Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

From the Lovely Molly of Bickett Gallery:

Dear Bickett Gallery patrons,

This is the last weekend at Bickett Gallery. I hope that you will be able to attend at least one of our events. They are all going to be very special. We will be celebrating the gallery with multimedia events, food and drinks. Please stop by and enjoy!

Friday, May 18th

Renay Aumiller and Bickett Gallery present “I Bickett Fluently” a multi-media collaboration featuring independent choreographers, musicians and writer Eric Amling, who will read from his new work. Presenters are from Raleigh, Greensboro , Chicago, and Louisville , Kentucky. I Bickett Fluently consists of six works from active members of North Carolina’s dance world, as well as Laura Chiaramonte, a Chicago-based dancer. Cost is $6. Doors open at 8pm with the performance beginning at 9pm.

Saturday, May 19th

Bickett Gallery presents a night of melodic Indy music featuring Zachary Gresham of the critically acclaimed Athens Ga. band, The Summer Hymns, Raleigh’s Bowerbirds, who performed first at Bickett Gallery and has just released a new record, under Raleigh label BurleyTime Records, The Never of Chapel Hill (Trekky Records) and Deleted Scenes from Washington, DC . Doors open at 7pm. Performances begin at 8pm. Cost is $7.

Sunday, May 20th

Bickett Gallery will have an extended day event opening at 4pm. The afternoon will begin with a screening of Who Gets to Call it Art? a film by Peter Rosen about curator Henry Geldzahler, The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s first contemporary art curator.

Featuring Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Jackson Pollock, Larry Poons and many more mid-century visual artists. The film also features The Velvet Underground. The film depicts the New York art scene of the 1960’s and the man who made it POP! Screening is at 5pm.

Performances by a number of local musicians will begin in the evening. Charles Latham, *Sons, Heads on Sticks, Monologue Bombs among others will play. 7pm. Cost: $7

In this recent interview, Kristin Hersh explains just how subjective each minute decision made in the recording studio is. The interviewer finds this fascinating: “You would think, looking at it from the outside, that it’s all so calculated.” I love her response:

Ooo. That would be so sad. Your brain is the first organ to lie to you. If you told music what to do, it would be terrible!”

I love her way of thinking. I’ve thought that for years… that you can’t always trust what you think. Not all facts are truth, and I find that so many people get that wrong! A correlary to that is that noone gets to decide what they feel. It’s your job to first become very aware of what you feel. That’s pretty good on its own. Once you have that down, then maybe you can work out why, but it’s the labeling of the raw emotion that I find most important. People tend to spend an awful lot of time denying they feel some way and explaining that they actually feel this way they WANT to feel or that they think would be better to feel. It wastes a lot of time.
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BTW, I have been in New York at a licensure exam workshop. I’m not blogging about my licensure/job path because frankly, I don’t like talking about it. I’m asked so many questions, and I just want to get on with it. I have a plan now. I have focus. Just let me do my thing, and within a few months, I’ll have something to say.

I first saw Kristin Hersh in 1988, and I’ve seen every iteration of her music/performance since. I’ve seen her in Atlanta, in London… I traveled to a Throwing Muses gig in Cleveland once during college that was “canceled due to illness”. I think I just about cried. My ex-husband and I first connected over our love for her music. Our first “date” (as friends at that point) was a TM gig. I saw her perform when she was VERY pregnant in Atlanta in the late 80’s. I saw her while I was in grad school in Bloomington, Indiana performing with Andrew Bird and Howe Gelb. I went by myself to a WONDERFUL gig at the Orpheum in London in 2003. All the people around me thought it was so cool I’d seen her in America! I remember driving with my friend Melissa from Atlanta up to Oberlin in Northern Ohio singing “Walking in the Dark” at the top of our lungs over and over and over. I saw her do a very special gig last August at The Middle East in Cambridge. Her newer band, 50 Foot Wave, “opened” for Throwing Muses. In the middle was a delightful gang of kids who were remarkably skilled and entertaining. She’s been on constant rotation in the soundtrack of my life for 20 years now. Her ventures into new ensembles has made her continually interesting to me, and then of course there is her voice, her intensity, her lyrics… and her collaborators aren’t half bad either. She’s not known for being social. I’ve seen her leave after every show. I’m sure some rabid fans have met her, but I don’t force myself on musicians unless they present themselves as open to it. Last night, she announced that she’d be selling CDs from the stage. I finally met her. I got to actually talk to her. Then on the way out, I actually met and spoke with Bernard Georges, her longtime bass player for TM, 50FW, and for this version of her solo act. Both of them were a delight, normal, gracious, sweet, and silly. I know she isn’t the most famous person in the world, but she means more to me than most “real” famous people. What a great experience. I’m a happy fan girl!

I didn’t ask for an autograph. I was holding a set list, which is also not something I aimed to acquire. I usually leave them for the younger “collectors”. I was snapping a picture when a man on the stage asked if I’d like it. Noone was racing, so I accepted his kind offer! When she saw I was holding it, she offered to sign the back. Thanks, Kristin! She even drew a picture. I didn’t recognize it right away. I asked what it was. She said it was a guitar, but it was a mess up “Meat Puppets” guitar!

Here’s some video of great banter and “Gazebo Tree” I took at the gig:

Here’s the whole set of pictures from last night’s gig.

There are a million more things to say. Hell, I’m thinking of having Katy write up the whole thing, since she was coherent, and I was starstruck. Maybe there will be some guest blogging soon! Cool, cool, cool!

A HUGE thank you to Shannon and Brian for giving me 2 free tickets to see the Flaming Lips at Disco Rodeo. It was like nothing I can recall experiencing. Shannon asked me if I was going to the Flaming Lips. I said no. She asked why. I said I had been going to a lot of gigs, and since I didn’t know them that well, I didn’t think I should spend the money. She told me I should go and handed me two tickets… just like that! I asked why she had extra tickets. She said she and Brian just thought people should see them because they are great. I love true music lovers. Those are my kind of people. One day, I want to have the means to be that generous. What a joyride of a gig from start to finish. Confetti, laser points, explosions of lights… Very good times.


This isn’t my picture. They were checking bags and wouldn’t let me bring my camera in. My pix were taken using my cellphone, so they are kinda crap! Chris was one of the lucky people who got a camera in the door.

Dan was right. The first time I met Dan, it was at karaoke at the Charles Playhouse Lounge. He told me that if I loved good music (he’d heard I did), I had to check out Cold War Kids. Understatement of the century. I finally got around to listening to them some time last month. Why did I wait so long? I’ve now had their album for a few weeks, and I’ve been listening to it constantly.

On Monday, I found out that they would be playing Tuesday night at Local 506 in Chapel Hill. I managed to talk my friend Massimo into joining me. There were still tickets. Why not? We arrived to find that the tickets were sold out, but within a few minutes, we were approached by a nice guy trying to sell us ticket for half-price. Half price? I told him he was my new hero and paid full price.

I don’t remember the last time I was this excited by new music. OK, that’s a lie. I do. Heartless Bastards also has my full attention right now, but I haven’t seen them live, so my enthusiasm is slightly more tempered.

Local 506 is a tiny club with a small but fairly high stage. Cold War Kids were the last of three bands playing. There is something so unique about the singer’s voice. It managed to be angsty and beautiful and powerful all at the same time. Much of the drumming is very militaristic (reminds me of the drumming on the first Throwing Muses album, actually). The bass is (and this is definitely the most appropriate word) PHAT! It’s driving, persistent, deep, and it undergirds this wall of sound that just filled the place. In most bands, each person has his or her spot, where they remain for most of the gig. Not true with CWK. The guitar and bass have this very interesting dance they do. The singer (who also plays the piano and guitar) gets in on it sometimes, too. It’s like watching a school of fish. It somewhat visible in this video I’m posting below. If you look at their faces, it seems as if they are paying absolutely no attention to where they are on the stage, but they are both traveling all over the place. The amazing thing is that they never crash into each other. Oh, and the SONGS! The gestalt experience of seeing this band is hard to describe, but it’s not to be missed. You are just going to have to trust me on this. Find out when they are playing near you and go. Don’t question. Just go. Dan was so very right.