Concert Report: Susan Werner @ Club Passim

Patti and I caught the first night of Susan Werner's two night stint at Club Passim this past Thursday, April 2. Susan is on a CD-release tour for her new project, Classics (more on this in a bit). This tour has Susan in a trio format, with Julia Biber on cello, and Trina Hamlin on vocals, harmonica, and a variety of percussive instruments.

The first portion of Susan's nearly two-hour set focused not on the new CD, but rather her previous project, The Gospel Truth. Notice how I say "project", as each of Susan's last three releases have been exactly that — projects with clearly identifiable themes. Susan variously describes The Gospel Truth as "agnostic gospel", "protest gospel", "music for the spiritually ambivalent", and "music from the religious left." Those are all apt descriptions of what to me is an innovative, honest, and profound body of music.

To be sure, The Gospel Truth denounces the hypocrisy of the religous right ("i know you'd damn me if you could, but my friend that's simply not your call"), and pokes particular fun at the catholic church ("and please allow for women in the catholic priesthood, and remind the pope he could have been a girl"), but it also quiets us with its moments of profound meaning, as in Did Trouble Me:

when i closed my eyes so i would not see
my lord did trouble me
when i let things stand that should not be
my lord did trouble me
when i held my head too high too proud
my lord did trouble me
when i raised my voice too little too loud
my lord did trouble me

After a half dozen Gospel Truth songs, Susan moved to the keyboards and songs from her 2004 project, I Can't Be New. That project consists of original Werner compositions in the style of the Great American Songbook, or as Susan puts it, songs written as if she were "Cole Porter's smart mouthed little sister." She performed "Give Me Chicago", her rousing ode to her adopted home town with its long list of praises for the windy city. I noticed that the verse mentioning Studs Terkel is gone, as Studs passed away last October. But a new verse has been added, ending in "music and drama, Barack Obama" in honor of the new president. We also got the plot-twisting romance, I Can't Be New, and the humorous self-effacing Movie of My Life.

The clear highlight of the mid-section of the set was Time Between Trains, which is now more than ten years old and was the only song of the night from Susan's earlier work. Trina Hamlin's harmonica playing takes this allegory about the interlude between relationships to a new level. Trina gets an extended harmonica solo during Time Between Trainsthat simply brings the house down.

Susan's delight was evident:

Another highlight prior to the new stuff was Susan's somber but uplifting hymn, May I Suggest. I never tire of this song, as it makes me want to cry and smile all at the same time. Here's a good version from YouTube, for any of you who are unfamiliar with either Susan or May I Suggest. Watch it and see if it gets to you too:

Which brings us to Classics, Susan's latest project. This project consists of reinterpretations of classic songs from the 1960s and 1970s with chamber orchestra arrangements. Don't wince, it's far better than you might imagine at first. No, it's not elevator music! It's new and fresh interpretations that make these songs sound all new &mdash and newly relevant.

For this section of the set, Trina left the stage, and Julia Biber's cello playing took on a stronger focus.

I'll admit, the first time I played the entire Classics CD it didn't grab me. I was hearing the contrast from the boldness of The Gospel Truth, and overlooking the subtle beauty of the string arrangements. But after two or three spins, I was hooked. And hearing America's Lonely People, Marvin Gaye's Mercy Mercy Me, Cat Stevens' The Wind, and Simon & Garfunkel's Hazy Shade of Winter performed live in this duet setting only solidified my feelings. All of these songs sound new again. And still so relevant.

Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain't what they used to be
No, no
Where did all the blue sky go?
Poison is the wind that blows
From the north, east, south, and sea
Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain't what they used to be
No, no

In a break after Julia's cello solo (a piece composed by German composer Paul Hindemith), Susan and Julia had the audience in stitches with their hilarious send up of classical musicians. Julia played the perfect visual impersonation of Susan's verbal descriptions of the body movements of modern cellists — the flying hair, the swooning, the angry faces. This was followed by an on-the-spot modern (discordant) improvisation called Marshmallow Peeps, a theme solicited from the audience.

Yes, it was all a big fun poke at modern classical music, but Susan noticed a women in one or the front tables who must have had some telling look on her face. Susan asked her if she was a musician, and the audience member said she was. Susan said, "Oh no, you're not a classical musician, are you?", to which we learned that yes, she was a classical pianist. Not missing a beat, Susan invited her to come up and play for us, and Susan led the audience in cheering until our audience heroine complied. The moment of truth arrived, and audience member Amy blew us away with a fine version of Chopin's Minute Waltz:

We gave Amy a thunderous applause!

Oh! One other twist to the night. Monday is Susan's birthday, so road manager Jane brought a birthday cake up to the stage at the start of the encore, and the audience sang Happy Birthday to Susan:

I'll close with this seven minute compilation from one of Susan's performances at Club Passim in 2007. This is an excellent glimpse of exactly what a Susan Werner concert is like:

Susan Werner, with Trina Hamlin & Julia Biber
Club Passim, Cambridge, MA
Thursday, April 2, 2009
 
That's How It Happens
(Why Is Your) Heaven So Small
Our Father (The New, Revised Edition)
Sunday Mornings
Did Trouble Me
Probably Not
Give Me Chicago
I Can't Be New
Time Between Trains
Movie of My Life
May I Suggest
Lonely People (America)
Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) (Marvin Gaye)
The Wind (Cat Stevens, with Bach Suite for Cello #3 in C Major intro)
Solo by Julia Biber on Cello (Paul Hindemith)
Marshmallow Peeps (Werner/Biber improvisation)
Minute Waltz (Frederic Chopin, performed by audience member Amy)
A Hazy Shade of Winter (Simon & Garfunkel, with Vivaldi Four Seasons intro)
 
Encore:
Happy Birthday to Susan (Traditional, sung by the audience)
Turn Turn Turn (Peter Seeger, The Byrds)
Help Somebody

Concert Report: Richard Shindell @ Tupelo Music Hall

Patti and I were back at Tupelo on Thursday night, March 26, for Richard Shindell's 90-minute set. It's been just over a year since we last saw Richard play, also at Tupelo.

Richard's new album, Not Far Now, is just weeks old, so I was somewhat surprised we only got two songs from it all night long. One was Get Up Clara, a simple and nearly silly tune in which a weary traveler begs his mule to get up and get going. Set in the Roman empire, the song plays on "roaming" and "Roman" for its lyrical twist. The other song from the new album was Balloon Man, a wonderful description of a character from Richard's adopted town of Buenos Aires who sells balloons to children in the city's parks. The sight of the balloon man makes everyone smile, in real life as well as in my mind's eye:

balloon man's a little bit ragged
his glasses are slightly askew
one lens is cracked and shoes never match
he might have a screw loose or two
 
his rig is a marvel of equipoise
Leonardo might've designed
bamboo for the wide horizontal
pine for the vertical rise
 
he's wearing in a flag-bearers harness
he's holding the whole thing aloft
balloons all arrayed, he's a one man parade
if he ran he'd surely take off

Richard's cover of Glen Patscha's (of Ollabelle) Blue Northern Lights was a great and welcome surprise. Richard recently did a small tour with Ollabelle, and he picked this song up during that stint. I also heard at least one audible gasp of happy surprise in the audience when Richard launched into Leonard Cohen's Famous Blue Raincoat.

Richard continued what is for me an unbroken string of messing up the lyrics to Transit for, I think, the third for fourth time in a row. I don't know what it is about that particular song, but Richard seems unable to get through whole thing without a lyrics flub at some point. I sort of love that, though, as it makes him human. He also flubbed the second verse of Fishing, one of my all-time favorite Shindell songs. Fishing is a haunting fictional tale of an INS (Immigration and Naturalization Services) interrogation, and perhaps this is the perfect point for me to include a YouTube video for those of you who are not yet familiar with his music. Watch this:

By far the biggest audience reaction of the night came when he played Are You Happy Now? — isn't it funny how we seem to love bitter breakup songs? This song is set on Halloween night, and our storyteller sits in the dark after his lover has left him. I particularly love the imagery of the second verse:

I smashed your pumpkin on the floor
The candle flickered at my feet
As goblins flew across the room
The children peered into the room
A cowboy shivered on the porch
As Cinderella checked her watch
A hobo waited in the street
An angel whispered, trick-or-treat
But what was I supposed to do
But to sit there in the dark?
I was amazed to think that you
Could take the candy with you too
 
Are you happy now?

Man! Nothing like a good breakup song to make use feel better, eh? The first verse also contains what I consider to be signature Shindell lyric hooks - look at his use of "role" and "roll", as well as color — black, white, gray, and red:

You left your camera on the bed
Where we played roles in black and white
You left a roll of black and white
I set the timer and thought of you
And put the lens up to my head
I took a photograph for you
What comes out gray is really red

I was thrilled to find this version of the song on YouTube:

Richard mostly played his acoustic guitar, but switched to bouzouki for, if my notes are correct, three songs — Robbie Robertson's Acadian Driftwood, and his own A Summer Wind, A Cotton Dress, and Reunion Hill.

Here's one more video from YouTube, this one of Richard performing A Summer Wind, A Cotton Dress so that you can hear what the bouzouki sounds like:

All in all, a fine night of entertainment by one of my favorite songwriters. As usual, the photos above are my own, and you can view the full set on Flickr.

Richard Shindell
Tupelo Music Hall, Londonderry, NH
Thursday, March 26, 2009
 
The Island
Acadian Driftwood (Robbie Robertson)
Blue Northern Lights (Glenn Patscha)
Get Up Clara
Poor Wayfaring Stranger (Traditional)
A Summer Wind, A Cotton Dress
Balloon Man
Sitting on Top of the World (Traditional)
Reunion Hill
Are You Happy Now?
Fishing
So Says the Whippoorwill
Famous Blue Raincoat (Leonard Cohen)
Transit
Last Fare of the Day
There Goes Mavis
Encore: Waist Deep in the Big Muddy (Pete Seeger)

Concert Report: Ollabelle at Club Passim

 

Right off the bat I'm going to say that this was not my favorite Ollabelle concert. That's not to say I didn't have a rocking great time, but more an acknowledgement of the fact that this was three-fifths Ollabelle, not the full quintet. Neither Tony Leone (drums) or Amy Helm (vocals, mandola) were with the band for their Boston stop, and I missed them both. Tony's drums wouldn't have fit on Passim's postage stamp of a stage anyway, and Amy gets a pass as she is home with a new baby. But a significant part of the Ollabelle repertoire can't be performed without those two, including the signature knock-you-back-in-your-seat Before This Time, and The Band-channelling Cane on the Brazos. (Tony regularly plays with the Levon Helm Band, and Amy is Levon's daughter, so channelling The Band comes naturally.)

Ollabelle, for those not paying close attention, is best described as a NYC-formed urban, gospel, roots, harmony band named after roots music pioneer Ola Belle Reed (1916-2002). Besides Tony and Amy, the other three members are Fiona McBain on vocals and guitars, Byron Isaacs on vocals and bass, and Glenn Patscha on vocals and keyboards. Early in their career they were taken under the wing of T-Bone Burnett.

On Thursday night the band was joined by singer-songwriter Martha Scanlan on vocals and guitar, and everybody's favorite Boston-based session guitarist, Duke Levine. You may have never heard of Duke, but his collaboration resume includes Peter Wolf, Otis Rush, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shawn Colvin, Aimee Mann, Kathy Mattea, Sleepy LaBeef, Ellis Paul, Dar Williams, Lucy Kaplansky, and Susan Werner - just to name a few!

The first set lacked a little energy for my tastes. Starting with the opening song, Fiona's rendering of the traditional gospel Elijah Rock, there just wasn't the pin-you-back-in-your-seat feel. Could this be partially due to Fiona being well along in her pregnancy? (Word has it the baby is due in April.) Could it be getting used to Martha and Duke? Who knows, but I noticed that Elijah Rock didn't quite rock with the force it normally has. They did jam it out nicely, but just a bit softer than I'm used to.

My reaction to the first set could also be influenced by the new songs they are trotting out. The band recently rented out a house in upstate New York, turned it into a recording studio, and went on a writing binge (shades of Big Pink!). New songs were sprinkled throughout the night, including Glenn's One More Time, and Fiona's Remember to Forget - both in the first set.

Martha's singing style was also a factor. She was nearly whisper quiet, even on her own songs. I found myself alternatively struggling to hear her lyrics, and wanting the sound man to add more vocals to the house mix. To be fair to Martha, she sings and plays with intense feeling, and simply brought the house down with her lead vocals on Abilene in the second set.

Not to mention that watching the guitar interplay between Martha and the incredible Duke Levine was a highlight throughout the night. You could tell how much Martha was enjoying Duke's playing, with her eyes closed and head bent in his direction, a look of bliss on her face.

Oh, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Byron was playing a stunningly beautiful stand up bass. It was so fitting for the small room and tiny stage.

Although the band is writing more and more songs, we were still treated to a good smattering of traditional songs, one Ola Belle Reed song (I've Endured, sung by Fiona), a Buddy Holly treat (Raining in my Heart, also sung by Fiona), and a simply gorgeous and harmonious rendering of Garcia and Hunter's Ripple (Fiona on lead vocals).

While they may have started slow, Ollabelle found its voice in the second set, and we left very satisfied.

Photo note: I took all the photos you see on this page with my trusty Canon Rebel, and you can see the full photo set on Flickr.

Ollabelle, with Martha Scanlan & Duke Levine
Club Passim, Cambridge, MA
Thursday, March 5, 2009
 
Set 1:
Elijah Rock (Traditional)
One More Time
Gone Today
Remember to Forget
John the Revelator (Traditional)
Seeds of the Pine (Martha Scanlan)
I Don't Even Have to Ask (Martha Scanlan)
Jesus on the Mainline (Traditional)
I've Endured (Ola Belle Reed)
 
Set 2:
Brotherly Love
Raining in My Mind
Blue Northern Lights
The West Was Burning (Martha Scanlan)
Abilene (Composer?)
Move On
Raining in my Heart (Buddy Holly)
Get Back Temptation
Ripple (Robert Hunter/Jerry Garcia)
Encore: ? (I feel like such a slacker for not recognizing the encore!)

Concert Report: Paul Rishell and Annie Raines at Club Passim

Blues duo Paul Rishell and Annie Raines (Paul and Annie) played nearly two hours of masterful acoustic country blues last night at the legendary Club Passim, just off of Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA. The house was nearly at Passim's full capacity of 125 people, and the audience was attentive and appreciative.

Paul and Annie features Paul on guitar and Annie on blues harmonica, with both sharing vocal duties. Paul mostly played his gorgeous National Reso-Phonic guitar, and Annie switched to an equally beautiful Rigel mandolin on a few tunes.

One of the things I most appreciate about Paul and Annie is their knowledge of blues history and the old time blues masters. We heard Paul tell stories of Scrapper Blackwell, Jelly Roll Morton, Washington Phillips, and Bo Carter. Annie told us of Ma Rainey ("Mother of the Blues") and Bessie Smith. By far the most jaw-dropping story of the night was told by Paul about Tommy Johnson. Tommy, it seems, had his demons and addictions, not unlike many of the blues legends. Tommy's particular problem was alcohol, and he was known to drink anything and everything that had alcohol in it, including hair tonic, shoe polish, and, yes, sterno - which is also known as "canned heat". Thus the origin of Tommy's Canned Heat Blues (not to mention the origin of the name of the Canned Heat band from the 60s):

I woked up, up this morning, with canned heat on my mind
Woked up this morning, canned heat was on my mind
Woke up this morning, with canned heat, Lord, on my mind
Crying, Lord, Lord, I wonder, canned heat, Lord, killing me

I was thrilled to hear Paul say a few kind words about another of my musical heros, Spider John Koerner, followed by a great rendition of Spider John's Good Luck Child.

Audience favorites included Paul and Annie's own Got To Fly, an infectious and catchy tune that Annie sings, as well as the rousing Old Man Mose (a Louis Armstrong composition). We were singing along on both tunes, particularly well on the latter's chorus in a call-and-response fashion:

Now one time there lived an old man
With a very crooked nose
He lived inside a log hut
and they called him ol' man Mose
One dark and dreary morning I knocked upon his door
I didn't hear a single sound
so I ain't gonna do it no more.
 
'cos I believe ol' man, I believe ol' man
I believe ol' man, that ol' man Mose is dead.
I believe ol' man, I believe ol' man
I believe ol' man, that ol' man Mose is dead.

The evening's songs ranged from achingly slow and beautiful (It'll Be Me/I'll Be Looking For You), to the tongue-in-cheek humorous (Bessie Smith's You Been a Good Ol' Wagon), to soulful gospel (Washington Phillips' I Had A Good Father and Mother), to rousing blues (Johnny Winter's Dallas).

If you see that Paul and Annie are going to be playing near you, give 'em a chance. You won't be disappointed.

As always, here are some YouTube clips to give you an idea. First up, a short clip of Paul and Annie doing Johnny Winter's Dallas. This really showcases Paul's vocals and National Steel guitar:

And on this clip, Annie's blues harmonica will blow you away:

The setlist:

Paul Rishell & Annie Raines
Passim Folk Music and Cultural Center, Cambridge, MA
Saturday, January 24, 2009
 
Set 1:
Custard Pie (Blind Boy Fuller)
Trouble Blues (Scrapper Blackwell)
Honey It Must Be Love (Blind Willie McTell)
It'll Be Me / I'll Be Looking For You (Jack Clement / Paul Rishell)
Got To Fly (Annie Raines / Paul Rishell)
I'm Gonna Jump and Shout (author?)
Black-Eyed Blues (Ma Rainey)
Dallas (Johnny Winter)
 
Set 2:
Ragtime Millionaire (William Moore)
You Been a Good Ol' Wagon (Bessie Smith)
Michigan Water Blues (Jelly Roll Morton)
Old Man Mose (Louis Armstrong / Zilner Randolph)
I Had A Good Father and Mother (Washington Phillips)
You're The One (Jimmy Rogers)
That Old Heartbreak (author?)
I Get The Blues (Bo Carter)
Canned Heat Blues (Tommy Johnson)
Good Luck Child (Spider John Koerner)
Encore: Some These Days (Charlie Patton)

Photography Notes: This was my second outing with my new Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens, and I must say I am loving it. A full set of 22 pictures are posted in a Flickr set if you want to see more than just the three four I included here. I did crop each photo, and also used an unsharp mask on each. I didn't do any color adjustments, though, and you can see that the lighting color on Annie was vastly different than on Paul - Paul's skin looks quite natural, while Annie is bathed in a pretty ghastly orange-yellow. I was tempted, but I left Annie's color alone - she really did look that way. Also I couldn't really do much with that Passim banner in the background which, from my vantage point, split both Paul and Annie right down the middle of their heads.

Concert Report: Lucy Kaplansky @ Tupelo Music Hall

Patti and I last saw Lucy Kaplansky at our favorite local venue, the Tupelo Music Hall, just about a year ago. She was back again last night, on a single-digit cold Friday night. Lucy seemed genuinely thankful for the turnout when the crowd let her know that, yes, this was cold even by New Hampshire standards; the room was probably at a bit more than half capacity.

Lucy opened with her haunting cover of the traditional Scottish song, Loch Lomond, one of the three four as-yet unrecorded covers she performed during her 75-minute set.

The second cover of the night was a beautiful rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, performed on the Tupelo's baby grand piano. Lucy said this was the first time she had performed that particular song in concert. I am all for having this in her regular rotation. I guess most people are familiar with the Rufus Wainwright version used in the Shrek soundtrack, but there are a ton of wonderful covers (including, now, Lucy's!). I just had a blast browsing through a bunch of versions on YouTube, including versions by Jeff Buckley, K.D. Lang, Bob Dylan (a live audience recording), Sheryl Crow, John Cale (!), Bon Jovi (that one was a surprise), Allison Crowe (wow, who is she and why haven't I heard her before? fantastic voice!), and of course a version by Cohen himself.

Also covered on the baby grand, later in the set, was Lucy's version of Lennon and McCartney's "Let It Be." We also heard that last year, and it would take me a long time to tire of hearing her sing it. Lucy mentioned that she is considering a new CD containing nothing but stripped down live take versions of covers such as Loch Lomond, Hallelujah, and Let It Be. A number of us in the audience did our best to encourage her to do it. Personally I'd love an album like that. Even more so if she included one or more of her dad's songs, which she said it would.

Speaking of her dad (the late mathematician Irving Kaplansky), Lucy told of recently taking her daughter, Molly, to the New York Hall of Science. One of the current exhibits is a math exhibit (Mathematica: A World of Numbers), and Lucy couldn't help but break down in tears when she spotted a photo of her dad in the exhibit. She explained to Molly how much it meant to her to see her dad in the exhibit. This must have made quite an impression, as weeks later Molly (who is all of 6 years old) was talking about how she wanted to grow up and do math, just like her grandpa. Oh, and our Irving Kaplansky cover song of the night was A Song About Pi.

After performing Hallelujah and her own Just You Tonight on piano Lucy switched back to guitar to "lighten it up." I asked her if that was even possible, and she said something like "for a little while, at least." So Patti and I shared a laugh when she then launched into Don't Mind Me, a song about maniacal obsession, followed by Scorpion, arguably another song about maniacal obsession!

Don't mind me I'm just a bit maniacal about you And derailed when I'm without you Don't mind me

Gonna sting you with a kiss from my lips Gonna sting you with a piece of my mind Gonna sting you with a taste of my skin Then you're mine, then you're mine

Here's a nice version of Scorpion from YouTube, probably from sometime in the past year or two:

Another good example of Lucy's work, and also a song we were treated to toward the end of the set, is this version of Lucy performing Ring of Fire:

The set ending Guinevere was a nice treat of an oldie. Lucy recorded this Robin Batteau song on her first album, The Tide, originally released in 1994. It's nice to hear a song that isn't in regular rotation anymore.

The set list:

Loch Lomond (Traditional)
Line in the Sand
Mother's Day
Ten Year Night
Manhattan Moon
Somewhere Out There
Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen)
Just You Tonight
Don't Mind Me
Scorpion
More Than This
A Song About Pi (Irving Kaplansky)
When You Love Someone
Sleep Little Darling
Let It Be (Lennon/McCartney)
Ring of Fire (June Carter/Merle Kilgore)
Guinevere (Robin Batteau)
Encore: The Red Thread

The opening act was Karen Grenier, a local artist from Nashua, NH. Strong voice and good guitar skills, she played a nice seven song set. Some of her own songs, including the opening When I Say I Love You and closing One Life were just a tad too close to sounding like Indigo Girls wanna-be songs for my taste. Not that that is bad, but I preferred songs like Superhero, which to my ear just sounded like her own voice rather than an imitation. The set highlight for me, though, was an incredibly strong version of Tom Waits' Jersey Girl. She gets two thumbs up from me for that cover alone. Her set:

When I Say I Love You
Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)
Superhero
Love Will Come
Jersey Girl (Tom Waits)
One Life

Photographic notes: I posted the two photos above, along with four others, in a flickr photo set. The photos, as posted, are straight out of the camera with no post-processing (although resized down via the Flickr Uploadr application). This was my first chance to try out my new Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens. I do like having some zoom ability, but I also did miss the f/1.8 aperture of my fixed 50mm lens. I shot in shutter speed priority mode at 1/50 sec., ISO 1600. I think I like the piano shot the best. I wish I had the ability to take lots of shots and really play around, but the Tupelo is such a small and audience-focused venue that I am always very conservative - never taking more than about 10 or 12 shots during an entire show, and trying to be as non-distracting to the other patrons (and the artists) as possible. To me, even the sound of my shutter going off is too loud in that environment.

Reflections on the Great Ice Storm

All of the photos in this post are available in a photo set on flickr, The Great Ice Storm. You can also click on any of them here to see a higher resolution version.

It Rained
It rained. On Thursday, December 11, 2008, it rained. We didn't pay it much attention. After all, it was just a steady rain. Oh, maybe there was the small observation that we haven't had much rain lately. But it was more a wet annoyance than anything else.

I went to dinner with a group from work that night. End of the year celebration and all that. We had a great time with food and drink, without giving the weather a second thought. When I neared home around 8 or 9pm I noticed the temperature was dropping, and some small branches were down on the back roads near my house. Didn't think much of it though. Just some crap in the road. Not all that unusual.

But the temperature continued to drop.

The lights flickered several times around 10pm. I knew what was coming. Well, I knew we would lose power; I really had no clue what was coming. No clue at all.

The power was still on when we went to bed around 11pm. Shortly after the trees started falling. No, falling isn't the right word. Shattering is more like it. SNAP. CRACK. A frightening sound, when a tree branch shatters under the weight of all that ice. Think of the sound of a baseball bat shattering upon impact with a fastball down the middle of the plate. Now amplify that up to the size of a tree.

Did the power go out before we started hearing trees shatter, or after? I don't know. The sequence is lost in the dreamy drifting in and out of sleep of that night. But I do know that the trees continued to shatter. All night long.

The World Is Ice
Morning comes. No power. Outside, ice. Everything is covered with ice.

 

The trees are bending to the ground in submission. And the world is oddly black and white, as if the ice has sucked the color out of everything.

And destruction. Holy crap. There was a war, and the trees were bombed. Thirty, forty, fifty feet up they snapped and shattered.

 

Many small trees didn't stand a chance.

 

It doesn't take a genius to understand that travel will be treacherous. Roads will be blocked.

 

There Is No Power
The numbers are old news by now. What was it, somewhere north of one million people without power in the five northeast states? In New Hampshire alone, almost 400,000 were without power. Even today, almost two weeks later, there are about 2,000 poor souls who haven't been restored. Public Service of New Hampshire (PSNH) reports that it has restrung more than 120 miles of power cable, replaced more than 250 broken poles, 16,000 fuses, and 1,500 transformers. They don't do that in an entire normal year, no less in a couple of days. But the numbers alone don't tell the story.

We started preparing that first day long before darkness took over. Emergency lanterns. Mag lights and other flashlights. Batteries. The emergency supply of water from the basement. The emergency one-burner butane cook stove. Inventory of easy to prepare food. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. And check. Surely the power will be back on soon, but these are the necessary steps you take when you lose power during winter in New England.

We ventured out in the afternoon. The Shaws grocery store in Derry was open and operating under emergency power. What an odd experience. A bare minimum of dim emergency lights. All of the open cold cases, normally stocked with milk and OJ and eggs and meat, are empty and dark; all of that stuff was evacuated to power-safe locations in the middle of the night. The freezer aisles are still stocked, but blocked off to prevent anyone from opening the case doors and letting the precious cold air out. The water aisle is pillaged, but we score some; without the ability to run our well pump, we are entirely dependent on our emergency supply. Tuna fish and canned soup are gold.

By 3pm we worry about the house getting cold. Our friend, Mark, is our lifeline. Mark heats with a woodstove, and he stockpiles wood on his property the way a squirrel prepares for a long winter. We can use our fireplace woodstove insert as an emergency heat source. It isn't nearly as good as an honest-to-goodness wooodstove, but it will keep the house out of the danger zone. After a trek to Mark's to bring home two recycling bins of wood, the stove is generating heat. Patti and I laugh when I go to plug in the woodstove fan power cord. D'oh! But soon the living room is above 60 degrees F.

Without the ability to circulate heat out of the woodstove via its fan, we burn wood at probably four or five times the normal rate. Mark is a trooper, though, and he keeps us supplied. We average two to three bins a day, with the living room hovering around 60. Rooms further away are down to 50. The basement is 45. The pipes won't freeze. We are thankful. Monitoring the temperature becomes a fundamental activity, particularly when the outside temperature drops into the mid-teens on Saturday night.

In all, we were without power for eight and a half days. They were exhausting days. Our supply of water, batteries, butane, and wood become our primary focus. We sleep in sleeping bags on the living room floor, near the woodstove. Sure as hell can't sleep on our now stone cold waterbed, much to the dismay of our cat.

The house is a wreck. Everything is dirty. Between the dirt from burning wood, and conservation of our bottled water supply, daily activity clean up is nowhere near normal. I wonder, what did the pioneers ever do without Clorox Wipes?

We may be running out of clean clothes, but showers at work are a blessing.

Our cat, GK, a creature of habit if there ever was one, is freaked. He has this look that says, "SRSLY, WTF?"

The tropical fish tank water temperature is well below the safe zone. The neon tetras are dead within three days, but Pleco the plecostomus hangs in. He's got a lot of body mass, and he appears to go into a state of semi-hibernation. We establish a pattern of filling the tea kettle with bottled Poland Springs water, heating it on the wood stove, and using it to bring the water temperature up a few degrees. We don't really know if it helps Pleco at all, but it makes us feel better.

We emptied both refrigerators, as well as the upright freezer, on Sunday afternoon. It started when we noticed a puddle of water under the fridge in the kitchen. Sh*t, there goes a whole bunch of food. But at least we have curbside garbage pickup, and tomorrow morning is garbage day. All three appliances are spic and span. Better to do it now, before it becomes a battle against rotting smell.

The sound of portable gas generators fill the neighborhood, but we don't have one. People wait in lines at Home Depot for daily shipments.

Eight long days of this. Sure, going to work helps. But we're distracted, and tired, and scattered.

Twitter Shines Brightly
Coming home after work at night was the most difficult. It would be all too easy to let depression get the better of you. You drive toward your home, seeing houses and neighborhoods brightly light with restored power. But as you near home it all goes dark, except for the dimmest of lights coming from houses with generators. You wander around the house with a headlamp and a flashlight, feeling like a stranger. It's your house, but it isn't home. (Credit for that last line goes to my friend Carolyn. Actually, her exact words were, "Impossible to explain being a refugee in your own home... you just want to go home, but you're already there, and it's not home." Exactly.)

Our twitter community kept us sane, though. Patti and I both have lightweight twitter clients on our smartphones, and the ability to stay in contact became far more important than I would have thought. Some of it was the solidarity (misery loves company?) among the many of us without power. We stayed in touch, and rejoiced when one of us was restored. We were warmed by invitations to come to friends' houses. We were touched by expressions of concern from those near and far. And we were able to shout out to the world; twitter became a cathartic outlet. I smile looking back at my twitter stream. Just a few posts:

Sunday night: have another guinness. throw some more wood in the stove. fall asleep reading in the dark, with cat on lap. my house. tonight.

Monday night: one of our 6 volt battery lanterns hit the too dim stage. OTOH, i scored D batteries today. we measure quality of life by batteries & water

Tuesday: PSNH told my neighbor "maybe Thurs, Fri, or Sat. But maybe next week." Translation: we dunno

Tuesday: Score! 2 butane fuel cartridges and 2 6 volt lantern batteries at Ace Hardware in Concord, MA. Living high on the hog tonight!

Wednesday morning: a hot cup of freshly brewed coffee and the morning paper bring a sense of normalcy

Wednesday night: I know! Let's sit in the dark and read by flashlight! <sarcasm>Again.</sarcasm>

Thursday: at first those PSNH restoration estimates seemed so full of progress and hope. now they just seem like taunts, don't they?

Friday morning: Day 8 begins. PSNH telling us there are only 30,000 customers to go does not bring joy. Where is my fricking power?

Friday afternoon: When I woke up this morning I wondered what would come first - restored power, or the snowstorm? Yea, you guessed it. The snowstorm is here

Friday night: Dear Santa, All I want for Christmas is for MY FRICKING POWER TO BE RESTORED AGAIN. Yours truly, Tommy

Saturday morning: Day 9 of power outage hell begins. Oh boy, I can use snowblowing the driveway as a diversion from my other survival activities.

And then at 11:12am on Saturday: OMG OMG OMG!!!!! WE HAVE POWER!!!!!! WE HAVE POWER!!!!!!!!!!

Beauty
Yea, so the week was hell. But on that first Friday morning I grabbed my camera and walked around. And what I was most attracted to was the beauty of the small, rather than the large. Some examples:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perspective
Some perspective is called for. My first thought here is that the region got lucky on that first Friday, because the temperature went up to the high 30s rather than the other way. Had the region gone into a deep freeze while all that ice was still in the trees, it would have been far worse; no question. But with higher temperatures on Friday, and the help of the sun, much of the ice melted and set the trees free. As bad as the ice storm and power outage was, New England dodged an even bigger bullet.

And next, really, all this only amounted to a week or so of inconvenience. Sure, we worried about freezing pipes. And chimney fires. And I understand there was at least one death because of carbon monoxide poisoning. And yes, some people had damage to their houses and cars from trees and branches falling into them. But for the vast majority of us in the region, it really amounted to a major pain in the ass. Nothing more.

Not like my former colleague and friend, Lucille, whose house in Biloxi, Mississippi was hit by Katrina. I remember her description of the first floor of her house. She said something like this: it was as if someone had filled the first floor with 6 feet of water...and then turned the blender on.

Or Ellen Isaacs in California. Her description of losing her house in the Ormsby Fire ("solving the mouse problem once and for all") in March 2008 puts our power outage in its rightfully puny perspective.

Within days, heck, within hours, of having our power restored we were back to normal - heat, lights, wireless network, cable, the works. But for Lucille, and Ellen, and thousands more, well, some of them are still putting the pieces back together. So I will count myself as inconvenienced for a week, but very fortunate.

But I sure as hell am getting a stand-by backup generator running on liquid propane. Never again!

Concert Review - David Bromberg @ Newburyport City Hall Auditorium

Wow. This was special. David Bromberg played a solo acoustic show last night at the Newburyport City Hall Auditorium. I have seen David play in all sort of configurations - with the David Bromberg Big Band, with the acoustic David Bromberg Quartet, with the Angel Band, and with Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Cassidy in an acoustic Hot Tuna Bromberg format. But solo acoustic is a rarity and a special treat.

David Bromberg ticket stub, November 28, 2008

Like so many other supremely talented musicians, Bromberg isn't as well known as he should be. He plays an eclectic range of styles that mixes bluegrass, blues, folk, and rock in his own unique way. As a music major at Columbia University in the early to mid 60s, Bromberg was shaped by the Greenwich Village music scene of the time. He studied finger-picking blues guitar from the Reverend "Blind" Gary Davis by exchanging lessons for helping to lead the Reverend to his gigs; imagine being a human seeing eye dog for a blues guitar legend! Bromberg has been a sideman studio guitarist on literally hundreds of albums, including records by Bob Dylan, The Eagles, Ringo Starr, Willie Nelson, and Carly Simon. He co-wrote one song, "The Holdup" with George Harrison, and has played with the likes of Jerry Garcia (who appeared on two of Bromberg's albums), Tom Rush, Vassar Clements, and more.

The Newburyport City Hall was built in 1851, and it includes an honest to goodness auditorium right in it. It's not ornate, but it does have surprisingly good acoustics. The sound was bright and clear with no noticeable echoes. The floor was set with folding chairs; I estimated about 250 chairs on the floor and probably another 100 or 150 seats in the balcony that ringed three sides of the hall.

You know those crystals that swell to one hundred times their size in water? Bromberg reminds me of that. I mean, when you look at the man you think nothing of him. In his own words you just see "an average, overweight, middle age, Jewish guy." But like those crystals in water, he swells to a hundred times his normal size on stage. He has a command of the stage, and a performing presence, that strikes awe. This is equally true when he is performing something slow and sad, such as "Watch Baby Fall" or rip roaring like his unique version of "Statesboro Blues."

We got the full range of Bromberg's styles during the 90-minute set. Some of it was Bromberg's own humor infused songs, including "Demon in Disguise", "Black and Tan", and "Tongue". His cover of Big Bill Broonzy's "Long Tall Mama" fits equally well in this category:

I got a long tall mama
She stands about seven foot nine
I got a long tall mama
She stands about seven foot nine
When it comes to making love she hollers
Lordy, Davey, take your time

We also got a good mix of the heartfelt, including a beautiful show version of Dylan's "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry" Bromberg's own "Watch Baby Fall" (there's a song that can make you cry), and Ian Tyson's "Summer Wages". The latter is a song that I consider signature Bromberg, even if it is a cover; his version is so fine he simply owns the song. He called Annie Raines up to the stage to accompany him on harmonica for a rare "Going to Germany", a World War I era song he was inspired to do because of the WWI memorial plaques lining the downstairs hallway in the city hall. Another treat was an instrumental "Over the Rainbow", as well as the show ending "Mr. Bojangles".
And we had our fill of the blues. From the traditional "Delia's Gone" (a song about the murder of fourteen-year-old Delia Green in Savannah in 1900), to Robert Johnson's "Come On In My Kitchen", the Reverend Gary Davis' "Maple Leaf Rag", and Tommy Johnson's "Big Road Blues."

Most of the set was solo Bromberg, but he did call his wife, Nancy Josephson, to the stage a little more than half way through his set, and she accompanied him on a standup electric bass and with harmony vocals. There were a few humorous moments between them when David started playing songs which she has never done before, but she was a trooper and it all went without a hitch.
I looked around on YouTube for something that would capture what Bromberg is like today, and this studio piece of him talking about the Reverend Gary Davis and then playing "Maple Leaf Rag" seemed to be the overall best to give you a sense of the man:



The opening act, Paul Rishell & Annie Raines, was a fantastic surprise. Although their names were familiar to me, I was not familiar with their music at all. Their acoustic blues floored the entire audience, with Paul playing a National Steel guitar and Annie on kick-ass harmonica, and both sharing vocal duties. Their thirty minute set ranged from Spider John Koerner's "Good Luck Child", to Scrapper Blackwell's "Trouble Blues", to their own infectious "Got To Fly" which included an audience call and response. More than a handful of us headed to the merchandise table to pick up their CDs at the break.

I was disappointed that I couldn't find a version of "Got To Fly" on YouTube, but here's a small snippet of Paul and Annie performing "Louise" that very much tells the tale:



The set list...

David Bromberg
Friday, November 28, 2008
City Hall Auditorium, Newburyport, MA

Solo:
Demon In Disguise
Black and Tan
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
Try Me One More Time
Come On In My Kitchen
Delia's Gone
Maple Leaf Rag
Big Road Blues
Long Tall Mama
Levee Camp Moan
Watch Baby Fall

With Nancy Josephson on upright electric bass:
Don't Let Your Deal Go Down
Summer Wages
Who's Lovin' You Tonight
Dark Hollow
Going to Germany
Over the Rainbow (instrumental)
Tongue

Encore 1 (solo):
Statesboro Blues

Encore 2 (w/ Nancy):
Mr. Bojangles

Opening Act
Paul Rishell & Annie Raines:
Custard Pie
Honey It Must Be Love
It'll Be Me / I'll Be Looking For You
Good Luck Child
You Been A Good Ol' Wagon
Trouble Blues
Got To Fly