strange radiation: the pool of radiance archive
Adventures with an unreliable narrator.
« NY moment #25,318 | Main | lucky number 37 »
Aug 8 03: jb@j's p
If you are ever given the opportunity to hear Jonatha Brooke play live, do it. Her songs can make you want to get up and dance or to sit alone in a dark room with a bottle of scotch—and you’ll thank her for it either way.
For that matter, you should go out and buy some of her records too. Last night’s set was a spartan affair: just her and her accoustic guitar, except when she was at her piano. For a few songs, the ones with the gorgeous and dangerously close harmonies, she had a friend of hers join her. On her records she’s played around with various production options, from cellos to electric guitars, solo voice to overdubbed Jonathas to guest work by Neil Finn from Crowded House (remember them?). The results are pretty much always fabulous.
Can you tell I’m kind of a fan? I think the mark of really powerful art, really grab-you-by-the-bones stuff, is that it makes you want to create something of your own. Not because it makes creation look easy, though it often does; but because you recognize art as the most powerful mode of communication we have. Jonatha Brooke makes me want to run out and buy a guitar and learn how to play it and then learn how to write songs. She makes me want to write poems that will leave you speechless. Throughout her show I had some subroutine of my head frantically composing notes for this blog. I forgot nearly all of them long before I got here, alas, but it felt good to know that the gears could still turn behind the woodwork. I think I almost feel like a writer again. It already feels good.
Thanks, J. Damn, what a fun show.