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Jill Barber and Plants & Animals in NYC–Romance and Rock ‘n Roll

Wednesday night was another great night for live music by Canadian artists in New York City. First stop on the evening’s program was Joe’s Pub to hear Jill Barber, a latter-day chanteuse who weaves a retro spell that even with her backward glances is always fresh and vibrant. She showed an enchanting stage presence, and her 3-piece band was superb, with Drew Jerucka on violin and clarinet; Robbie Grunwald on piano and accordion; and Steve Zsirai on upright bass. In addition to her vocals and songwriting, Barber also played a small guitar, left-handed.** She exuded a winsome charm, unselfconscious glamour, and improvised with light banter between songs. She sings in a distinctive tone that is the aural equivalent of B Grade maple syrup–my favorite–sweet and smoky. After she sang “Chances”–with its lyric, “Chances, what are the chances/The chances that I’d find you/Stealing glances across a crowded room/And taking a chance or two“–against a backdrop of plucked violin, tinkling piano, and a strange rumbling that could only be heard in New York, Jill said, “I can’t tell if that’s me trembling, or the subway.” Don’t fear, I thought to tell her, it is the #6 train. She continued, “I write a lot of love songs, I hope you like love songs.” The love song is indeed her milieu, and in her hands each one provides the listener a vivid romantic narrative. Among her most affecting numbers was “Measures and Scales,” with its minor key, old-world violin and accordion accompaniment, and haunted lyrics of a doomed love: “He plays piano in a jazz band/And I love him for the man that he could be/I asked him, if I let you, would you play me/Then delighted as he tickled every key . . . I am just a dreamer wearing sensible shoes/I still dream in colour even though I sing the blues . . . But it disappears somewhere when the music is done/Every song ever written has a final note“. Her show-stopper was “Oh My My,” with its invocation of a surgeon who may, or may not, be able to mend its narrator’s broken heart. This song had hot clarinet, piano boogie-woogie, and great sung-shouted lyrics.

Something I appreciate about Jill Barber’s musical enterprise is that though she’s cultivated this vintage atmospheric, she’s not playing it for camp humor or just capitalizing on some sort of Mad Men vibe; in fact she’s been working in this vein since her 2008 album, “Chances.” Her latest album “Mischievous Moon” has just been released in the U.S. and she traveled to this gig from Vancouver, British Columbia, where she lives with her husband, author and CBC Radio 3 host Grant Lawrence,*** to play shows in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Pittsburgh. Joe’s Pub, where I’d never been, is a handsome music room with great lighting and excellent acoustics. I had a nice time chatting with Jill and manager Evan Newman after her set, when I learned she’s also playing in New York City Saturday night in the Studio at Webster Hall. I’ll be eager to hear Jill Barber and her band again, whether it’s this weekend or another time in the future. I urge readers to seek out her music–she’s a unique talent as a singer and performer, and when I reflect that she also writes her own songs, it’s clear to me how special she is.

After that great set of music I quickly finished my drink and then–never able to get enough live music–taxied in the rain to the Mercury Lounge where the Montreal band Plants and Animals were due to go on at 11 PM. I just made it in and snaked through a full room to in front of the stage as they were strapping on their axes. The band has a lot of NY fans! Recognition applause and whoops accompanied the opening of many songs. They were tremendous, with great singing by Warren Spicer, energetic lead licks and great guitar tone from Nick Basque, and a terrific rhythm section anchored by drummer Matthew Woodley. Plants and Animals started out as an instrumental trio, and according to information on their website, lyrics and vocals came relatively late into their repertoire. As a residue of those origins, their songs are often longer than the usual pop standard of three minutes, stretching into the six and seven minute range. They really like to stretch things out and it makes for rewarding listening for the live music listener. As the last band of the night, there was no act following them, and the crowd soon picked up on the fact that they weren’t going to hustle off after a 40-minute set, as is often the case at tightly scheduled clubs. This was ideal given the band’s instrumental and orchestral instincts. With that in mind everyone relaxed and grooved to the abundance of tunes they rolled out. They played such songs from their 2008 album “Parc Avenue” as “The Mama Papa,” and “Bye, Bye, Bye,”–with a sweet autoharp bit played by Basque–and from their newest album, “The End of That” I recognized “LightShow,” “Why, Why” and the eponymous, “The End of That,” in which Grant Lawrence astutely hears a kind of Velvet Underground vibe. In short, they played a mess of songs from all their albums, and the set edged in to the 90-minute range. High fives were exchanged all around the dance floor when they finished the second song of their extended encore. Plants & Animals will be playing at NXNE in Toronto in mid-June, a festival I attended last year, and I hope to make it there again. When I do, I’ll be very excited to hear them play once more.

**Jill’s singer/songwriter brother Matt Barber, about whom I blogged after I heard him perform last year, also plays guitar left-handed. Clearly, left-handedness and extravagant talent run in the family.

***Full disclosure: Grant Lawrence is a personal friend of mine, about whom I have previously written on this blog. // click through on share link below to see more photographs . . . //

Talking “The Cornbread Mafia” over Breakfast

This morning I met an author whose work I really admire. My breakfast mate was Jim Higdon, author of The Cornbread Mafia: A Homegrown Syndicate’s Code of Silence and the Biggest Marijuana Bust in American History, which is officially released tomorrow. I’d never met Jim, though I had a role in insuring that his book had a chance to get published. When I read the draft manuscript I wasn’t in a position to publish it myself, but I really enjoyed this gonzo true-crime narrative, and so recommended it to longtime Carroll & Graf colleague and friend, Keith Wallman, now an editor at Lyons Press. It was precisely the sort of book he and I combined to edit and prepare for publication many times, with books like David Pietrusza’s Rothstein: The Life, Times, and and Murder of the Criminal Mastermind Who Fixed the 1919 World Series; Barbara Raymond’s The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption; Alan Bisbort’s “When You Read This, They Will Have Killed Me”: The Life, Redemption, and Execution of Caryl Chessman, Whose Execution Shook America; and Chuck Kinder’s Last Mountain Dancer: Hard-Earned Lessons in Love, Loss, and Outlaw Honky-Tonk Life, to name only four of many dozen books we published together.

I was pleased when Keith did sign up Jim’s book, and awaited word of publication plans. Turns out, I was to be involved with the book again because Keith asked if I would be willing to receive a galley, and spread some good words about the book. A month ago, I posted my full blurb ** on this site, which reads in part,

Higdon has written a speeding bullet of a book that turns [pot] grower Johnny Boone into one of the most fascinating characters I’ve encountered in years. If Hunter S. Thompson were still with us I believe he’d be praising The Cornbread Mafia and telling his pals to read it.

Despite hearing from the author from time to time over the months since the book was put on a path to publication, Jim and I had never met, so today’s meeting took care of that. He’s a Kentuckian, where his book is set, but the book is not merely a product of his local knowledge. He’s a graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism where he took Samuel Freedman’s demanding course on writing narrative nonfiction books. Cornbread Mafia is deeply reported with dozens of sources, featuring a protagonist who’s a fugitive from federal justice. Jim’s a big guy with a good sense of humor and a keen focus on his work. We talked about the book’s publicity campaign and story ideas that Jim may explore for newspapers and magazines in coming months, and I snapped a photo of him before he headed up to Columbia to see former colleagues. It was fun meeting Jim, a writer I’m proud to have encouraged in his work.

** Worth noting that after I posted my blurb on March 16, I got this comment from reader Kurt Mattingly: “This book is, without a doubt, the most rivetting account of central Kentucky history anyone has ever written. Being a native Marion Countian and growing up just a few miles from Raywick (between St. Mary and Lebanon), almost completely oblivious to the “counter-culture” that was inherent basically all around me, I cannot put this book down.”

Imaginary Cities’ Album Release Party


Last June I attended the North by Northeast Festival (NxNE) in Toronto for four days of great music and some terrific panels on digital publishing and the future of books. I’m hoping to return to Toronto for the festival again this June. One of the many musical revelations I experienced last year was Imaginary Cities, a band from Winnipeg that features one of the most exciting lead vocalists I can ever remember hearing. Her name is Marti Sabit, and with songwriting bandmate Rusty Matyas they are the heart of this fabulous quintet that takes onboard many musical influences and then creates their own memorable and original sound. A bit of Dusty Springfield and a dose of the early Phil Spector sound seem two parts of the formula. In addition, they are absolutely great on stage with Marti sporting a great look and an electric personality that infuses sex appeal with the fun she has singing all these songs with her fellow musicians. It is impossible not to come away smitten by her and the whole band.

I’ve followed Imaginary Cities closely over the past year, listening regularly to their debut album “Temporary Resident,” noting with satisfaction their successful tours of Europe and Australia, and the frequent posting of live performance videos on such websites as this one. I was excited when I learned a few weeks ago that “Temporary Resident” would be getting a US release, with an album release party on April 10 at the Lower East Side music venue Rockwood Hall. Last Tuesday night I walked into the club about ten minutes early and stepped right in to a conversation with Marti and Rusty. I reintroduced myself and quickly told them how much I’d enjoyed their performance at NxNE. They seemed happy to meet this CBCRadio 3-loving NY-based fan. I was happy to see their manager in the house, Stephen Carroll, a member of The Weakerthans, who I heard live last December in a show I wrote about here.

When Imaginary Cities began their set I was thrilled to hear how good these familiar songs sounded live and up close. Rusty Matyas is a really talented guitarist and solid on other instruments such as the trumpet he played on one song. There’s a lot of power and restraint in his playing. He sneaked in a lot of tasty licks, but the songs aren’t really vehicles for lead-playing or instrumental solos. Instead, they’re showcases for Marti’s soaring voice and striving lyrics with their great choruses, such as the one on “Hummingbird.” The rest of their line-up is David Landreth on bass, Alex Campbell on keyboard, Ryan Voth, on drums. It was a quick, efficient set at this tightly scheduled club but really dynamic and satisfying, as they worked through most of the songs on their album, plus a couple of new tunes. Even though it looked as if most of the audience had not heard their music before, it was clear they won folks over with the powerful songs, inspired musicianship, and winning stage presence. It’s hard not to love Marti the first time you listen to her sing and watch her move to their music.

hummingbird is singin
I can hear her through the trees,
singing of her days gone by
in perfect melody
do I take the task
of telling her the truth
or do I let the world around her
be the window she sees through

tell me that you’ll break away
say that its all gone
go ahead and count the days come on come on come on

After the show, I congratulated the band and had a few more words with Marti. She was fun to talk with and I enjoyed telling her again how much I enjoy their music, and how their lyrics inspire me. She seemed surprised and thanked me, saying she’s written many of the lyrics herself. We stood for a photo that a server took of us, and I left the club to head around the corner to another show later in the evening, this one featuring Yukon Blonde and my friends in Library Voices, to be covered in another post.

Coming Back to NYC May 15

I’m happy to say that on May 15 Imaginary Cities will be back in New York City as a headliner at the Mercury Lounge on E. Houston Street. If you like what you hear on the video above and love hearing live music like I do, I suggest you make plans to come hear Imaginary Cities. I believe you’ll be glad you did. And if you have any questions, check out the amazing reviews they’ve been receiving back home. Glowing US reviews are sure to follow, with the album just released here last week.

“A Motown-treated Nina Simone.”-
-The Globe and Mail
“Anthemic and Psalmic”
–Paste Magazine, Best of What’s Next
“I f%@king love this band”
–Grant Lawrence, CBC Radio3
“Now this is my kind of music. Haunting, sweet, uplifting, soulful and emotive.”
–Discorder Magazine
“The album leaves one wanting more of this infectious and completely unique pop music; it’s almost impossible not to become an instant fan.”
– Performer Magazine
“This duo deliver(s) a rich sounding record that’s solid from first to last tracks.”
–FutureSounds.com
“The duo’s clear, melodic pop instrumentation has a certain lightness of being that is gently anchored by Sarbit’s smoky alto.”
–Sound on the Sound / / more, with pictures . . .

Prizing Great Journalism with the Sidney Hillman Foundation May 1

I look forward to attending the 2012 Sidney Hillman Foundation Prize reception at the New York Times Center on May 1, and am pleased that friend and fellow blogger Tom Watson of causewired.com has invited me and other bloggers as a special contingent for the evening. Among the honorees that night will be the amazing Ta-Nehisi Coates who writes and publishes great blog essays at the Atlantic, ColorLines: News for Action who will be recognized for their report, Thousands of Kids Lost From Parents In U.S. Deportation System, and Frank Bardacke, author of  of the current book Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers from Verso Books.

The Sidney Hillman Foundation “honors excellence in journalism in service of the common good.” Their “awards and programs honor the legacy and vision of union pioneer and New Deal architect Sidney Hillman.” It should be an inspiring occasion.

 

 

A Spring Sailing Around Manhattan

My wife and son and I had been wanting to see New York’s five boroughs from the water, so last Friday we took the Circle Line cruise around Manhattan, which does offer views of each borough. Unfortunately, it was a disappointment. We arrived 45 minutes early for the 11:30 AM sailing, only to find that all outdoor seats on our boat had already been taken. Worse, the guide on our boat was a pompous jerk who droned on ceaselessly during our 3-hour circumnavigation of the island. He had no feel for the history of the city; scolded passengers like a control-obsessed school teacher (“Don’t stand there!”) and was fascinated only with money. (“An apartment in that building sold for $20 million last year.”) Fortunately, about halfway through the cruise, I found us three seats on the open deck, and Kyle, Ewan, and I escaped the guide’s physical presence, if not his amplified voice. From this perspective, we were able to view Upper Manhattan, Sputen Duyvil, the waterway that connects the Harlem River to the Hudson, and the little red lighthouse as we sailed beneath the George Washington Bridge, aka the Great Gray Bridge. We also were able to ID our own apartment building from the river, a neat trick.

The best part of the afternoon came when we got home and downloaded the photos each of us took turns snapping during the cruise. Even if the boat ride regrettably didn’t feature much of the timeless magic we identify with New York’s waterways, harbor, and shoreline, such as that seen in the 1920s short film “Manhatta,” it was a grand day and we took away some great images, many of which are included here. // many pictures following . . .

Virginia Woolf and Ruth Gruber, Driven to Create as Women

When I last wrote about my longtime author Ruth Gruber—who in May 2011 received the International Center of Photography’s Cornell Capa Award, a few months before turning 100—it was to honor her during Women’s History Month. Now I’m delighted to see that Open Road Integrated Media has picked up another book by Ruth for their ebook program.The latest title, coming after four earlier ebook editions, is Virginia Woolf: The Will to Create as a Woman. I published the printed book in 2004, when I was editor-in-chief of Carroll & Graf.

The book on Woolf is a remarkable document—the core of it being Ruth’s 1931 dissertation, “Virginia Woolf: A Study.” Her first chapter, “The Poet Versus the Critic” opens with lines that lay down a new marker setting forth the idea of women’s studies in literature decades before the term would have widespread salience:

Virginia Woolf is determined to write as a woman. Through the eyes of her sex, she seeks to penetrate life and describe it.  Her will to explore her femininity is bitterly opposed by the critics, who guard the traditions of men, who dictate to her or denounce her feminine reactions to art and life.

An understanding of how Ruth Gruber, a Brooklyn-born Jewish woman came to be in Germany during the early days of Nazism where she would write and publish the first known feminist interpretation of Virginia Woolf’s work is inseparable from her biography, so for readers of this blog who may be unfamiliar with Ruth’s life and career, here’s a sketch.

Born in 1911 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Ruth was always precocious. She received her B.A. from NYU at age sixteen; an M.A. in German language and literature from the University of Wisconsin at eighteen; and at twenty was offered a fellowship to participate in an exchange program at the University of Cologne. Early in her studies there, she was asked by a professor if she would consider reading the work of Woolf, and embark on a doctoral thesis about her. I’ve imagined that Ruth’s professors must have realized they had this bright female student in their midst, a reader of English and German, and when might they again have such an opportunity, especially with international exchanges precarious? Ruth demurred—she had not yet read Woolf’s work, she could afford to be in Cologne only one year, her parents would not let her stay longer, the work would surely take longer—but soon she said, “I’ll try.” Taping a picture of Woolf above her desk, she began reading all of Woolf’s books published to that point, pondering their meanings and the significance of Woolf’s creative enterprise.

Ruth did complete the work in less than a year, successfully defended her thesis, and was awarded a Ph.D. Upon her return to the U.S. in 1932 the New York Times wrote: ” When the gangplank went down on the St. Louis [the same ship that seven years later would be denied sanctuary at ports in the US and Cuban] an attractive Brooklyn girl of twenty years stepped ashore bearing a coveted degree of Doctor of Philosophy  . . . She is now the youngest Doctor of Philosophy in the world.” This period of her life is documented in two of her nineteen books, both available from Open Road, the Woolf title just added to their list, and Ahead of Time: My Early Years as a Foreign Correspondent,** which is also the title of a recent documentary on Ruth’s life and career up through the years immediately following WWII.

Despite the notoriety of her youthful doctorate, the Depression had begun and Ruth found little work upon her return to the States, so she continued traveling and trying her hand at journalism and photography. In 1935, the thesis was published as a book in Germany by the Tauchnitz Press, which had a list of English-language titles, including Woolf’s The Waves. Ruth sent a copy of the published book to Woolf in London, thus beginning a lengthy correspondence between the two women that culminated in Ruth paying a visit to Woolf at her Bloomsbury home that year.

Ruth was greeted at the parlor door by husband Leonard. The meeting is covered in detail in both of the above books, but suffice it to say that a somewhat awkward conversation followed, with Virginia stretched out on a rug in front of the fireplace. She offered an ambiguous comment about whether she had read the thesis, and denied that she had anything to say on the subject of Ruth’s latest undertaking, a fellowship to make “a study of women under democracy, fascism, and communism.” Though Ruth hadn’t intended to come as a supplicant, that’s how Woolf interpreted her visit. Smoking a cigarette in a long holder, Virginia said, “I don’t know how I can help you. I don’t know a thing about politics. I’ve never worked a day in my life.” Ruth was “startled” that “she did not think publishing ten books, countless essays, and brilliant book reviews was work.”

In 1989, Ruth was startled again when she discovered that Virginia had written about her in her letters and diaries, in disparaging and anti-semitic terms, including in this diary passage: “Must get up and receive Miss Grueber [sic] (to discuss a book on women and fascism–a pure have yer . . .) in ten minutes.” In Eric Partridge’s books on slang, Ruth read that “a pure have yer” referred to a 1) wanton, kept woman; 2) dog dung; 3) a swindle, or deception. Ruth wondered, Is that what Virginia Woolf had thought of me? Ruth pondered this over the years, until in 2005, at the back of an old file cabinet, she discovered the letters she’d received from Woolf, and read them for the first time in decades.

With the discovery of this new material, Ruth and I began to discuss reissuing her thesis, surrounding it with the letters and a new Introduction in which she would grapple once and for all with the meaning of her long-ago encounter with Woolf and its aftermath. Later in 2005, once we’d made digital facsimile reproductions of the letters and other pertinent materials in Ruth’s archive she donated all her Woolf materials to the New York Public Library, whose holdings of Woolfiana surpass any institution in the world. Also in that year Virginia Woolf: The Will to Create as a Woman was published in the expanded edition we had envisioned. Like the letters, the thesis was reproduced in facsimile, which in this case meant we were able to reprint the gorgeous letter-press typesetting that Tauchnitz had struck for the book in 1935. Carroll & Graf was dissolved in 2006, but for the record the 2005 paperback edition is widely available from second-hand booksellers.

Ruth’s new introduction ran to nearly forty pages. In it, she details a correspondence she’d shared with Nigel Nicolson, son of Virginia’s lover Vita Sackville-West. He wrote, “I fear that you may have been hurt by her references to you, but she was like that in her diary and letters, though perfectly courteous in conversation. It’s one of the things I deplore about Virginia, her cattiness, contempt for almost everyone who were not her friends, an occasional touch of anti-Semitism, her snobbishness and jealousy.” Ruth continues, “In those seventy years since I sat worshipfully in her parlor, I learned more of her violent manic depressions, her wild helpless swings; by turns critical, nasty. . .moving to exquisite warmth and generosity. I learned of her constant fear that she was going insane. . . .” Ruth recalls, “In 1941, when the pain of living had finally become too great for her, she wrote two final loving letters to Leonard before she walked into the river. . . . Those two love letters. . . and her three letters to me, helped me work through my own anger and disillusionment, which now seem trifling in comparison to the agony she endured. They helped restore the admiration I had for her when I was nineteen and just discovering her genius. I realized that she had lived her entire life with a will to create as a woman. That was the most important lesson she taught me. In 2004, I reread my dissertation in the light of that new understanding, underlining paragraphs that mean as much to me now as they did when I wrote them more than seventy years ago.” Then Ruth ended her Introduction by quoting the first paragraph from her thesis that opens “Virginia Woolf is determined to write as a woman,” cited above in the third paragraph of this recollection.

In future writings about Ruth Gruber for this blog, I will chronicle many of her other achievements. For now, let it suffice to say that after 1935 Ruth would continue her worldwide study of women. She would also take photographs everywhere she went—including in Siberia, Alaska, and above the Arctic Circle; in post-WWII Europe, when she would become the foremost chronicler of the thousands of displaced persons (DPs); and in the Middle East, where she would travel with the international committees tasked with resolving the future of Palestine and the fate of the Jews who’d survived the Holocaust—always remembering the inspirational message that her photographic mentor Edward Steichen instilled in her: “Take pictures with your heart.”

You Can Help Make This Blog a Winner

I’ve entered The Great Gray Bridge in a contest sponsored by Goodreads. They will be selecting 4 top book blogs for special recognition and perks at Book Expo America (BEA) in June. Voting by the public began April 10 and continues through April 23. There will also be a juried element of the competition. I’ll be posting throughout the two weeks to remind folks, and sending out updates via Facebook and Twitter. I also have a handy widget on the right side of my blog just below “Foundational Posts” to vote for this site. In entering the contest, I submitted five entries representative of my books and publishing coverage.  The first one I cited was Lost American Writer Found–Jim Tully.  I’ll put others up as the contest continues. I hope you enjoy reading my blog and will vote for it. Thanks for your support.