Limes with Orange

Went to see Jasmine [website under construction] Whenham last night at Karma. Also playing were Amy Bishop (from Calgary) and Athena Reich (from New York). I've already talked about Jasmine in previous posts, so suffice it to say she was fabulous as always. Amy was brand new to me. She has a wonderful voice and her rendition of Summertime alone was worth the price of admission (actually, since the cover was only $5.00, it was worth far more than that). But it was Athena who fulfilled my horoscope: "Expect the unexpected." Definitely a unique listening experience unlike any other (forgive the redundancy; put it down to trying to create emphasis by repetition), but since we do love to describe artists by using other artists...

Imagine a combination of... hmm... let me think... okay, try Ani DiFranco, Kate Bush (or maybe Tori Amos), Laurie Anderson and Liza Minnelli... and if you can conceive of that merger without ever having seen Athena, then I applaud your powers of imagination. She has power, passion, perception, (s)punk... my increasingly pathetic alliterations completely fail me at this point, so let's drop the contrivances. (I so want to coin a word at this point... doesn't "contrivations" sound better than "contrivances"? No? Just me? Oh well, back to the topic at hand.) She's quirky, creative, intelligent, funny, theatrical, energetic, haunting and sometimes kinda shocking. Enough adjectives for you? (I know, adjectives are the tool of a weak writer... c'est la vie, at least they're not adverbs.) And I love the fact that so many of her songs are inspired by dreams.

I bought her latest CD, Stranger Things Have Happened, and am still deciding on my favourite tracks. At this point, I'll pick Anarchy, Merry Go Round, Duality in D and Back to Canada. I also really liked a song that she played that was a sequel to Jesse – I think it was called Maybe I – but, unfortunately, it's not on the CD. Guess I'll have to buy her next one for that. Then she played some songs from Athena Under Attack, her rock opera about 9/11 (think "Björk sings Brecht"). The quintessential song from the play, How Can I Sleep, is incredibly poignant and felt as though it might have been transcribed from my thoughts - were my thoughts so well articulated - which makes me itch to both have that CD and see the play... the first itch being rather easier to scratch than the second. And if you'll allow me to direct this discussion back to me (me, me... all about me!), it also reminded me of the poem that I wrote about that particular day:

Echoes

Melancholy riffs
echo in my head,
so empty of all thought.
Instead—
such images of evil
and the din of fear,
death,
last breaths.

And I fancy that I see
the fabric of freedom
disintegrate,
like an ancient shroud,
into so much dust—
a broken trust—
on the streets of the city.

Dante had nothing on this.

The evil that man wreaks upon man
overwhelms me
as before,
as always.
And my cold soul
fills with loneliness.

There is no anger yet,
nor tears,
just despair and sorrow
to face the morrow.

So as this long day collapses into dark night,
the only solace that I find
is in the blues refrain
that echoes in my mind.


So, yeah... ahem... how to kill the jazzed up mood leftover from last night. On that note, I think I'll just discreetly tiptoe out of the room.

Labels: music, poetry