comments: God Rest ye Merry Gentleman- all Il est ne le divin enfant - all Spotlight on Christmas - Rufus and band Nobody Wants a War Song at Christmas - Joseph Gordon-Levitt on solo ukelele. Yeah, Yeah. The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roastin on an Open Fire...) - Martha Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight) - Jimmy Fallon The Holly and the Ivy- Teddy Thompson with Cami Thompson, Lily Lanken and Martha backing Last Christmas - Kami and Teddy Thompson Merry Christmas and Happy New Year - original song by Martha O Come, All ye Faithful - Laurie Anderson, playing hurdygurdy, with backing from Rufus and others. She was so bundled up it was hard to recognize her from where I sat up in the balcony; she looked like some kind of gipsy woman with a wreath of tinsel around her neck and a big red cap/hat. "This is a hurdygurdy. It does pretty much one thing": emit a sound somewhere between a low hum and a droning whine. Vocal harmonies also had some buzz and hum to them. Came off sounding something like some of the chant's on Jocelyn Pook's _Flood_. What Are You Doing New Years Eve - Rufus and band Henei mah tov - Rufus and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Rufus said they'd received complaints last year that there wasn't a Chanukkah song, so they did some research and discovered that there were no good Chanukkah songs. So instead he sang the only Hebrew song he knows. ("But I'm not going to do it wearing an Austrian hat," he said, and we didn't see the fedora again.) The song itself was pretty well done. Thank God It's Christmas - Sloan - This was the high point of the first part of the show and a contender for the best in the whole show. A gospel-ish song that let Sloan show off her stuff. Intermission Short animated film set to McGarrigle's song "Wiseman" Some Children See Him - Rufus and everyone I'm Boycotting Christmas - Teddy Thompson Blue Christmas - Antony with Rufus backing. Pretty good Elvis imitation--the vibrato was useful here--but too much flapping about with the arms. Rebel Jesus - Lily Lanken and Martha There are no Lights - Teddy Thompson with Linda and Kami, and some sing-along by the audience. Pretty, but another downer about growing up in a house where the father was anti-Christmas. Baby It's Cold Outside - Martha and Jimmy Fallon laughed their way through the duet; he lost his place once or twice. - - At this point the show began to get consistently better and better. We Three Kings - Laurie Anderson on keyboards with backing from Rufus, Martha and others. Harmonies still pale, flat, a little buzzy. Jane Siberry is weird in a quirky sort of way. Laurie Anderson is weird in a weird sort of way. Snowy Angel - Antony - He mentioned that this song was by someone named "Baby D" who used to hang around the village, and that he's the only one who has it. Good song, but the vibrato didn't serve him quite as well here. Trois Anges - Martha - "And now I'm the one who has to go on after Antony." But this was good enough that she made us forget Antony. Minuet Chretien (O Holy Night in French) - Rufus - "Now I'm the one who has to go on after Martha." He made us forget her, too--he pulled out all the stops and carried it off. Very operatic, but his voice was powerful enough to sustain it (and didn't have much of that nasal quality that's been complained about). White Christmas - Lou Reed with Rufus doing a wacky backing falsetto against Lou Reed's monotone. Even more hilarious when Reed didn't come in when Rufus expected. Silent Night - Lou Reed with backing by Sloan, Martha, Lily. You can imagine the singing; now imagine it against a riff that sounds like "Bang a Gong." Then Rufus introduced Kate McGarrigle, who came out to a standing ovation... Cherry Tree - all (Kate on banjo: "I've never played in a dress before. Where are my jeans?") Encore - Old Waits Carol - all, with Kate. The funniest thing about the show, though, was the program notes, which I quote verbatim: On Rufus: "Affectionately referred to by Elton John as 'The greatest songwriter on the planet,' ..." On Martha: "In February 2005 Wainwright released an EP called _Bloody Motherfu*king As*hole_, followed by the eponymous Martha Wainwright in April to great critical and commercial acclaim. In the January 2005 issue of _Mojo_ Norah Jones listed her as one of the 'best things she heard all year.' London's _Sunday Times_ included 'Bloody Mother Fu*king As*hole' in their songs of the year and _Rolling Stone_ called _BMFA_ 'a blistering prelude to her debut album.'" I wish I could have listened in on the writer's thinking process when deciding to replace letters in the album title with asterisks. That really accomplished a lot! What a relief it must have been to be able to write just BMFA! ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V12 #332 ***************************