Engineer's Daughter

engine of hell

I bought my ticket to see Emma Ruth Rundle perform her 2021 album Engine of Hell in its entirety at the Swedish as soon as I tested negative after Covid, knowing it would be an exquisite performance. I had seen her at the Rickshaw Stop pre-pandemic and stood there in awe as she summoned a maelstrom into that small space, and while last night was much quieter it was no less powerful. Although the promise of "in the round" turned out to be more aspirational than actual, with Rundle alternating between piano and acoustic guitar on stage in front of a seated audience, she nevertheless conjured an intimacy with her performance that I felt even in my seat in the balcony. Rundle jokingly referred to her music as "cheerful jams, radio singles," but I for one have been processing some extremely heavy feelings these last few weeks and her songs could not have been more appropriate to my mood. I was also blown away by her opener Patrick Shiroishi, who used a saxophone and his voice and a looping machine to create intensely beautiful layers of sound in a single 30+ minute song. Shiroishi came back on stage to add some sax to Rundle's "Citadel" near the end of the evening, much to the audience's delight, and then once she'd finished with the songs from her album Rundle announced she'd be performing her encores without leaving the stage: "Marked for Death" and "Real Big Sky," the latter being the single song she played with electric guitar. No matter her instrument Rundle somehow always manages to be both quiet and loud at the same time.

Masking? A smattering.

prospero's island

I've seen a couple very intriguing interpretations of The Tempest recently, first virtually via Round House Theatre where Prospero is a magician, and then live at the Herbst Saturday evening for the premiere of Prospero's Island, a new chamber opera by Allen Shearer and Claudia Stevens. The couple set the action on the Falkland Islands/Islas Malvinas just after WWII, and this time Prospero is a mad scientist keeping the secrets of his Nazi past from his daughter Mandy. It's a brilliant update, allowing Ariel and Caliban to be the human-animal hybrid outcomes of tragic experiments, and a strong theme of respect for our natural world runs through both acts as well. The production itself was incredibly polished and featured strong vocal performances and many delightful moments, including a chorus of penguins played by members of the San Francisco Girls Chorus. Shakespeare remains ever malleable and relevant to our current moment.

Masking? Supposedly required but not enforced and practiced by about 70% of the audience.

in real time

One of the perks of volunteering at KALX is that you occasionally get a really nice ticket to a really nice show, in this case Artemis's performance at Zellerbach Hall on the Cal campus Friday night. They even gave me a +1, so I nabbed my friend Menghsin and we settled in for an evening of superb jazz. Artemis has shifted its line-up slightly since their 2020 debut album, with four of the founding members — pianist and musical director Renee Rosnes, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, bassist Noriko Ueda, and drummer Allison Miller — joined by newcomers Nicole Glover on tenor saxophone and Alexa Tarantino on alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, and flute. Each musician is extraordinarily talented in their own right, as evidenced during their solos, and they also played together with impressive cohesion. The program included an excellent mix of original compositions by the individual members alongside classics from Billy Strayhorn, Lyle Mays, Thelonious Monk, Burt Bacharach, and of course Wayne Shorter. They finished with Shorter's "United" and then came back to encore with his gorgeous tune "Penelope," with Rosnes mentioning that he'd once told her that music has no gender. It was really the only overt reference to the fact that it was all women on stage, but if you've been listening to jazz for as long as I have it's still a very refreshing sight to see.

Masking? Cal Performances thankfully still requires masks, and everyone I saw was wearing some version of one. Hooray.

show 467

playlist

res-erection

Birdie Bob Watt as A Crab On Uranus

Spring has sprung in the Bay Area (in between atmospheric rivers) and the Cockettes are celebrating with a marvelous musical revue at the Oasis saucily entitled "Res-Erection." Featuring old tunes and new by original composer Scrumbly Koldewyn, who also performs, the show careens joyfully from irreverent takes on the Easter season, to explicit scatological and sexual references, to the kinds of stunning torch songs that Sylvester used to sing with the original incarnation of the group in the '70s. At the performance I attended last night the cast remained fiercely undaunted in the face of minor technical difficulties, and the supportive audience heartily cheered them on and howled with laughter as the performers barely missed a beat. At a frightening time when queer lives are under attack in America, the flamboyant, gender-fluid artistry of the Cockettes is as defiant as ever, and they do it with plenty of glitz and glitter besides.

Masking? I was one of maybe five maskers in the building, not unexpected at a cabaret show but it still would have made me nervous without my immunity.

shufflemania!

Thanks to my current turbo-charged Covid immunity I'm finally seeing some live shows again, and Robyn Hitchcock's gig at The Chapel last night was well worth braving the intense wind and rain outside. Local hero Kelley Stoltz (assisted by fellow Bay Area legend Bart Davenport) opened the show with witty repartee and great tunes before making way for Hitchcock, who initially just brought out an acoustic guitar and a cup of tea. I let out a wee scream of joy when he opened with "Raymond Chandler Evening," and the night proceeded perfectly from there. Hitchcock's partner Emma Swift joined him on backing vocals for a few songs, and then he plugged in his electric guitar and brought out the rest of his band (including Stoltz on drums and Davenport on bass) for the rest of the main show, sprinkling in tracks from his latest album Shufflemania! that sounded even better live than they do on the record. I stayed all of the way through the generous encore, because who knows when I'll have to energy again to stand in a crowd of strangers on a weeknight to hear a musician I have loved for decades. And though he didn't play my very favorite of his songs (see above) I still left floating on air.

Masking? Maybe about 20-25%, which was honestly better than I was expecting. I'm still wearing an N95 at events because I might have gotten one of the variants but who knows what else is out there. Plus it's just polite.

show 466

playlist

show 465

There were some exciting developments while I was out with Covid (boooo)! KALX now keeps an archive of shows from the last two weeks, so now you can hit the link below and either listen to my show if it's within that time window or at least see the playlist. Ch-ch-ch-changes!

playlist