Kristin Hersh and Bob Mould

at The Birchmere, 11/29/2005


Kristin Hersh is an incredibly meticulous performer. I think I'm a huge fan of hers primarily because of her compositions, but this show really made me think more about her chops as a performer. Her guitar playing is incredibly clean, and unlike most solo acoustic performers (i.e. singer-songwriter types) she is very intentional about articulations. Her right-hand technique is really well developed. She has extraordinary dynamic control - exploiting the wide range between soft and loud - something most singer-songwriters can't quite demonstrate, especially in concert. Another indicator of her chops was in the endings of each song. She was very careful about letting the last notes ring just so, or muting the strings suddenly. None of the sloppy final "thwacks" that make so many rock players sound dumb at the end of every song.

And her vocal technique... well, she has been singing songs professionally for over 20 years so maybe it should come as no surprise that she's great at it. Her voice has changed over the last few years, but she has a rich variety of sounds, and great control. I've seen many critics write about her performances and her distant focus. It looks like she's got her eyes fixed on some point far off on the horizon. I suspect she's not focused on her eyes at all, but she's listening so carefully - and concentrating really hard on both her guitar playing and her voice. I guess I could keep gushing about her playing and singing... but that's enough for now.

Ok, the songs... Her songs are often quite thorny, lyrics are abstract enough to be baffling at times, but still give enough concrete details to be deeply engaging. At one point she said, "I keep telling you the songs are about something and then they turn out not to be so much about it. Well, I'm as confused as you are." (ok, that's a bad mis-quote, I'm doing this from memory a few days later) She played "Pearl" from the Throwing Muses album "Red Heaven" and offered some explanation before-hand about her childhood friend, Marie. Didn't really shed any light on the song, though... She played a few Throwing Muses songs. "Hook in Her Head" was nicely arranged for the solo setting. Musically, her songs really blow me away. She has a unique harmonic vocabulary, and puts together disparate and angular elements into songs that flow so nicely, but seem like they shouldn't. It's magic, I guess. Let's call it "artistry."

Her current work is tremendous. Hopefully her current band, 50 Foot Wave, will be in DC sometime... still looking forward to seeing them live. The show wasn't at all about hearing the old "hits," it was very much a case of hearing an artist at the top of their game -- rare for someone who's been churning out work as long (and in such quanitity) as she has.

Bob Mould was a different story. I don't want to write anything critical of him in public... he's been such an important figure in my own musical development and I feel like I "owe" him so much. My bands in college played Husker Du covers, not so much in concert, but we cut our teeth on his songs and did our best to copy them when we were writing our own material. Maybe it was just hard hearing him after Kristin Hersh, since their work is so different. Mould is famous for power. His songs come at you hard. I think that makes solo performances challenging, but he's been doing this for a long time - it's the third time I've heard him solo and the first time I had mixed feelings about it. I think this has lots to do with nostalgia and being wrapped up in hearing my favorite old songs, and this time I think I was more present to the performance, less to the warm fuzzies generated by hearing his old songs. Highlights, for me, were the songs where he was joined by Amy Domingues on cello. "Poison Years" sounded especially good in this setting. Amy played the juicy disonant lead guitar parts, and added beefy low end, making the song nice and heavy. Before that one, they played "See a Little Light" and her behind-the-beat phrasing kind of bugged me, I wanted to hear it more crisply... but that's really nitpicking. I hope those two do some more playing together - they worked well.

PS. Birchmere is a scam. To get a good seat, you have to get there early and buy dinner from them. Not much in terms of vegetarian options, and nothing vegan. They should take a lesson from Black Cat and Food for Thought... after all, the DC straight-edge kids are grown up now and have decent jobs (disposable income) and wide musical taste. Also, they tried to take a percentage of Kristin's CD sales - not unusual for a large venue, but I think they had made some prior arrangement and then acted dickish about it.