Christine Lavin

[Steve Schonberger <steve@sensual.wa.com>]

I just got back from seeing Christine Lavin at the Backstage in
Seattle.  She did a great show.  I had only heard of her a couple of
times before, once on a public radio show somewhere on the east coast,
possibly on the radio in Minnesota when I lived there, and this week
on a good commercial radio station (believe it or not) here.  Since
first hearing "I Want to Be a Mysterious Woman" and a few other songs
way back when, I've been looking for some sort of recording.  What
luck that I not only find a place to buy a recording (at the show),
but I get to see her live too!

Anyway, the show was up to my expectations.  Unfortunately the listing
in the local music rag didn't mention that she had a warm-up band
(which others at the show said was also great -- Electric Bonsai,
which is an ex-member of Uncle Bonsai), so I missed the warm-up
completely.  Additional bad news was that I hadn't brought my
checkbook or enough money to buy everything she had up for sale during
the break in her show.  Fortunately the friend I went with had enough
that I could borrow so I could buy her CD "Good Thing He Can't Read My
Mind".  It's on Rounder Records.

Anyway, considering how much trouble I had finding her recordings (I
still haven't seen them in any stores), I suppose she must be obscure
enough that even most of a group so musically enlightened as
Love-Hounds probably haven't heard of her.  The quickest way to
describe her is "Suzanne Vega with a sense of humor" (according to my
friend, who has seen SV live, she has a great sense of humor at her
live shows, but her recordings are pretty serious).  She plays in a
folky style, mostly songs about romance with an ironic sense of humor.
She also reminds me of Laurie Anderson, with her unusual way of
looking at ordinary things, though she doesn't do any electronic vocal
distortions or play anything but acoustic guitar (there is a very
small amount of electronics in the CD, which I didn't notice until I
read the credits).  Like most of the musicians discussed here though,
she's hard to put in a category with others, but I tried anyway.

One of the most memorable songs she played tonight was a ballad that
she started to conceive in an autobiographical mood (as is much if not
all of her material).  The real life situation that she told of in
introducing the song was about a time when she worked in a large
building on a lower floor, and a guy she occasionally saw and thought
was cute worked in an upper floor.  In the song, she exagerrated to
tell of a woman who worked in the basement and the dreamed-about man
who worked on the thirty-seventh floor (that number fit the meter of
the song just right).  *** WARNING! SPOILER AHEAD ***  She dreamed
about him and tried to do things to give herself a better chance to
see him, until finally a time came when there was a fire in the
building.  *** SPOILER HERE ***  She ran out, and he jumped to escape
the flames, and by miraculous chance landed on her.  They both died
and were buried together forever.  It ended with a very happy beat and
tone.  The meter and rhyme of the words all flowed beautifully.

*****

On another topic, I've listened to Beautiful Pea Green Boat a lot more
since I first wrote about them.  That album is so great I have been
playing it over and over since I got it.  It's truly wonderful, in
spite of the dumb name for the group.  They deserve wider distribution
than small labels like C'est La Morte (U.S.) and Slaughterback (U.K.)
can give them.  Or else enlightened labels that publish such great
stuff deserve to be rewarded for it.
-- 
Steve Schonberger	Why should I disclaim anything when I own this site?
steve@sensual.wa.com	(Yet another site named after a Kate Bush song)

I should be mapped.  If mail bounces, try "nwnexus!sensual!steve" instead.