NeilNathan
My Digital Music Collection
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My friend Talia Lugacy directed this and I'm really pleased with it. I know that because I barely squirmed once while watching myself, a real feat!
Her recent film debut, "Descent" starring my old roomie, Rosario Dawson, is quite powerful with some amazing performances. The NY Times gave it a very impressive review comparing Rosario's performance to DeNiro in "Taxi Driver." You would think a distributor would run with that and release the thing nationally with quotes from that review pasted on every newspaper and web site. But they never really got what the film was all about and only ended up premiering it at Tribeca Film Festival and releasing it in NY and LA. It's now out on DVD and I highly recommend checking it out. It's a very different look at date rape than what American audiences are used to. However, if you are a bit squeamish, beware of the ending. I think it is a very courageous and auspicious directorial and writing debut for Talia and Rosario's best acting performance yet. I had three tunes in the film which was good fun for me.
Talia did a great job of portraying this pretty bizarre concept I presented her with. The song came to me in a dream that took place in an English pub. The world was coming to an end and we were all blazingly drunk singing the chorus together. When I awoke, I immediately sat down and recorded it. The original demo had a much more sing along, sloppy vibe to it, and as you will hear, it came out a lot cleaner in the studio.
Robert Lehrer plays the elder me and it is quite spooky. We are doppelgangers! My mother saw him at the video release and jokingly asked me to introduce her to my grandfather!
I'm really happy with my layman friends' acting in it. Lots of eerie vibes.
Hope ya dig.
So, I was supposed to head straight to Feist on Tuesday night, but things didn't quite work out that way!
As I was getting a pre-show cocktail, I ran into a friend of mine. He's a fabulous Liverpuddlian guitarist who played on a few of my recordings. We were like kids in a candy store at that session in engineer Michael Brauer's (Bob Dylan, Cold Play) private room at Quad Studio. Some very cool vintage analog tape delay effects that made my voice sound like a very comfy 70's living room couch! He now plays in the shoegazing, Britpop outfit, The Picture. Some great songwriting.
Anyway, he was on his way to see the second night of The Verve. And the more I talked about it, the more excited I got about that special Monday night show.
So I convinced my other friend that we should bag Feist and buy tickets to The Verve. But I clearly should not have tried to re-create the magic. The boys seemed a little lower energy than the night before. So we left mid set and headed over to catch the tail end of Feist (no pun intended)!
Hammerstein was not a good venue for her as there were too many chatty folk on the very large and long floor. Town Hall was perfect when I saw her last. But of course, she was fantastic. I love her Malcolm Young headbanging move when she's rocking out on the guitar.
Got a nice little poster to commemorate the evening. Will go nicely next to Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and You Am I in my hallway.
In other fantastic rock art news, my buddy is moving to Barcelona, and is allowing me to babysit his folk art Robert Johnson wood shudder thingy.
He seems very happy in my living room on the exposed brick. Woo hoo!
Comments
sounds like a full eveniing regardless - even a low energy Verve is probably better than a lot of other bands at full power... i would think.
i certainly agree with that sentiment and would have stuck it out with a big smile on my face, but the dream girl beckoned
Agreed. I saw the Verve in Minneapolis at Lalapalooza whateveryeritwastheyplayed, and Richard Ashcroft had been in the hospital the day before for "heat exhaustion." I may be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure he still had the IV catheter still stuck in his arm while they played.
Wow!!
I've seen Richard Ashcroft twice this past year and nothing prepared me for The Verve. He was an entirely different character fronting his boys! The cheeky, tripped out, Brit shaman was definitely in the house! "We've got two songs left. One a classic, and one a future classic." That kind of ego seemed warranted at the time and was much preferred to his whinier solo persona. "Oh woe is me, I'm just playing in front of a thousand people here at Webster Hall. But I'm a huge rock star, you must believe me!" That is a bit paraphrased, but you get the idea.
The Wamu Theater is tucked underneath MSG and it kind of feels like you are literally in the ass hole of the Garden, which isn't a good feeling!; especially if the band sounds as huge as the Verve do and should be playing the Garden proper! Perhaps next time. Though after hearing some of the dancier new tunes, I think this album is going to be a bit more European friendly.
They opened with A New Decade off of A Northern Soul, which was the perfect hard rock rave up. Lucky Man and The Drugs Don't Work were my faves off of Urban Hymns.
Their washed out reverb/delay combo created a sound built for a stadium and the light show was pretty powerful as well.
Off to Feist, as the party continues!
Comments
Off to Feist? Sounds like fun, I've yet to check her out.
Can we expect another nice blurb, hmmmm(please)?
there can never be enough nice blurbs about feist!
i think i've done at least two thus far, but i'm sure i will not be able to help myself
Comments
Dig!
Was that filmed in the bar "Sweet & Vicious" in the lower east side?
glad you dig!
nah, it was filmed at kings head tavern on 14th and 3rd ave
there was another joint bulls head tavern on 3rd ave and 23rd which was perfect, gothic murals on the walls, red velvet curtains.....but they wanted an arm and a leg to shoot there and the guy at kings head just kept saying yes to everything we asked for
Kings Head! Been past it but never been inside, very cool non-the-less!