From: owner-trajectory-digest@smoe.org (trajectory-digest) To: trajectory-digest@smoe.org Subject: trajectory-digest V5 #38 Reply-To: trajectory@smoe.org Sender: owner-trajectory-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-trajectory-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk trajectory-digest Monday, July 2 2001 Volume 05 : Number 038 Today's Subjects: ----------------- goddess in the house [meredith ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 01 Jul 2001 22:39:00 -0400 From: meredith Subject: goddess in the house Hi, I think I'm recovered enough to say something about Veda Hille's performance here in our living room last night. Despite the worst possible weather (90 degrees with matching humidity, of course the days on either side weren't anything like that :P), the show went on. Nobody passed out from the heat, though I apologize again to anyone who was inconvenienced by the fact that we ran out of ice. :} Now I remember why we didn't originally plan to have any house concerts during the summer. Anyway, I don't know about anybody else, but when Veda was playing I didn't notice how much I was sweating at all. She started off by showing her short film "Happyland", which we had seen in California. It was even cuter the second time around. Then she did a set of older material spanning all of her albums prior to _Field Study_, starting off with the apropos "One Hot Summer", and ending with "With No Caring" (into which she had cobbled some lines from another song that I didn't recognize). The highlight of that set for me was "26 Years", which she hadn't done at any of the other shows I'd seen from this tour, and which is still my favorite song of all time. (During the bridge of that song I finally had my "oh my god, my supreme musical goddess is sitting in my living room playing" moment. :) She followed that up with "Meeting The Group of 7", which also ranks near the top of my list of most gorgeous songs ever written. She also did a Meryn Cadell song, which was really beautiful. I'm not sure of the title, but it's from her _6 Blocks_ album, which I've never been able to find a copy of. After an intermission, during which time I realized I *really* should've bought a bag of ice, we were treated to the U.S. premiere of the complete multimedia presentation of _Field Study_. (I *knew* we got a bigger TV earlier this year for a reason. ;) A video artist friend of Veda's made a montage of images to go with both song cycles on the album, plus "All Fur" during the Science And Nature cycle and "Six Feet Of Silence" at the start of the Yukon cycle. It was mesmerizing, and really added something to the songs, particularly since the Yukon images were from her trip up there last summer. (The images that are currently on vedahille.com come from this film.) I'd enjoyed listening to the _Field Study_ CD on its own, but now that I've seen the whole thing performed live, with the visuals and the stories Veda has told about the songs, all the dimensions have come together and I'm simply blown away by how brilliant it all is. Afterwards nobody wanted it to end, so Veda sat in the dark for a little bit answering questions about the video. The two most important tidbits to come out of this were 1.) she intends to edit the video against the CD and release it for sale, and 2.) she also intends to compile all of her other music videos plus "Happyland" and sell that as well. No timetable or anything, but hopefully it won't be long. I'd love to have all of her videos (I didn't even know she'd done one for "Sweet" off of _Spine_ until this weekend). I would gladly watch the _Field Study_ one at my leisure, too. So I guess it's back to real life now. Thanks to everyone who came and sweated it out with us (yes, "Bellyfish" references were bandied about over dinner). In particular, thanks to Chuck Colman for the use of his electric piano and amp, and to the New Haven Folk Alliance for allowing me to steal a microphone for the weekend. I just hope it's not another year and a half before we get to see Veda back on this coast again ... "Thank god for the genius that is Veda Hille." - Erin McKeown ======================================= Meredith Tarr New Haven, CT USA mailto:meth@smoe.org http://www.smoe.org/meth "things are more beautiful when they're obscure" -- veda hille ======================================= Live At The House O'Muzak House Concert Series http://www.smoe.org/meth/muzak.html ------------------------------ End of trajectory-digest V5 #38 *******************************