Heaven Knows

Sometimes a gamble pays off.

After seeing a link to band Johnnyswim's Tiny Desk Concert on NPR Monday, I gave them a listen. Why not? She's Donna Summer's daughter and they were playing UR tonight, so it seemed at the very least worth a look.

I got up from watching the NPR clip and drove directly to UR to buy a ticket for the show even though a half hour before, I'd never heard of Johnnyswim.

Sitting in my third row center seat tonight, a woman sat down next to me, also by herself. When I asked what had brought her, she told me she'd driven from Hampton after months waiting for them to play anywhere close to home.

She'd seen them open for another band last year and had been on a mission ever since to see them headline. Another good indicator that I was in the right place.

The husband and wife duo of Amanda and Abner came out with a drummer, guitarist and bassist behind them and proceeded to flirt and sing with each other while their music crossed genres of soul, country, Cuban, pop and folk.

It didn't hurt that both of them are gorgeous and obviously madly in love. Not that there's anything wrong with either of those things.

The show began with them facing each other to sing "Falling for Me." He had his acoustic guitar in hand (although Hampton woman told me he's a classically trained violinist) and she would grab the fullness of her skirt as she leaned forward and into him to sing.

I'm looking for a hand to hold me
You're just looking for a chance to bring me to my knees

After that first song, he shrugged and said, "We're Johnnyswim. This is what we do."

By that, he meant they sang well-crafted songs, both of them with fabulous voices, she swayed and sashayed and between songs they told stories and shared bits about their relationship and life.

Unlike me, there were people in the audience who knew of these guys before Monday, including one who, while they were singing "A Million Years," took it upon himself to sing the "oh, oh, oh, oh" part to perfection.

In a million years, tell me, will they think about us, dear?
Tell me will the star keep shining even when our bodies disappear?

Abner was so impressed he entreated the rest of us to join that guy and sing more of the "oh, oh" part.

"I think we can all agree that you're super sexy when you sing in Spanish," Amanda said to her husband before turning back to us. "Wouldn't you like to hear a Cuban song?" We would.

He cracked wise, asking if anyone in the crowd spoke Spanish. "Okay, so about a dozen of you will know I'm making up words," he joked before doing a beautiful song he said was a favorite of his tone-deaf father.

When he sang alone, she crouched nearby, the folds of her skirt covering her legs, staring intently at his face.

There was what he characterized as an angry song that he stopped mid-strum because he'd noticed in his shadow that his hair was looking crazy. Running his hand through it, he said, "Okay, now back to that dark, angry place."

"Live While We're Young" might as well have been their anthem as they traded off lead vocals.

Make no mistake, we'll live while we're young
We'll chase down the sun
hands off the brake
We can die when we're done.

Together they told the story of how they got engaged which involved ten days in Paris and her not knowing that's what they were going for. He was resolved to propose on the third anniversary of their first date and equally resolved not to do it at the Eiffel Tower.

They ended up on a lighted bridge after she suggested it and he said it was then that he learned that she's always right.

No wonder she said yes to his proposal. If a man thinks you're always right, he's worth hanging on to.

That experience led to "Paris in June" because everything that happens in their life is fodder for a song (or a blog, as the case may be).

Oh how lovely you seem
Each day I fall for you 
and you keep falling for me

At one point, they moved away from the mics and came to the very lip of the stage, which was only a few feet in front of me, saying they were going to take us to Nashville, where they'd originally met.

They then sang off-mic, doing the classic Nancy Sinatra/Lee Hazelwood song, "Jackson," although it was impossible to imagine that the fire in their marriage could ever go out.

Their first album just came out two weeks ago and it was obvious they were bursting with pride about it. It occurred to me that I was catching them at exactly the right moment, just in case the starmaker machine eventually wears them down and out.

I hope it doesn't because theirs are not only two voices that stand out head and shoulders above so much of current music, but their charmingly sweet mutual attraction is a delight to witness.

Driving home from UR, I decided to make a pit stop at Curry Craft because today is (drum roll, please) National Aperitif Day and I had nothing better to do than celebrate that.

Some would say I need to get a life.

The bartender, sure I wanted wine, was overjoyed to hear the occasion and that I was in search of a mixed drink, something I usually disdain.

The lovely pink colored libation started clean and light and as it warmed up a bit took on notes of grapefruit peel, a lovely thing to have in a glass.

As I sipped it, I struck up a conversation with a nearby bar sitter who was two days back from a week in Costa Rica, where she'd been part of a fishing group that had caught a 10' blue marlin.

Explaining that the boat captain usually did "catch and release," this time the fish became dinner because it had swallowed the hook, making release impossible.

As we chatted, it occurred to me that an apperitif is intended to whet the appetite and now that I had a bit of one, what I wanted was dessert.

The chef had recently come up with a new flavor of kulfi, so I took a chance on banana and lime, a delicately nuanced combination that sang with fresh flavor.

Trying new bands, drinks and desserts. I'm Karen and this is what I do.

Helluva Hootenanny

It isn't every Monday night that a musicologist with ties to folk royalty hits Richmond.

But tonight was UR's annual Neumann lecture and the speaker was Tony Seeger, UCLA professor emeritus and director emeritus of the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.

Not to mention Pete Seeger's nephew, so given the legend's death last week, we got part music talk, "Is Music Prophetic or Reflexive? Music, Activism and Social Change," and part family tribute to his uncle.

Walking in to Camp Concert hall at UR, I heard a woman motioning a friend to her row with the entreaty, "This is the 'Hootenanny' crowd."

I have to assume what she meant was here were the people old enough to remember when Pete Seeger was blacklisted from the "Hootenanny" TV show for his overly left wing views.

I didn't qualify, so I sat elsewhere, but I did spot a row of WRIR DJs front and center.

Coming onstage, Seeger used a banjo ("My travel banjo," he called it. "It didn't travel too well") and a computer to give a lively talk and singalong about protest music and his uncle.

It was a far-ranging talk starting with his assumption that all cultures had protest music. Not so, he discovered while studying Brazilian music which had not only no protest songs, but no children's songs or love songs.

Refusing to sing or dance constituted protest for Brazilians, a novel concept to a mouthy culture like ours.

He put the lyrics to "We Shall Not Be Moved" on the screen and then played banjo and led us in singing it, encouraging us first to be louder and then to try it with harmony

"The experience of singing together is part of what this talk is about," he said.

Discussing whether protest music was reflective (like the laments of the blues) or prophetic (music that gives direction or information and leads to change), he showed a quote to explain the power of music.

"People read a pamphlet only once but sing a song a thousand times," said Joe Hill, an IWW member and songwriter of the early 1900s.

Explaining that political parties had songbooks up until the '20s or '30s, he sang one about John Quincy Adams and how if he wasn't elected, Satan was coming.

Imagine what they could have come up with for Nixon or W.

Saying that the union movement was a singing movement because it was more fun for unionizers to sing than to listen to speakers, he proceeded to sing "Union Maid" about a female worker.

Having firmly grounded us in protest musicology, he got down to family business with a picture of the Seeger clan backstage at Carnegie Hall in 1963.

In it, he was a teen and I'm sure to the students in the room there was no resemblance between the young man in the photograph and the one on stage 50 years older.

He said the key to protest music's role was what it meant to people and that was affected by all kinds of factors: changing the speed of the song, the volume, or even the place and time.

To illustrate his point, he played Hendrix's rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock, something I am embarrassed to say I've heard but never seen.

I was mesmerized by how beautiful his hands were, the fingers long and expressive, but not everyone was.

When the lights came up, half the students were grinning like fools and the other half were texting, ignoring the performance all together.

Does it say something about me that I wanted to slap the phones out of their hands and banish them from the room because they were not worthy?

Probably.

Seeger made the point that even when no words were sung, changing the speed and place of the anthem amounted to using sound to make a statement.

He showed another video clip about Seeger's civil rights movement work, singing "We Shall Overcome."

The footage of Pete Seeger had him saying all he'd done was add a few verses and change "will" to "shall" and that he'd gotten far too much credit for that song.

Everyone else interviewed disagreed, saying him singing it had played a huge role in the movement.

We even saw a short clip of him singing "If I Had a Hammer," to a school group, a song I remember singing in music class in elementary school.

And throughout the videos and the talk, Tony Seeger would periodically have us singing "We Shall Not Be Moved" again and again.

Pete Seeger's last big effort had been years spent in getting the Hudson River cleaned up, so he'd built a sloop called "Clearwater" and performed on it up and down the river so people would notice how polluted it was and start cleaning it up.

No surprise, it worked and the river became swimmable and clean again.

The talk couldn't end until we sang together some more and harmonized one last time, his final slide saying, "Sing together," a message that might as well have come from his uncle.

During the Q & A, someone asked why Seeger had gotten so angry with Dylan when he went electric for the first time at the Newport Folk Fest.

When Seeger began with, "Well, I was 17 or 18 and I was there," I knew we were in for a good story.

He explained that part of the beauty of Newport was that it was a democratic event with all performers being paid the same and no one getting more attention or time than anyone else.

So when Dylan plugged in at an all-acoustic festival, his music became louder than everyone else's.

And since there weren't supposed to be electric instruments, the equipment wasn't designed for anything but acoustic. "The sound was an unholy mess," Seeger recalled, unpleasant and muddy. "it became an unequal field for the other musicians."

Imagine hearing first-hand why Pete Seeger took issue with Dylan for plugging in from someone who not only was there, but talked to his uncle about it afterwards.

Man, I love me some musicology.

After that kind of excitement, I could hardly go home so I stopped by the Camel to catch the last band of a three-band set.

Quintet Clair Morgan was getting set up, so I talked to the dance party king about the local DJ scene and the pot roast his brother had made him for dinner.

I checked in with the friend I'd seen Saturday night to see if he'd followed through on his plans to sleep in and take a bike ride in yesterday's glorious warmth.

Yes to the first, no to the ride, but he had spent the afternoon on his porch and proudly shared that he'd left his phone at work the day before, so he'd not only had porch time but a phone-free day.

Kind of like every day for me.

The band was having problems with their computer, eventually electing to start even though it wasn't working, meaning some songs were absent the ambient sound the computer provides.

But Clair's voice, songwriting and guitar playing are all stellar, so the band rallied around and made do without technology.

Toward the end, he taught the crowd a line for us to sing and had us practice, so I found myself once again singing together with others.

Instructing us to sing louder once he began the rest of the song, he said, "You, guy-on-a-first-date, sing really loud and she'll be impressed. So impressed she'll go out for coffee with you."

Maybe even come to your apartment and listen to Sigur Ros with you. Eventually move in.

As I learned tonight, such is the power of singing together.

Existential Dread Done Right

With classical music, it's important to set the tone.

So you can imagine my surprise upon walking into UR's Camp Concert Hall for a lecture on composer Philip Glass to hear Michael Jackson blaring from the speakers.

Don't stop till you get enough. Don't worry, I won't.

And if I was a tad surprised, I imagine the largely blue-hair audience was, too.

On the other hand, I was thrilled that UR is doing a Philip Glass festival that will include the man himself coming here.

Here.

Two members of eighth blackbird, UR's ensemble-in-residence, introduced the film, each saying as little as possible.

Minimalists musicians apparently are also minimalist talkers.

"Glass: A Portrait of Philip in 12 Parts" begins with Glass' annual tradition of riding the Cyclone at Coney Island.

I have to think that that's a 75-year old man worth knowing more about.

The filmmaker followed Glass for over a year as he wrote a symphony, premiered an opera,  and scored a few films (we heard from Woody Allen and Martin Scorcese).

Hilariously, at one point Glass' phone rings and he glances at the caller ID. "Oh, it's Hollywood," he says, ignoring the call.

Not surprisingly, a man so talented is a challenge to live with and by the time the movie starts he is on his fourth wife.

"And then I came along," Holly Glass says of her arrival in his life after his having been "sad for years" over the death of his previous wife and soul mate.

Imagine how brave a woman would have to be to try marriage with a thrice-married man.

She's funny about his idiosyncrasies ("Philip keeps everything. He's kind of a hoarder") but also accepting of those realities ("I hope we never have a fire in this house").

After having seen paintings of Glass done by artist Chuck Close at the VMFA a couple of years ago and seeing Close speak at the museum, I got a kick out of seeing Close and Glass reminisce in this film.

They talked about NYC's amazing art scene back in the '60s and '70s, back when Glass was still playing house shows.

WTF?

I could barely wrap my head around the idea of seeing Glass play one of his minimalist compositions in someone's living room, but photographs proved it was so.

"Everyone was high, the audience and the musicians," we were told.

But so what?

At a performance in a park, a man came up and started banging on Glass' piano as he played, shouting "Stop, this is not music!"

The guy doing pianus interuptus was none other than a music teacher offended by the new sounds.

Not that Glass cared (actually he was amused). In fact he even told the camera that if people didn't like his music, they could listen to something else.

He said it cheerfully and sounding quite truthful.

And he never stopped doubting that his muse would arrive. "As you get older, you get confident it will come. But it doesn't come if you're not there waiting for it," he warned.

But he made it clear he did not want his muse arriving at night and interrupting his sleep.

The director of the film "The Thin Blue Line" nailed it when he said, "Philip does existential dread better than anyone."

Is there a higher post-modern compliment?

He had his own praise for one of his music teachers. "She took me from being a Julliard graduate to a composer."

I have no doubt it was her greatest accomplishment.

The documentary was fascinating as a look at a driven and talented man still vibrant at 70+ by a filmmaker with almost unlimited access to him and those close to him.

Sometimes even uncomfortably so, like when his wife teared up admitting how hard it was to put up with his absolute devotion to music and the different directions their lives were taking.

Not surprisingly, in the ladies' room after the film, I heard three women discussing whether or not he'd divorced wife #4 since the film was made.

"I'm going to Google it as soon as I get out of this bathroom," one woman said with determination.

Inquiring minds want to know.

And still looking quite good for an old guy, too, not all that different from the Close paintings done in 1969 when he was in college.

He admits that he has "a lot of music left in me, so I better take care of myself," but unlike a lot of men his age, he actually does it.

And even after seeing him being mortal, making pizza and playing with his toddlers, I had to acknowledge he wasn't like most of us.

"Music doesn't have to be imagined," he explained. "It just has to be written down. I just listen."

Wow. So it's all in there and he's just the vehicle.

As far as I was concerned, the only problem with the film was that Glass is a mumbler and at times it was difficult to decipher his words.

One couple walked out after the first five minutes and the couple in front of us kept asking each other, "What did he say?"

By the time it was over, I had a whole new appreciation for Glass and any woman brave enough to take him on.

Full of Glass love, we then faced the dilemma of where to eat on a Sunday early evening.

We ended up at Stuzzi where the a/c was inappropriately cold (necessitating seats near the pizza oven) and  where a football-watching group was just breaking up.

Given that factor and today's cooler weather, I betrayed summer and jumped ship for red wine, enjoying a Sangiovese's warming qualities.

We combined courses with a roasted mushroom, soprasetta salami and arugula pizza, downing the greens first.

I'm not a fan of red sauce, but occasionally I dip my toe in that pond and Stuzzi's red sauce of San Marzano tomatoes did the job tonight.

As we ate, a guy left his date alone at their table to come to the bar and ask that the Redskins game be put on.

My date and I discussed how that might have felt to his date, or whether she even cared.

Not that it was any of our business.

But after two hours of watching unlimited access to Philip Glass, I was still in full-on nosy mode.

And as far as relationships go, just as curious as the women in the bathroom about Glass' current marital status.

Although there's no way this existentialist could end up wanting to marry a four-time married man.

Seriously. No matter how much music is in him.