C&L's Late Nite Music Club with Laurie Anderson
By David Neiwert Monday Nov 02, 2009 8:00pm
I love seeing Laurie Anderson live; I've seen her about four times and have never been less than electrified. I was lucky enough to have bought the VHS version of Anderson's concert film, Home of the Brave, back when it came out briefly in the early 1990s. Laurie has been promising to put it out on DVD someday, but so far it's remained unavailable in digital form. It featured a great collection of talent, including Adrian Belew on guitar and Joy Askew on keyboards, and perhaps was best known for featuring appearances by William S. Burroughs, including a brief tango with Laurie. And great songs, too. This is my favorite piece on the tape; the studio version of "Sharkey's Day" on Mister Heartbreak is one of the great aural set pieces, and its power is somewhat muted in a live setting, but the stage work here is phenomenal, so it makes for a very cool show.
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My mom used to get Art Forum magazine. One day, in 1981 I think, we discovered the flexi-disc insert of 'Oh, Superman'. We were hooked. We bought the Big Science LP when it came out.
In 1982, she played here in Burlington Vermont and my mom took me to see her. Right in front of us on her way into the theater was Madeline Kunin, who became Vermont's first female Governor! She has good taste!
In the summer of 1985 I was working on my very first movie, Street Trash. I heard that Laurie Anderson was shooting her concert picture over in New Jersey and I took three days off work to be in her audience shots.
During breaks she would come downstage and talk to us audience folks. I still have her 'Talk Normal' T-Shirt on which she hand wrote a note to my production manager asking to 'excuse me' from his picture so I could be in hers (to help with 'continuity')!
I met her again in the 1990s when she and Lou Reed came to the St. Anns Center and did a concert together.
I worked with David Van Tieghem in 1990 on a Great Performances project, too. Van Tieghem did the percussion work on 'Home of the Brave'. We had used some of his tracks in our offline edit. When I called him he immediately gave permission to use his commercial tracks in our video, but when I called his music publisher the greedy bastards demanded $10K per song, about half our shooting budget! I called Van Tieghem back and broke the bad news to him that his publisher had priced him out of our project. He asked what our deadline was and within 5 days he wrote brand new material just for us!
Laurie is definitely unique and interesting! I enjoyed that.
Thanks for posting this, David.
Anderson gave a show in montreal, at the now torn down Spectrum. I was sitting at a table, the show started and a few minutes later, the table besides me filled up. I take a quick glance, but it was a mesmerizing show that was directed by Lemieux, a hell of a visual artist, I took no notice of my new neighbors. As the song ends, I turn to my left and David Bowie is looking at me... Shook his hand, the music starts, he's talking to me, I shush him down. It was that good a show.
You sushed Bowie! What the hell! Lol
I don't know about this though... Maybe it sounds too much like they're trying to emulate the Talking Heads, but what do I know, this is an era in which I was more concerned about the ninja turtles and GI Joes to know who did world music better, and first.
AGold, you have no idea what 'World Music' is, do you?
and he's blowing...
perfect...
smokerings...
...up into the air.
saying smoke...
makes a staircase...
for yoUUUUU to descend,
...so rare.
from Paul Simon's world music phase?
Mother And Child Reunion
That's the first cut off of Simon's first solo album- a reggae song.
I don't think Simon has ever had a world music phase. It's more like a career.
A favorite of mine back in my senior year of highschool. It seems so long ago. Saw these guys, finally, about a month ago. Nothing but happiness with their new found success. Hopefully everyone will discover these gems. Fuck the Kings though. Sell outs...
"Hey, let's charge 120 bucks a ticket so the kids who got us where we are today can't afford to see us anymore!" Fuck em... We don't need them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtkurxuZ9C8
Hi, David. The film hasn't officially been released in digital form, but while we wait for that, someone has been kind enough to rip a VHS copy to digital. You can download it here:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4081580/Lauri...
and then replace it with a purchased dvd upon release...
Thank you, David Neiwert!
What a bummer to leave out that great bit of Belew elephant guitar from the studio recording right after "you already payyyyd for this, listen to my heartbeat." I saw her in Joliet at the Rialto as a touch more mature lady and she still put on a great artsy freak show.
thanks Dave
Harmonica maestro Norton Buffalo dies at 58
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/...
Roy Rogers & Norton Buffalo - Ain't no Bread in the Breadbox
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u9api6tQEA
Norton Buffalo - Nobody Wants Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo8qfIK_ajg
RIP.
I jammed with him a couple times back when everyone was starving and hustling back in the early days. He could really play.
It's begun to really sink in that it's basically "over" for our generation at this point.
We're getting old, fragile, and time is running out.
Uggggh
What amazes me is that something which seems to be free association, or stream of consciousness is so well rehearsed: this is over 6 minutes long, but the backing singers emerge and hit their marks in time. How did they do it? What was Anderson like in rehearsal?
The shoot had an AD that actually did all the coordinating. There was no yelling or screaming, just retakes.
They had been shooting the onstage stuff for a few weeks before they brought in the audience, so the band was well rehearsed. The audience was there for the reverse angles and to record our responses. I seem to recall the production having us, the audience when the band was on break, doing laughter, 'oohs and aahs' and applause (mild and enthusiastic).
They had also built a stage above the stage, meaning that they built their own stage about 18 inches above the theater's stage. If you look at the high angle shots you'll see a series of grills in the stage floor near each performer. Those are the feedback monitors for this was before the days of in-ear monitors.
They also had two SMPTE time code digital clocks on each wall, slaved to playback. That's right they are NOT playing the music live, they are 'lip-synching' to track. For every take they did a 30 second countdown, and the track would play. The band would just stand there and wait for the AD to cue them while their instruments and voices are coming out of the PA. Each camera would have to swing up to the clock opposite them and record a few seconds of the timecode, that was for the editors to synch up that shot to their master tracks.
After each take the first AC would rip the mags off the camera and hand them under the stage to the loaders who would have fresh mags ready to hand back to them. They had 6 Panavision cameras (that I could see, two left, two right, one down front on a dolly and one onstage on a Steadicam (Actually it was the first time I saw a Panaglide)
Laurie Anderson's live show is an amazing blend of pre-recorded materials and live action. In the concert I saw she did the sample trick three times before she got the sound she actually wanted to use. Her background material (like the projections) is all timed carefully, but she has control over a lot of her parts.
in playing music and performance are to trust and surrender with developed discernment.
It's not about competition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gan1keOg9e8
She was very under-appreciated - as evidenced by some comments; as soon as you leave a chugging 1-6-4-5 behind some people's heads pop. I love Laurie though, she's up there with the great performance artists/musicians like Tom Waits. Lately, though, I've been intrigued by -possible blasphemy - Lady Gaga. Granted, it's club music but the woman is very much in control of "the image". I spent some time watching her live performances on Ytube and have come away impressed. Her SNL and VMA performances were notable. I'm not sure I would go see her though and I have seen Anderson and also Waits(many times); this is probably a reflection of my age more than her worth.
http://cdn2.ioffer.com/img/item/388/209/31/98...
that was loni anderson
this is lori anderson
lori
loni anderson would marry burt reynolds
while
lori anderson would take burt reynolds hairpiece, somehow turn the hair into magnetic recording tape and then create an electric comb with tape heads, then wear the toupee on stage and comb the hair while the amplified sounds belch out strange incantations.
an actual video tape of her making this come true
i have a book of all of her gadgets and stage shows, and they are pretty amazing.
Mr. Heartbreak is a great album but, unfortunately, this live version doesn't work as well as the studio version. David is right, it is not as powerful.
And no, this isn't a Paul Simon reject or trying to sound like the Talking Heads. In fact, this album is the only one that sounds like this.
Sharkey's Night with William S. Burroughs on doing the vocals, which ends the record, is so good it is a joke.
that she's rocking the key-tar.
I grew up on this record. My uncle saw her at Berkley when she was still an up and comer in the business. I remember him saying she had little bells strapped about her and was chiming about doing some strange dance. Gotta love that! My favorite part of this album was the Belew solo at the end. Viva Pretentious Art Rock!
That this has not been released on DVD. Not just a great concert movie, but a milestone in electronic music and performance art.
As a teenager it inspired me greatly, and now as a music teacher, I would love to share this with my students, and the fact that I cannot (I lost my VHS copy long ago) is infuriating.
HOW CAN SOMETHING THIS IMPORTANT NOT BE ON DVD? I've been waiting for years now...
Thanks for the pirate info, I will see if that works. But I (and no doubt many many others) would love to give Laurie some well-deserved money for a legit copy - I guess she doesn't want it. What gives?
PS. Whoever said this version somehow "doesn't live up to the album version" is missing the point completely! The stage presentation is what makes this movie (and therefore this version of this song) so unforgettable.
What in the world do you mean, world music? You mean because they didn't use a traditional drum set? Laurie Anderson is more like extraterrestrial music. I love her.
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