SOUNDTRACK: STELLA DONNELLY-Tiny Desk Concert #819 (January 22, 2019).
Stella Donnelly has been generating some buzz lately, but I wasn’t familiar with her. I didn’t even realize she was Australian.
She is adorable with her hair in two little nubs at the back of her head and a big smile most of the time.
She immediately won the office over with her broad smile, warmth and good-natured sense of humor. It’s the kind of easy-going, open-hearted spirit that makes her one of the most affable live performers you’ll see. While there’s no doubting her sincerity, she’s also got a disarming way of making her often dark and brutal songs a little easier to take in.
And indeed, she does not mince words when she sings.
“Beware of the Dogs” is a delicate song with Stella strumming her guitar with no pick and singing in a beautiful but soft voice. There’s such a gorgeous melody for the chorus.
It turns out that this song and the other two are new. Because she doesn’t even have an album out yet!
For this set, she performed entirely new — and, as of this writing, unreleased — songs from her upcoming full-length debut, Beware of the Dogs. Opening with the title cut, Donnelly smiled cheerfully through the entire performance while reflecting on the horrors that often lurk beneath the surface of seemingly idyllic lives. “This street is haunted like a beast that doesn’t know its face is frightening to behold,” she sings. “All the painted little gnomes, smiling in a line, trying to get your vote.”
As the song builds she gets more pointed: “There’s no Parliament / Worthy of this country’s side / All these pious fucks / taking from the 99.”
She follows with “U Owe Me” which is “about my old boss at a pub I used to work at back home.”
This song has a gentle guitar melody and some surprisingly soft vocals (including some vibrato at the end of each verse). But the lyrics are straightforward and pointed (all sung with that disarming smile)
you put your great ideas up your nose /
and then try to tell me where the fuck to go /
you’re jerking off to the cctv /
while I’m pouring plastic pints of flat VB [or Foster’s or whatever].
At the end of the song she says, “He actually paid me a week after. I was on the wrong week of my payroll. It was very dramatic back then.”
She says “Allergies” is a run-of-the-mill breakup song. “I’ve only got two of them and this is one of them.” It’s a delicate, quiet song (capo on the tenth fret!) and once again, her voice is just lovely.
How can this Concert be only ten minutes long? I could listen to her all day.
Surprisingly, Donnelly chose not to play any of the songs that have gotten her to where she is in her young career — songs like 2017’s “Boys Will Be Boys” or last year’s “Talking,” two savagely frank examinations of misogyny and violence that earned her the reputation for being a fearless and uncompromising songwriter. But the new material demonstrates that her unflinching perspective and potent voice is only getting stronger.
I’m bummed that I am busy the night she’s playing a small club in Philly, as it might just be the last time she plays such a small venue.
[READ: January 26, 2019] Brazen
This is an awesome collection of short biographies of kick-ass women. Bagieu has written [translated by Montana Kane] and drawn in her wonderful style, brief, sometimes funny (occasionally there’s nothing funny), always inspiring stories about women who spoke up for themselves and for others. Some of the women were familiar to me, some were not. A few were from a long time ago, but many are still alive and fighting. And what was most cool is that the stories of the women I knew about had details and fascinating elements that I was not previously aware of.
What a great, great book. It’s perfect for Middle School students all the way to adults. I actually thought it might be perfect for fourth and fifth grade girls to read and be inspired by. However, it skews a little bit older. There’s a few mentions of sex, abortion, rape and domestic violence. These are all real and important issues, but may be too much for younger kids.
Bagieu’s art for most of the pages is very simple–perfectly befitting a kind of documentary style but after each story she creates a two page spread that is just a breathtaking wash of colors which summarizes the previews story in one glorious image. Its terrific. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 