Venus Zine / September 1, 2006 Neko Case, Joanna Newsom, and Martha Wainright at McCarren Park
Three performers crank it out in an abandoned pool, despite the ominous weatherBy: Gretchen Kalwinski
John Lennon once described New York as the center of the universe, saying that, “If I was living in the time of Rome, I’d go to Rome. But I’m living now, so I’ll be in New York.” Freelance work being a bit slow in Chicago right now, I had this in mind when I hopped a red-eye to NYC to visit a pal. We got $2 sandwiches at the deli on the corner in her Brooklyn ‘hood, then hopped on the train to McCarren Park Pool where Joanna Newsom and Martha Wainwright were playing a 6 p.m. show headlined by the superb Neko Case.
The pool, unused for 20 years and three times the size of an Olympic one, has only recently been used as a venue, (to much controversy, since Clear Channel is sponsoring the shows). We got there amidst threatening rain clouds, and plopped down on the crumbling edge of the old pool just as the rain started full throttle and the charismatic Wainwright started to play. She began with the pensive “Far Away;” “Green grass blades are all on fire / I own the crack that's in the wind,” and later did a rocky-version of the standard “Stormy Weather” in a small homage to the increasing sea of umbrellas and ponchos. She was sweetly apologetic about the weather, yelling to the crowd, “You guys are such troupers; thank you for staying…Wish we had bathing suits.” As she wound up the set with “Baby,” she noted that she wasn’t going to be touring for a while “cause I need to make a new fuckin’ record!”
When Newsom walked onstage in her ‘70s sun-dress, the sky was clear, and the rain was drying from the peeling paint bottom of the decrepit pool. With a voice that the New York Times describes as “froggy, girlish” and my friend Meghan calls “Lamb Chop-esque” (the puppet, not the band), Newsom charmed the cheerful gaggle of hipsters with her weird, winsome songs, warbling in “Emily,” “I saw you last night by the river / I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water / frowning at the angle where they were lost, and slipped under forever / in a mud-cloud, mica-spangled, like the sky'd been breathing on a mirror.”By the time Newsom finished, the sky was clear. It was almost too bad, we thought, because it could’ve been great to see force-of-nature Case belt out songs during a thunderstorm. But to no one’s surprise, Case was magnificent anyway. She played a nice mix from her albums Furnace Room Lullaby, Blacklisted, The Tigers Have Spoken, and Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. Almost immediately, she played one of my favorites, uh “Favorite,” and the crowd began visibly swooning as she sang, “I thought you were golden / I thought you were wise / Caught you returning / To the house you caught fire.” One girl, evidently moved by the spirit, started waltzing by herself in an empty part of the pool, and three art-girl rockers began dancing near her with a spazzy mix of mod and country moves. In “Set Out Running,” Case threw back her head to bellow, “Want to GET it all behind me / you know everything reminds me / can’t be myself without you / wanna crawl down deep inside,” and I realized that the only trouble with her performances is that she makes it look so easy that people think that if they throw their heads back and belt it out, they can sound that way too. Hence, leaving the shows, you often see folks mimicking her singing with the same lusty abandon but without her blessed vocal chords. Ouch.
Case was in punchy spirits and kept referencing unicorn tarot cards that were recently gifted to her. “The unicorn oracle is guiding every decision I make tonight — even my clothes,” she informed the crowd. “Unicorns have this sexual power that I think is harnessed from every 12-year-old girl in the world. Basically when they’re not humping their Pink Panthers, they’re looking at unicorns and they don’t know why….” We left the show elated and I’m catching tonight’s red-eye back to Chicago.So, in short, my visit did just what I wanted:
Jolts of confusion, in a good way: check. (Newsom).
Goosebumps from a favorite performer: check. (Case).
Celebrity sighting: check. (Jimmy Fallon was at the show).
New music introduction: check. (First time hearing Wainright live).
Back to ye olde Midwest, and my big, affordable apartment go I, fresh with invigoration. Thanks and kiss-kiss, NYC.
Photo Credit: Meghan Hickey
