Kristin Hersh (solo) - C/D, S/D, OPO, RFD, &c.

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"Your Dirty Answer," "37 Hours," "Candyland"

As for The Grotto... uh... I've tried to listen to it but it's so meek and timid that it barely registers. It's like she put all her energy into the Throwing Muses album and had none left for this one. I'll keep listening to it, but I'm not confident that it'll end up being a favorite.

"you don't inspire / a metric tonne of trust"

and

"and we dance all night"

It's been ear-worming on me these past few days.

Bah xpost!

It's really REALLY good.

I think I'm gonna make this year the one I finally get round to investigating Kristin's post-'Strange Angels' (which I didn't like much) solo stuff. Starting here, and 'Murder, Misery and then Goodnight' which I've been meaning to get for too long. Only recently discovered the pretty damn great 50Ft Wave record...

1. Relentlessly downbeat (even for Kristin). Veering close to self parody at times.
2. Dave Narcizo drums on nearly all the tracks. This helps make the overall sound a lot closer to Throwing Muses than most Hersh solo LPs have been (a plus for me). I like the string arrangements too.
3. A couple of good tunes, but no obvious standout tracks.
4. Her voice is completely shot these days. Does this make the album title ironic?

the world of kristin. alone.

Yeah, I have a 2005 live recording by her and it's a bit sad to hear her settling into her late-70's Marianne Faithful phase.

scratchy, for lack of a better word. like it always made sense to me that she sang about kissing gravel on Limbo.

You're right in that she is fairly limited, vocally ... she doesn't have much range, so her voice is easily stretched. This isn't a bad thing, mind you (it gives the songs a "gutsy" quality), and for the most part she can sing powerfully enough to pull it off. But now, she sounds hoarse even the middle of her range.

no but totally not a bad thing - i always LIKED the "gutsy" stretching stuff

lots of character

i have to hear the 50 ft wave.

As an addendum to this thread, the additional CD of Kristen Hersh performing Throwing Muses songs solo live in Hoboken that came free with early editions of Red Heaven is well worth tracking down...

http://www.discogs.com/release/534791

In finding that link however I did find this which maybe pretty good too...

http://www.archive.org/details/KristinHersh1999-10-22.cm-s20.flac16

And yeah, her voice was definitely pretty raspy--i.e., my friend who'd never heard a note of Hersh things prior
remarked that Kristin sounded like an 80 year old smoker.
Though, I don't know if I'm just accustomed to her voice,
--I mean, I do usually enjoy my music a little scrambled anyway,
but I really enjoyed her delivery. It was raspy, but it was completely "in there" and sincere.
I just love her, she's great.

only just got round to hearing the "Live at Noe Valley Ministry" official thing too. Good!

Stream the new one in full here :)

From Rolling Stone:

The title is a joke: at forty, Kristin Hersh has a voice that's worn as hell -- all two-packs-a-day rasp and vinegary bite. On her seventh solo album, the former singer for poetry-addled alt-rockers Throwing Muses finds a fitting counterpart to that somewhat disturbing voice in largely dark, largely acoustic songs that toss in string arrangements and often work up smart, stormy tumult. Though Hersh outfits the waltz-y "Ice" with a great slo-mo chorus, tunecraft isn't exactly her strength, and sometimes the album slips into haziness. But the best songs are unsettling in a good way: The haunting, plaintive "Sugar Baby" builds to a cathartic climax, and "Under the Gun" conjures a long night filled with fever dreams. Like a Star proves Hersh can rock powerfully; if she had some stronger material, she might be able to make a truly killer record.

CHRISTIAN HOARD

eww

i had a dream last night that kristin was in my town, somehow passing through on a train, and she wrote me a note and left it on a telephone pole near the station. and then i lost the note, and i was looking for it all over town, shit scared. then i woke up and put Learn TO Sing Like A STar on, and now i'm listening to surf guitar.

okay i'm sorry

i really am. but it had to be done

me and my Charms

kills.

so Sunny Border Blue is on in my apt, with the blue screen of the Memorex CD player, and it's so, so pretty - makes me wanna have a beer and play some poker.

geez i really wanna do that n e way... maybe i'll have a poker night?

whoa wat just happened in song#2

this is why. now here, tho, i could stand the vox a TOUCH louder

wow... song3 no disappoint. haha, well i have to go to work soon sooo i'll have to stop at song 3 :-) wait song 4 sounds good...

i can't find a mention of White Suckers on this thread, which surprises me even tho it seems like a run-of-the-mill song. It still really, really shakes me. "Drivin' around in your souped up jeep, like u got somewhere better to be" - totally reminds me of growing up on long island, lol...

So you kinda like her, huh?

=P

Me and My Charms is one of the best songs ever, I agree. I love Hips and Makers overall as well, although I haven't ventured past that for some reason.

aww u should venture

I know. The reason why tho is that I went to college and then I traveled and then I had kids, and so I am frozen in the past. All my CD money goes into 529 plans now.

oh my god

=P

I used to feel this way about Tanya Donnelly, many moons ago. We were both attending the University of Rhode Island when I wrote a positive piece about the Muses for the student newspaper (this is well before their debut album). Tanya met up with me on campus to thank me, and her smile made my knees buckle.
Shortly afterward the band moved to Boston, hit it huge in England and my dream of becoming Mr. Tanya Donnelly quickly faded.

FUCK that's so hot

i can't imaging looking at tanya smiling, i might faint

i still can't believe i was in kristin's face and all i could say was "What a great show tonight"

what is wrong with me?

What do you say? Thank you for inventing the sound of modern rock and roll? Maybe that's what you should have said, because somebody has got to thank the muses.

heh, i know... thank you for making me cry in my room week after week? thank you for always singing exactly what's on my mind? thank you for consistently leaving me dumbfounded?

i guess, you're right, i could have said all those things. and i didn't.

Touring Australia in October....

"It’ll be her first visit to Australia since 1994, so fans will be lining up for this one. Tickets go on sale on Monday August 27.

Thursday October 11: Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Friday October 12: The Palais, Hepburn Springs
Wednesday October 17: The Heritage Hotel, Bulli
Thursday October 18: Clarendon Guest House, Katoomba
Friday October 19: The Basement, Sydney
Sunday October 21: Fremantle Arts Centre"

http://www.fasterlouder.com.au/news/local/10182/Kristin-Hersh-returns-to-Australia.htm

Bulli???

Hepburn Springs!? Sounds like she's using a tour as a neat adjunct to an Aussie holiday ;D I mean Hepburn Springs, Blue Mountains, Freo.

I'd like to go to this. I saw her '94 shows, they were entrancing. I wrote a gushy fan letter afterwards that I piked on sending her (or her label or whatever). Unfortunately I havent kept up at all since "Strange Angels" so I guess I'd have to do that.

girl u have to listen to the new one

Apparently the Freo gig is a support(!!!) for Sarah Blasko...

The Corner gig, for which I've just brought a ticket, is thankfully not.

SHE is supporting Sarah Blasko? Oh for the love of... GRARGH!

Corner gig not sold out yet is it?

Heh I saw the 'Muses at the Corner in 92 or 93. They did "Cottonmouth" and some guy in the audience kept loudly hollersinging along to the "YOOOOOOO snake/yooooo cottonmouth" bit. So much so, Kristin was having a hard time not cracking up laughing. At the end of the song, the guys gf turned to him between songs and loudly declared "I'm not going to a gig with you EVER AGAIN" and everyone cracked up laughing inc the band.

They also did Delicate Cutters. Sigh. So wonderful.

No, not sold out yet, but the default 'selling fast' was on the email-out I got on Tuesday.

I saw TM on the same tour, but in Perth. Fortunately, their relative obscurity made being 'down the front' a piece of cake. :)

Anyone planning to go to this?

Kristin Hersh is an introvert. She is extraordinarily shy. Paradoxically, she is known as an artist for her sometimes brutal emotional honesty and openness.

"Paradoxical Undressing" by Kristin Hersh is a live spoken word project incorporating film, music and essays. The show will feature excerpts from Kristin's upcoming memoir, "Paradoxical Undressing" read by the artist, with musical accompaniment.

The show tells the story of a teenage girl wrestling with issues of extreme creativity, mental illness, pregnancy and life in the music business as founder of seminal American indie rock band Throwing Muses.

The first paradoxical undressing performances will be held in the UK at St. Andrew's in the Square in Glasgow on 25 March 2008 and at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London on 26 March 2008.

I've just booked a ticket for the QEH performance (though I only seem to end up making it to about 3 out of 5 events that I book in advance)

dang

will KILL to see this

werd

my KH interview, from last year: http://wildcat.arizona.edu/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=572e2352-0b06-45e8-ab11-3c4e2413bc9e

Did you wind up going to KH at the corner, Trayce? I did. Loved it.
There was a man singing along every word too.

Totally getting the book when it comes out

That man was me. (probably) :)

I can't wait for this. I ordered my ticket just now just in case.

listening to HIps and Makers now, it sounds much more Muses-y than i had originally thought

Really, the single greatest solo release from Kristin is the bonus disc, _Live At Maxwell's_ that came out with the all-but-forgotten _Red Heaven_. The best Muses tracks done just voice and guitar, oh man...

"Paradoxical Undressing" by Kristin Hersh is a live spoken word project incorporating film, music and essays. The show will feature excerpts from Kristin's upcoming memoir, "Paradoxical Undressing" read by the artist, with musical accompaniment.

I found this event pretty hard going this evening. I had had a really tiring, frustrating day at work which was maybe why I was dropping off during the spoken word bits.

Just the songs please next time.

iiiinteresting!

So I'm a teacher, planning my lesson for the day, and I see that one of the supplemental exercises is about someone named "Hersh"

KRISTIN HERSH

She is in my developmental English grammar textbook! There must be a fan on the editorial side. Ha.

What, her lyrics are in the book? Please tell us more.

HA seriously, what??

No, it's like a grammar exercise about "musician Kristin Hersh"
It's about how she balances work (being touring musician) and home (being a mom/wife). It is used to practice correcting run-on sentences.

"I had to play the Palladium Thursday night but first I needed to take Dylan to a doctor's appointment because he had an ear infection so I arrived late to the gig and David was really pissed at me so he threw a tom-tom at me and hit me squarely in the eye and I had to go back to the very same doctor which I thought was pretty funny."

Kristin Hersh is a working mother, she has a rather unusual job.
A. Kristin Hersh is a working mother; but she has a rather unusual job.
B. Kristin Hersh is a working mother, although she has a rather unusual job.

That's a riot. I bet she'd get a kick out of that.

B, right?

Yes, B is the correct answer. A++ for you! You really know you've made it when you appear in a textbook.

Queen Latifah and Jon Stewart are both in the new edition as well.

fucking hilarious

i've been feeling kristin a lot lately. i mean, not just that i need to listen to her, but more generally. i feel her presence in my house, when i'm home alone, at night, in the studio. i wish the whole house could fill with wind, howls and kristin's voice, on the guitar. well, i suppose it can. nothing fills a house like her records.

summertime -- time for sunny border blue! !

her harmonies are always surprising

I have Sunny Border Blue but I haven't been able to get into it yet.

Summertime, though - time for Hunkpapa! Extremely underrated album.

Re: Sunny Border Blue. Get into it. It's probably (taking the long view) the best thing she ever did.

Holy mother of god, "Sundrops":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRoqCBlzKhg

I'd forgotten this song...and today out of the blue I heard the lyric "I never, never knew" and it took me awhile to figure out where it came from but I am AGHAST. Oh my god I don't even have Hips & Makers anymore and I need that shit like heroin right now.

i know that song is pretty spectacular!

Something I hadn't been aware of -- and quite enjoyable it is:

http://www.throwingmusic.com/lists/archive.php?listID=2&layoutID=1&pagerows=50&pagenum=1

I hope Kristin and Billy's 'The Shady Circle' idea takes off.

I saw Kristin perform her 'Paradoxical Undressing'* show in Edinburgh last month, and fascinating it was too. Can't wait for the book.

*http://www.edinburghfestivals.co.uk/view_item.aspx?item_id=50407

Speedbath. Enough said. Dear God, Speedbath.

I also think I need that textbook.

I've just been listening to my tape of Hips & Makers again. What features or tracks does anyone now think is good about it?

...and now continuing the thread a bit, if you've not heard the Strings EP, which consists of a Martin McCarrick-arranged string section working with Hersh on rerecordings of four Hips and Makers songs, you have no idea how you're missing out. It's absolutely wonderful.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 28 February 2005

I haven't heard this for years, if ever, but I think Raggett is right. There was this STUNNING song called 'The Key' way back when (1994?) - did it appear on that ep? don't know - but if she did more work like that then I would like to have it.

Kristin Hersh is a working mother, with an unusual job.

Lots of lines (and the delivery thereof) worth treasuring on H&M.

I've been on the other side of the Blue Ridge, seen the Shenandoah rolling there

Start with your eyes when they eye me in twilight

I fell to the bottom of Thales' well, caught like a thief with a lamb

Love Kristin, P.S.: Keep them coming

"The Key" is on the American release of the Strings EP, but not the UK one. In the UK, it was on the Your Ghost single. Also "Uncle June and Aunt Kiyoti" which is equally amazing.

i guess the comparison to Johnny Cash musta been made before now, but i'm only putting the words together in my mind now. it makes a lot of sense.

I've unexpectedly found myself back into Hips & Makers after all these years. I revisited with it around 2001 but couldn't really bring it into a present context at that time, it was more about memories for me. This time it's resonating with me in the present moment. It's funny that I always tend to think of it as an good album with a few really standout tracks, but in reality it all hangs together very well and feels very complete, like taking a journey through different parts of a forest or something.

I was so disappointed in Strange Angels that I quit paying attention to her work at all after that. The way I remember it, the songs that appear on Hips & Makers are ones she'd been saving up for years.

Haven't heard this Strings EP mentioned upthread...will have to track it down.

Also this line especially gets me - "I've been on the other side of the Blue Ridge, seen the Shenandoah rolling there" because I grew up in Virginia and it makes me remember the mountains there.

Strange Angels isn't all that bad, although it is a let down after Hips & Makers, which she's never really come close to in her solo work since then IMO

see i thought h+m was patchy - stuff like beestung and velvet days i find a bit trite. prefer the grotto, sunny border blue and learn to sing like a star. her current track-a-month-to-download output is pretty great too.

Going to restate that Strange Angels is (to me) far superior to Hips and Makers. It's her best album, in fact.

ooooh the strings version of Sundrops! WOAH! WOAH!

Have you listened to Uncle June and Aunt Kiyoti yet? Or the Key?

sky motel still my favorite, hugely underrated

Listening to the Key now. Poor Mike Kozelek, he's just not QUITE as good as her. Not QUITE. Almost, though. He just edges it.

Whoops! MARK Kozelek, of course.

Anyone read Rat Girl yet?

not published yet, is it?

Oops — perhaps. A close friend of hers told me she was half way through it. Probably an advance copy.

Yep, you're right. Amazon has it coming out Aug. 31.

I've got it on reserve at my library. I may be the only one, and it looks like the county library system is getting three copies.

Ha, I did the same thing. Only one library in Rhode Island has reserved it so far.

So this interview with Hersh is beyond kickass.

100 pages into Rat Girl and I can't recommend it enough. So endearing.

I really need to buy that book.

UK title: Paradoxical Undressing. The book version of her latest album is really good as well!

I've only written one book and I didn't know how to write that

Good interview in the Guardian:
"Yeah, I hate music. Everyone knows that about me. Even my kids hate music. When they're watching a kids' show on TV, as soon as a song comes on, the TV is muted." She reconsiders. "Maybe hate is the wrong word. We can't bear it. The intensity of good music is too much to bear. And bad music is so offensive that that's also too much to bear. I'm in heaven when it's good, but that doesn't happen very often. And anyway, you don't want to be crying over the breakfast table. I don't want that life."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/aug/22/kristin-hersh-memoir-interview-edinburgh

i interviewed kristin in 2007 and she told me the same thing. sadly i can't seem to find the article i wrote about her online at the moment. love her, of course -- i might even like the solo stuff more than the muses.

For anyone interested, there are still a few copies of Kristin's 2015 Record Store Day single 'Sundrops'/'The Cuckoo' available via the label's website (heliospheric.co.uk).

It was only released in the UK, so this is the best chance for US and European fans to get hold of a copy before they all go. The two songs are acoustic versions recorded for a never-broadcast local radio session in 1994 while Kristin was in the UK touring 'Hips and Makers', and have never been released until now. They are fab and all KH fans should hear them!

Wyatt At The Coyote Palace streaming now at NPR:

http://www.npr.org/2016/10/27/499145143/first-listen-kristin-hersh-wyatt-at-the-coyote-palace

Saw her in Cambridge MA tonight. I haven't followed her work in a decade but it was a great voice and guitar performance with lots of anecdotes and poetry between songs.

oh shit new throwing muses AND new solo kristin hersh next year (I really need to renew my lapsed subscription)

aforementioned new solo tracks are arriving; this has a bit of a "Rubidoux" feel https://pitchfork.com/news/kristin-hersh-announces-new-album-shares-new-song-listen/

https://www.normanrecords.com/records/172053-kristin-hersh-possible-dust-clouds

(Shocked to see it isn't on 4ad ... but perhaps she hasn't been with them for years??)

think her last 4AD release was Learn to Sing Like a Star in 2007 (or the Throwing Muses Anthology in 2011)

Haven't really been paying attention (obviously).

and a UK tour next March: https://www.kristinhersh.com/appearances/

including a few places off the usual tour circuit, such as my home town - hooray! I confess I have also not been paying attention but perhaps this is a good motivator to do so

Oh wow, KH at the Phil (ok, not the pub) in L'pool in March sounds like it's worth a trip. Almost the 30th anniversary of seeing the Muses for the first time in L'pool. Jeez.

I doubt I can get to Rough Trade East after work in three weeks' time for that appearance.

x-post. Thanks for the tip-off re the shows, Spacecadet. The Holywell Music Room in Oxford seems a tiny venue for her but having checked Wegottickets sales seem fairly stagnant. That said, I hadn't noticed anything about the show.

Ooh, I'm ready for new stuff. Strange Angels and Sky Motel have been sounding so good to me recently. Don't know why I never spent much time with the latter.

sky motel is so damn good

this is a good album. is she even capable of making a bad album? I've never heard one.

like, all muses albums, all her solo albums, the 50 ft Wave stuff...all of it's great. some greater than the rest obviously but I will always listen to one of her records all the way through.

btw did she play everything on this? I can't find any decent credits or liners online. Who sings backup on Halfway Home (my favorite on the album; I listened to that on repeat 4x yesterday)

if you ask her on twitter she'll probably tell you!

My song of the day was "Gin". I heard it on a radio podcast walking home after work without knowing who it was and I thought I know that voice from when it was not as broken (which is by no means bad). Great song which catapulted me back into the early nineties. The Throwing Muses was one of the first indie bands I got to know. In the podcast the radio dj said something about her being bipolar. I hope the music helps her to get through the day.

she did a recent interview where she said it turns out she was not bipolar, she has some kind of deep PTSD from childhood that manifests in different ways, mainly through music; and that she often has no recollection of writing songs, performing them live, or even knows what they mean.

"Gin" is great yeah; my favourite from the new LP.

btw did she play everything on this? I can't find any decent credits or liners online. Who sings backup on Halfway Home?
Mostly all done by Kristin but there are five other credited performers, three drummers and two bass players - one of which, Chris Brady, is also credited with backing vocals.

I should go buy this rather than listening off apple music.

the new album is incredibly good, glad Sky Motel was brought up because it's the clear predecessor here

("Gin" is from the Crooked sessions from when it was called Speedbath, FWIW; maybe one day we'll get "Around Dusk" released)

(actually, "Gin" was intended to be a Throwing Muses song? or at least it was back then https://www.kristinhersh.com/gin/)

Seeing her tomorrow for the first time. Can’t fucking wait.

highest recommendations for Rat Girl, just a great book

God I love her

same

I have her book about her relationship with Vic chestnutt but I couldn’t get very far. Anyone else read it?

I haven't, but I can second the Rat Girl recommendation, it's an amazing memoir. I need to read the more recent one.

Hips and Makers finally getting a very overdue vinyl reissue (along with Strings) for RSD this year.

Never got around to Rat Girl, but I will

she's the best

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW4JvnK6R6c