From owner-mad-mission-news@smoe.org Thu Dec 4 17:31:51 2003 Received: from smoe.org (ident-user@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smoe.org (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id hB4MVoFO019354 for ; Thu, 4 Dec 2003 17:31:50 -0500 (EST) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by smoe.org (8.12.10/8.12.10/Submit) id hB4MVoHI019353 for mad-mission-news-outgoing; Thu, 4 Dec 2003 17:31:50 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <200312042231.hB4MVoHI019353@smoe.org> X-Authentication-Warning: smoe.org: majordom set sender to owner-mad-mission-news@smoe.org using -f From: "Luca, Joseph" To: Subject: PattyG-News: S/S Tour Review from Folkwax Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2003 09:53:52 -0500 Sender: owner-mad-mission-news@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-Virus-Scanned: clamdscan / ClamAV version 0.60 Howdy--- Here's a review---with pictures---from this week's Folkwax of the San Francisco s/s show. I believe that it's our Mimi who authored this. Bien fait! Ciao, Joe The Singer/Songwriters' Tour Four Stars Aligned in Harmonic Convergence: Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shawn Colvin, Patty Griffin, and Dar Williams By Mimi Alidor As equally rare as certain astrological events such as the recent Harmonic Convergence at the eclipsing full moon on November 8, was the harmonic convergence of stellar singer/songwriters Mary Chapin Carpenter, Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, and Dar Williams. "It's going to be another thousand years before an opportunity like this opens up," said Mary Chapin Carpenter to a sold-out audience of 1200+ who were spiritedly waving green neon bracelets (courtesy of Carpenter's email fan group) at the Luther Burbank Center in Santa Rosa, California. Describing this as "very much the dream tour," which consisted of 26 dates on the East coast, West Coast, and Midwest, tour organizer Carpenter explained that the idea arose when her plans for recording and touring a new solo album (now due out spring of 2004) were postponed due to major organizational changes at her label. Inspired by a recent longing for fellowship in concordance with a newly opened tour schedule, Carpenter soon learned of Shawn, Patty, and Dar's chance availability. In a rare planetary alignment of their own, the Fab Femmes did more than combine their talents and audiences, but assembled one of the most inspiring showcases any lover of soulful songwriting could appreciate in one billing. As contemporary female singer/songwriters, they have many fans in common, but the slight genre and career diversity in the lineup allowed each songwriter to perform to packed and sold-out houses while often being seen and heard by many for the very first time. Dar Williams (far left) Begins Her Set The concept of the show held the spirit of what Carpenter referred to an old-fashioned "guitar pull" where folks would sit around on front porches and in living rooms taking turns playing songs where you would literally have to pull the guitar away from the last performer in order to have your turn. Lasting five rounds of one song each, no guitar pulling was necessary, although any pulling of the vocal mics would have required serious self-discipline that none of them seemed to have. This was especially a beautiful thing when it came to harmonies, but a particularly hysterical thing when it came to their self-effacing, very personal catty comedy. Each performer was given an opportunity to talk for a few minutes, introduce their song, and say whatever they felt like when it was their turn to sing. Leave it to professional storytellers who are becoming best friends to get carried away with this concept. The spontaneity in dialogue and also in their song choices made each performance in the tour a uniquely memorable experience. Possessing the most lifetime career accolades, being the band leader and perhaps the biggest fan on stage, Carpenter explained that just prior to the tour she could be found at home in the lower fields of her farm driving a Bush Hog mower armed with an iPod, shamelessly singing aloud to Griffin, Colvin, and Williams recordings. Shawn Colvin In The Spotlight "Being the harmony slut that I am, sharing the stage with all of them is much more fulfilling!" exclaimed Carpenter. Early in the tour, Carpenter was the one who did most of the harmonizing while occasionally braving improvised guitar accompaniment. But as each show became an onstage rehearsal for the next, and as many hours were spent together enjoying city-to-city shopping binges and heart-to-heart talks on the tour bus, their comfort levels, friendship, and chemistry crescendoed both on and offstage, but especially revealing itself in their later performances through gorgeous choruses of full four-part harmony and unrestrained, uproarious banter. With little repetition in set lists from one show to the next, some consistencies throughout the tour were the opening and closing songs, and the showcasing of newly composed material. Both Carpenter and Griffin shared the news that they were in the late stages of recording new albums to be released in 2004. Williams also debuted new songs still in the works while surprising the Seattle audience by announcing the news of her very first pregnancy. Colvin told funny stories of motherhood and of writing songs in her sleep and waking to find them too laughable to use. Nicknaming the tour "The Mail Order Brides From Hell" and referring to themselves as the musical version of "The View," each show held the spirit of both a casual living room house concert, a goof-off pre-teen slumber party and a masters-level crash course songwriting clinic and showcase. Mary Chapin Carpenter began each night of the tour with a cover of "I Still Miss Someone" by Johnny Cash. The opening tribute ached with the unspoken sentiment that Johnny himself is deeply missed. (At one point in the tour's early planning stages, Rosanne Cash was considered for the lineup, but was understandably unavailable.) Deft with moody alternate tunings and haunting fingerpicking guitar melodies, Carpenter chose to focus on songs that showcase her more evocative, illustrative, and intimate lyric writing. Avoiding her Country radio hits, she performed a few of her most enchanting ballads including "The Moon and Saint Christopher," "I Am A Town," "Someone Else's Prayer," "Stones in the Road," "Late For Your Life," "Jubilee," and a slower, darker acoustic version of "Quittin' Time." It was during her performance of "This Shirt" where Shawn recalled having blown her "Grammy-winning snot on it." The lyrics describe a cat giving birth to kittens on the shirt, and Patty quipped, "I just love the cats. A little bit of cat porn, and cat puke." Dar recommended she auction the shirt on eBay. Patty Griffin Taking Her Turn Saying how it was a pleasure to be breaking songs out of "new song jail" the warm-voiced Carpenter debuted a series of sparkling heart-wrenchers including "Girls Like Me," "Goodnight America," "Grand Central Station," "Between Here and Gone," "One Small Heart," and "In My Heaven," which are all likely to appear on her forthcoming album. Another consistency at every show found in Carpenter's set and later in the encore was a very serious delivery of "I Want It That Way" by The Backstreet Boys. Sure, it's funny watching four of the most talented matron songwriters harmonizing a Backstreet Boys song, but the fact that they performed it so beautifully was also a big part of what made it so funny. Shawn Colvin, who admittedly is suffering a motherhood-induced songwriting dry spell, contributed some of the silliest stage antics and sharpest wit throughout the tour. She performed some of her more obscure favorites, including "Trouble," "Another Round Of Blues," "Dead Of The Night," "Matter Of Minutes," "Cry Like An Angel," "A Whole New You," "Wichita Skyline," "Shotgun Down The Avalanche," and covers of Paul Simon's "Only Living Boy In New York," Jimmy Webb's "If These Walls Could Speak," Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush," and "Tell Me Why," "I'll Be Back" by The Beatles, Tom Waits' "Heart of Saturday Night," and Greg Brown's "One Cool Remove." Although straining to find the right alternate tuning (transferring the song from piano to guitar), her rarely-played original "I'll Say I'm Sorry Now," was a special highlight, delivered with sincerity and classic Shawn authenticity, and the fact that she took the risk of playing it reminded me of what I love about her very fluid anything-goes live performance style. Mary Chapin Carpenter Sets Off On Her Own The youngest of the group, and perhaps the least-known of the lineup, was the sweet, kid-sister-like Dar Williams, who delivered some of the most poignant stories and melodies, including her touching autobiographical "The Babysitter's Here." This song exemplifies her gifts as a writer as she shines light on the small and sometimes overlooked beautiful things around us. Other songs performed by Dar included "Mercy Of The Fallen," "The Beauty Of The Rain," "When I Was A Boy," "We Learned The Sea," "Fishing In The Morning," "I Had No Right," "Oh Canada Girls," "Are You Out There," "The One Who Knows," and an untitled new song that could be named "It's All I Need To Know," a sentimental love song she wrote for her husband. As a guitarist, Dar pays intricate attention to her chord voicing and fingerpicking melody lines. I was blown away by how cute, moving and hysterically funny she was. It's not an over-the-top kind of funny, it's more like an innocent smart-aleck, intellectual funny delivered in a sweet punch that makes you just love her to death. Add to it her insightful charm and warmth of character, and she's definitely a loveable original. Perhaps voted the most adored by her onstage peers was the shy, compliment-deflecting Patty Griffin who, with her uncontrollable dancing red boots, at times found it difficult to remain seated while performing some of her more powerful songs, including the Silver-Bell-abandoned "Perfect White Girls," the explosive "Flaming Red," "Nobody's Crying," "Change," "Making Pies," the Dixie Chicks-covered "Truth #2," and "Top of The World," "So Long," "Long Ride Home," "Poor Man's House," "Mad Mission," "Little God," and covers of Lonnie Johnson's "Tomorrow Night," "Superman" by The Flaming Lips, "Back Water Blues" by Bessie Smith, and the newly written "Icicles Falling," and "Letters From Home." As a songwriter, Patty has a gift for creating both real and fictional characters, and illuminating them in natural light like a photo album snapshot, a favorite-things collage, or the looseness of a charcoal gesture drawing. She never paints the whole picture for you, but only lets you catch a deep glimpse, revealing some very personal elements of their life, their motivations, their inner turmoil, their perseverance, allowing us to connect with the characters for a brief moment in time through their universal human emotions. These characters are unassuming and always in a state of longing. As her voice lifts up to the heavens with its powerfully clear angelic sorrow, her guitar will pound out its anguish in a passionate temper, and when that feeling is expelled, with closed eyes, will fall silent by the trailing breath of a soft, dejected whisper. This dramatic sense of dynamics, if left unanswered, will steal the show. Perhaps this is why every night of the tour concluded with an encore of Griffin's hymn-like "Mary," a religiously-allusive and spiritually connotative song lovingly written about her grandmother, delivered in a heart-stopping chorus of four-part harmony, filling the room as if by tabernacle choir, reverberating through a cavernous stained-glass cathedral, stunning your very soul. The End Of A Brilliant Show Who knows if a tour like this will ever happen again, but given its success, one might hope for a reunion somewhere down the road. But as Carpenter lamented, "I'll have to soon go back to harmonizing with my friends in the privacy of my farm. It's just so hard to schedule, but just the fact that this happened at all was worth everything." This is Mimi Alidor's first piece for FolkWax. We certainly hope it isn't the last. Mimi is based in Texas and works at Heart Music. She may be contacted at folkwax@visnat.com. http://www.visnat.com/entertainment/music/folkwax/default.cfm?CFID=315180&CF TOKEN=96559045 From owner-mad-mission-news@smoe.org Mon Dec 8 17:29:27 2003 Received: from smoe.org (ident-user@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smoe.org (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id hB8MTRFO002706 for ; Mon, 8 Dec 2003 17:29:27 -0500 (EST) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by smoe.org (8.12.10/8.12.10/Submit) id hB8MTQxD002705 for mad-mission-news-outgoing; Mon, 8 Dec 2003 17:29:26 -0500 (EST) X-Authentication-Warning: smoe.org: majordom set sender to owner-mad-mission-news@smoe.org using -f From: "Sarah Stanley" To: "Patty List" Subject: PattyG-News: Fw: [singer-songwriters] Album Review - Patty Griffin - A Kiss in Time Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2003 15:51:42 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1158 Message-ID: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 07 Dec 2003 20:52:04.0298 (UTC) FILETIME=[F8306AA0:01C3BD03] X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.60 (1.212-2003-09-23-exp) on jane.smoe.org X-Spam-Status: No, hits=1.0 required=5.0 tests=CLICK_BELOW,HTML_30_40, HTML_FONTCOLOR_BLUE,HTML_MESSAGE,HTML_TAG_EXISTS_TBODY autolearn=no version=2.60 X-Spam-Level: * X-Virus-Scanned: clamdscan / ClamAV version 0.60 X-Virus-Scanned: clamdscan / ClamAV version 0.60 X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative by demime 0.97c-p1 X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain Sender: owner-mad-mission-news@smoe.org Precedence: bulk Here's a review of "A Kiss in Time" I received through the singer-songwriter list. Thought some of you might want to check it out. Early 2004 for the a new album!!! wee!!! Sarah ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You're gonna dance to jah music, dance, We're gonna dance to jah music, dance, Forget your troubles and dance, Forget your sorrows and dance, Forget your sickness and dance, Forget your weakness and dance. . ." -- Bob Marley ----- Original Message ----- From: musicbox_online To: singer-songwriters@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2003 9:13 AM Subject: [singer-songwriters] Album Review - Patty Griffin - A Kiss in Time Album Review - Patty Griffin - A Kiss in Time In the wake of a massive corporate merger, Patty Griffin lost her contract with A&M, and having nothing left to lose, she settled into the home studio of friend and guitarist Doug Lancio to record a few tracks "just for fun." It's not unusual for these types of relaxed, easy-going, no-pressure projects to yield career-defining moments, and such was the case with Griffin's wildly successful 1000 Kisses, which garnered rave reviews, grabbed a Grammy nomination, and launched a 10-month tour that concluded at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, the prestigious home of the Grand Ole Opry. The recently released A Kiss in Time features nearly an hour's worth of highlights from this event and includes material culled largely from her hit album as well as its predecessor Flaming Red. Though it gives little indication as to where Griffin will head on her next effort, which incidentally is due in early 2004, it does offer a shimmering overview of her career thus far. This is an excerpt. To read the complete review, please visit: http://www.musicbox-online.com