SOUNDTRACK: JEN CLOHER-Live at Newport Folk Festival (July 29, 2018).
Even though it was half a year ago, NPR is still posting some shows from the Newport Folk Festival Festival. This one is kind of hard to find, since it’s not with the other Newport Folk Festival shows, so here’s the link.
Jen Cloher is a great Australian singer-songwriter/punk. I have seen her live twice. Once opening for Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile and once on her own. She is dynamic and brash, funny and clever and a great frontwoman.
When she opened for Kurt & Courtney, she was a solo artist, but when I saw her headline, she had a full band (the same line-up as Newport). And her set rocked.
The setlist she played for Newport was a truncated version of the full set list she played for us. But she also played two different songs. The first was “David Bowie Eyes” and “Toothless Tiger.”
She opened both sets with “Regional Echo” and “Forgot Myself” (oh god, oh god, oh god). The album is really good, but her lives show packs more punch. Her band is great: Jen’s wife, Courtney Barnett, on electric guitar and Bones Sloane from Courtney’s band on bass plus the amazing kick ass drummer Jen Sholakis.
The “new song” is actually an old song, “David Bowie Eyes” which she says is “for anyone who likes Patti Smith..” It’s a sweet poppy number with (of course) interesting lyrics:
She got David Bowie eyes
One is green and one is blue
I’m sure one of his is brown
But what can I do?
Come on say you’ll be
Mapplethorpe to my Patti
Just kids living on a shoestring dream
It’s followed by “Sensory Memory” one of my favorite songs of hers. The melody is wonderful and the lyrics are so bittersweet. After “Shoegazers” which has some great noisy soloing from Courtney, comes “Toothless Tiger” the other “new” song (which is also old, both of those songs are from her 2013 record). It’s more on the snarky side, with some backing vocals from Courtney.
I love “Analysis Paralysis” for the lyrics (of course)–kangaroos in the pool–but also for Courtney’s wailing guitar solo.
When we saw Kurt & Courtney, they played Jen’s “Fear is Like a Forest” and it was fun to hear it live. When I saw Jen, like in this version, it was a very different, rocking song and Courtney takes a verse or two. The set ends with Cloher’s awesome anthem “Strong Woman,” a great song for these times and for all times.
Cloher may get over shadowed by her famous bandmate, but she is an amazing songwriter/performer herself with all kinds of charisma.
SET LIST:
- “Regional Echo”
- “Forgot Myself”
- “David Bowie Eyes” *
- “Sensory Memory”
- “Shoegazers”
- “Toothless Tiger” *
- “Analysis Paralysis”
- “Fear Is Like A Forest”
- “Strong Woman”
*not played at my show–the songs below were played at my show.
- Mount Beauty**
- Stone Age Brain **
- Great Australian Bite**
- Name in Lights**
[READ: January 19, 2019] The League of Lasers
I had forgotten how much I enjoyed Star Scouts (it had been almost two years since I read it).
It helps to have read book 1 to get the full understanding of this story, but this one stands on its own pretty well, too.
The book opens with a one-eyed creature in a cloak firing a blast at earth. A blast directed at Avani Patel (the hero f book 1). Avani and her Star Scouts (all aliens except for Avani’s friend Jen) are rocking out in their terrible rock band. After the song, we see that Mabel the alien is still sniping with earthling Jen (Mabel made friends with Avani and was shocked to learn that Avani had friends back home). The explosion hits earth, but it’s not a missile, it is a messenger.
The messenger is for Avani. The handwritten (on lined school paper) note invites her to join the The League of Lasers–a special squadron of the Star Scouts. How can she say no? (more…)
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