Sunday 27 June 2010

I done a poem

Here's a poem I wrote a few months back which has been published on The Literateur.

I guess you could describe it as a cross between The Little Mermaid and My Fair Lady, with some puns thrown in. I'm pleased with it, anyway.

And I also recently reviewed Joanna Kavenna's new novel The Birth of Love for the same folk.

Tuesday 1 June 2010

Heart-Expanding


And I regret

how I said to you,

Honey, just open your heart,

when I’ve got trouble

even opening a honey jar.

Joanna Newsom, ‘Good Intentions Paving Company’


There’s a certain tone of voice that is so often borrowed to send up insufferable armchair critics, it’s amazing that there are still real-life armchair critics who use it. A pair of them was sitting behind me at the Joanna Newsom-Roy Harper gig in Paris last night. It was the last date of the tour and an emotional Roy Harper had just bid us a very touching farewell. Now, I don’t think Harper is an extraordinary talent or anything. I enjoyed his set the way I might enjoy watching a beloved uncle playing. His dry, occasionally bewildering patter between songs, peppered with endearing attempts to dredge up his schoolboy French, moved at a glacial, expansive pace that is perhaps only tolerable if you’re used to, and rather fond of, new-age folk relics.

Yes, expansive is the word. Some people expand, others only know how to contract. I present, without further comment, snatches of the conversation behind me (both speakers were British):

“Someone took too many drugs”

“Talk about a rock and roll casualty”

“It’s not the sort of music I’ve got in my collection”

“I’d give him 2/10 for stagecraft”

“I’ll look on Amazon, and if any of his albums is less than £1.50 I’ll buy it”

“It’s the sort of music that’s better live”

“All music is better live”

“Except stuff like Girls Aloud – that’s better off!”

One aspect of my level of French is that, while I can hold a conversation, I tend not to tune into other conversations around me. There are times when I realise what a blessing that is.


Anyway, Joanna. Oh, Joanna.

Some gigs exhilarate through their imperfection: through distortion, recklessness, a sense of being at the edge of control. It’s not often, at least outside the classical world, that a performer will shoot for and achieve perfection.

Three details from last night:

Joanna, while singing and playing the harp, makes small, rhythmic nods of the head to keep time. The way you might do if you were playing a fiendishly difficult two-handed instrument while delivering tongue-twisting, melody-twisting lyrics.

Ryan Francesconi (musical director on the last album) sets his guitar up on a stand, taps it and turns the gain pedal up, building a crescendo of feedback before sharply, on the downbeat, cutting it off.

The band and audience are waiting between songs as Neal Morgan makes small adjustments to the positioning of his drums and percussion instruments. He looks up at the expectant crowd and says mock-defiantly, “What? Art takes time!”

The picture I’m trying to draw is of a group of musicians whose respect for the luminous, angelic– but incredibly disciplined – artist in their midst is such that they won’t put a beat or a note out of place. You could see the concentration on their faces, while Joanna just grinned at how wonderful it all was. And so did we.