SOUNDTRACK: SUDAN ARCHIVES-Tiny Desk Concert #979 (June 22, 2020).
Sudan Archives at Johnny Brenda’s was a show I had really wanted to see. When I realized she was playing there the show was already sold out. Then Coronavirus came in and shows were starting to get cancelled.
A friend of mine went to this show (she had gotten tickets early) and said that so few people had actually shown up that they were letting people in. I was torn about going but I had been out of work for the whole week already and it didn’t seem safe.
It was the last show I could have gone to for a long time. It was also the last Tiny Desk Concert for the foreseeable future.
By the time Sudan Archives arrived at NPR in Washington, D.C., on March 11, everyone was concerned about the coronavirus threat. So we sanitized the desk, the mics and the cameras. We also kept our distance.
When the show was over and the small, socially-distant crowd of NPR employees dispersed, our crew began to wipe everything down with disinfectant wipes. Our incredible audio engineer, Josh Rogosin, started to set up for what we thought would be the next Tiny Desk show, the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera p r i s m by Ellen Reid and Roxie Perkins.
Josh Rogosin remembers the day clearly. “After the Sudan Archives concert, I optimistically went about setting up for a string quartet plus an eight-person choir and two vocal soloists, plus harp and conductor,” he told me. “About halfway through my set-up, our boss gathered us around the Tiny Desk and made the painful but obvious decision. No more Tiny Desks until further notice.”
It’s a shame that that is such an unforgettable part of this show because the 13 minutes of Sudan Archives are wonderful.
Normally–at least at Johnny Brenda’s, she played solo with looping pedals and acoustic and electric violins. But for the Tiny Desk
She came not with an array of electronics, but with violinist Jessica McJunkins, violist Dominic Johnson and cellist Khari Joyner. The new arrangement at the top of “Confessions” was the perfect tension queller. And those arrangements also heighten the lyrics. Listening again three months later, three weeks into police brutality protests, the words — “There is a place that I call home / But it’s not where I am welcome / And if I saw all the angels / Why is my presence so painful?” — take on new meaning.
“Confessions” is the song that’s all over WXPN. This version opens with opens with a lovely string section arrangement–evidently new for this show. Then as the cello plays the deep part (I love that a cello can keep rhythm this way) the other three play the familiar super catchy sliding melody. Her voice sounds very clean and she is clearly smiling throughout (you can hear it in her voice).
“Glorious” is clearly inspired by traditional Irish music, but a bit more slinky. The melody and rhythm that she plays in the lead sounds so trad and yet she sings with a very not-Irish style of singing. It’s a great juxtaposition. It’s fun to watch her groove as she plays it’s very danceable–especially for a string quartet. And her soloing is pretty great with some really fast hammer-on soloing.
She says that this is the first time she is playing with the trio.
The last song is “Not For Sale” which she says is one of her favorite songs. I love that as she’s getting the trio ready she does a kind of mindless guitar solo noodle–a fast solo including bending a bent string. The song starts all pizzicato and she kind of raps part of the lyrics–another great juxtaposition of musical styles.
I’ll bet she was great live. I hope she comes back around before too long.
[READ: June 23, 2020] “The Peace Lily”
This month’s issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue and features two pieces of fiction, one memoir and three poems.
The last piece is a poem. It is about a peace lily.
She bought it at Thrifty Foods for $4.99.
She was inspired by its poker-green leaves and flowers which looked like studded Jacobsen Egg Chairs.
She brought it home and put it on a sunny bookshelf.
Within a week, its leaves
had black spots. A second
week saw its flowers gone.
She got advice from her mother and the internet. She took the advice and it gave her one flower
which drooped before
ever really blooming
If anyone has ever failed to keep a flower, this sentiment is right on:
To say the peace lily died
would be an understatement.
like a famous connoisseur
of death, it took its time:
every last leaf withered
into a black ash that stuck
on the shelf
It was all the more frustrating because the more she did to see it thrive
the less interested
it seemed in living
Until finally, you reach the point where you’re happy it’s out of your life
Hamilton Leithauser seems to always be on the periphery of my listening experience. I hear his name a lot and hear his songs a bunch, but I’ve never actually looked for him.
I’d never heard of Benny the Butcher and when I was listening to his boasts, I assumed that maybe he was really old school. He makes a crack about Nicki Minaj that made me think he was like 50, but in fact she is older than he is (which is pretty funny).
My family was playing an online game where you have to give clues to name a person or thing. We did a pop culture round and Alicia Keys came up I think twice. And I asked my daughter is she knew who that was. She said no and asked me if I did and I said no. I couldn’t think of a song she sang and wondered if she was even still singing.
I’ve heard this song a bunch and I like it more each time.
SOUNDTRACK: KEVIN DEVINE-“Freddie Gray Blues” (2016).
This week, Rough Trade and Bank Robber Music released a compilation on bandcamp called 
