Marc Cohn & band
Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center
Sunday 2008 August 24 8:30 PM

It’s my habit to see Marc Cohn every chance I get during the New York leg of his tours. This explains why, three days after my last Cohn concert, I schlepped all the way out along Long Island’s southern shore to Westhampton. Tonight he had no opener; it was just his band and him. The WHBPAC is an intimate space, acoustically rich and comfortable. It lacks the grandeur of St. George’s Theater but is quite nice for a modern building.

As before, the playlist is below the fold. I don’t have as many comments, as many of the songs are the same.

1. Live Out the String : Like before, Mr. Cohn opened with the “poppest” song from the latest album Join the Parade.
2. Girl of Mysterious Sorrow : Songs from Burning the Daze have been very rare for Mr. Cohn to play, for reasons I’ve not heard. This is one of the more haunting and beautiful tunes from that album, and this version was amazing. I suspect that he played this because he did not have the wonder-keyboard as mentioned at the last show and so couldn’t do “Ghost Train”. (He actually mentioned this explicitly.)
3. Perfect Love : Mr. Cohn mentioned that he had the good fortune of having James Taylor sing backup on this, despite it being Cohn’s debut album — possibly, he admitted, because he modeled the tune on Taylor’s “Shower the People You Love With Love”.
4. The Calling (Charlie Christian’s Tune)
5. Dance Back From the Grave: Mr. Cohn related again the tale of how he overheard a poet Rick Bragg speaking after the impact of Hurrican Katrina and knew he had to write a song based on the poet’s words. He also said it had particular resonance for him “because about ten days earlier, I’d been shot”. This refers to an incident after a show in Colorado(?), wherein someone tried to carjackMr. Cohn’s van.
6. 29 Ways
7. Listening to Levon
8. Healing Hands : A surprise second song from Burning the Daze, played with tenderness.
9. Walking in Memphis: I look forward to this song because it always brings out the storyteller in Mr. Cohn. Tonight he commented that he and his wife had been wandering around Westhampton Beach and seen all the posters for this concert, as well as ones for Chris Isaak. But Mr. Isaak’s posters had the tagline “Songs that will break your heart” while Mr. Cohn’s read “Returning to his musical roots”. Mock-indignant, Mr. Cohn asserted “I have a song or two to break your heart. And I don’t think I ever left my musical roots.” For the rest of the night, he played up an imagined rivalry with Mr. Isaak.
10. Miles Away:

That marked the end of the official set, as before. Tonight, when he returned, Mr. Cohn called out for requests and listened for quite some time sorting through the songs. As you’ll see, they ended up being many of the same as previously, leading me to suspect he waits until he hears people call the songs he wants to play anyway. But he did allow some variation. At first he dismissed all the requests as “Some very nice songs by Gordon Lightfoot” and then he sighed dramatically when someone called for “Wicked Games by Chris Isaak”.

1. Paper Walls
2. Silver Thunderbird
3. True Companion
4. Strangers in a Car
5. Let Me Be Your Witness: He played this even though, as he explicitly noticed, no one had gotten around to calling for it.
6. One Safe Place

There was only one encore set but as you can see, it was longer.

Marc Cohn with Toby Lightman
St. George Theater, Staten Island, NY
Thursday 2008 August 21

This is another in my ongoing series of reviews of Marc Cohn shows. See this earlier one and this one as well for comparison.

The St. George is a beautiful venue, an old vaudeville theater (I assume) which has been either renovated or maintained lovingly in its original state. Ornate and glitzy, it nonetheless provided excellent sound for an intimate concert. The opener was a bluesy singer/songwriter named Toby Lightman, who has been featured (apparently) on the Home Shopping Network as well as singing the opening for NASCAR on Fox. Unfortunately I don’t know any of Ms. Lightman’s work, so I can’t review it in depth. She seemed to have a nice range, though, and her songs aren’t bad at all. She does appear to be a bit nervous on a stage by herself.

After Ms. Lightman’s forty-minute set and a small break, Marc Cohn came on stage with his current touring band: Shane Fontayne on guitar; Joe Bobadillo (?) on drums; and John Ossman on bass. The set was high-energy and went on for more than an hour and a half, including two encores. The playlist is below the fold.

1. Live Out the String : A nice rendition, though somewhat marred by some equipment issues Mr. Fontayne had throughout the song.
2. Ghost Train : Mr. Cohn commented on how he has had to resort to bringing along his original, aging keyboard on tours now, as modern keyboards apparently can’t reproduce the signature sound of this track from his first album (which he humorously refers to as “my best-of”). Between this number and the next he introduced Mr. Fontayne (who had fully resolved whatever plagued him during the first song and was his usual, amazing, liquid self on this tune).
3. Perfect Love : A good version though I have to say, again, that I an not in love with this song. It is uncharacteristically cloying for Marc Cohn.
4. The Calling (Charlie Christian’s Tune): Appropriately haunting. After this song, Mr. Cohn introduced Joe Bobadillo on the drums and then called Ms. Lightman out to perform a couple of numbers with him.
5. Dance Back From the Grave: I will admit that I was not a fan of this song when I first heard it. I was put off a little by its rough-hewn lyrics and distorted guitar. Then I experienced a moment of fridge brilliance and realized how a propos these features are in a song about a city that’s been drowned. Anyway, in concert, the song packs quite an emotional wallop. Mr. Cohn also did some audio wizardry by employing two mics, one of which (used for the main verses) was driven to distortion.
6. 29 Ways : Another song from the first album, and another song I didn’t particularly like that nonetheless stands out in concert. For me, the success of a concert hinges entirely on whether the performer enjoys their work. I mean, if the singer can’t be bothered liking what he’s playing, why should I? Mr. Cohn never fails to convey his love of his work. But this song was over-the-top out-and-out fun, and that came through nicely. Its topic is a little bit goofy and that content-free quality allowed Mr. Cohn and the band to really cut loose. Also, Ms. Lightman’s contribution to this song was much stronger and integral than on “Dance Back From the Grave”. After this, she left the stage for a bit and Mr. Cohn introduced John Ossman on bass.
7. Listening to Levon: Mr. Cohn, introducing this song, described it as the eternal conflict of a 16 year old boy falling in love with a 16 year old girl and in love with music. It’s a sweet, funny little song (one of the best from Join the Parade, in my opinion) and it again brings across how essential Mr. Cohn’s music is to his entire life. Also, during the bridge (before “It’d serve me right”), he riffed a little and gave us a verse of “The Weight” by The Band, which includes drummer/singer Levon Helm, who is of course eponymous for the song.
8. Rainy Season: Every time I hear a concert rendition of the title song from Mr. Cohn’s second album, I am amazed how he has turned a so-so studio track into a lush and evocative cry of love and pain. Here the band really kicked in, tossing the sad-but-energetic motiffs from one to the other. Every once in a while a song can really paint an “aural picture” and this one really feels like a rainy evening. It’s also a unique blend of optimism and fatalism — the singer is clearly in love, clearly wants to make it work, clearly is going to try … and just as clearly, expects it all to smash up anyway. Something about that noble struggle even when faith is gone, tugs at me. During the extended fade-out, Mr. Cohn mixed in a verse or two from “Walking Man”, a song I’ve heard him perform only the once — which is regrettable, because it too was an awesome song.
9. Walking in Memphis: As he has done in the past few concerts I’ve seen, Mr. Cohn begins by sitting at the piano, fingering some keys idly, and telling a story of his early career. In this case, he told how he’d given LA a try, returned to New York burnt out, and had gone on a bit of a walkabout trying to figure out what he wanted from life. This took him to Memphis, Tennessee. (At this point, the crowd understood which song was coming and broke into applause, leading him to joke, “Nah, I’m not going to play that. You’ve heard it all so many times, I thought you would just want the story.”) The most moving and important experience was his encounter with Muriel Davis Wilkins. After a night of jamming with Mr. Cohn, she told him to go home, get his head on right, and write the songs he wanted to sing. Most of the eponymous Marc Cohn followed. A few months after, he returned to the Hollywood Cafe and played the songs for Ms. Wilkins. She said that they were all right but the best was “the one about me”. “Walking in Memphis” at a Marc Cohn concert is a little bit partaking of the divine, as everyone in the audience sings along. In a way that I don’t know how to describe, something flows between Marc and the audience then, something shared beyond a catchy refrain and some clever lyrics. Something about the emotion he invested in it, and the time it was released, and something more, approaches the transcendent. I’ve been to a dozen or so Marc Cohn concerts and that song has never been greeted with less than reverence by the audience … even when the audience was a drunken Atlantic City crowd that had been comped into the casino play space.
10. Miles Away: Yet another song that is enhanced in concert. For whatever reason this song has always resonated with me and the production last night was exemplary.

That marked the end of the set. Of course, Mr. Cohn almost always comes back for more, so we had an encore set:

1. Silver Thunderbird: The respect the audience always shows for this song indicates that Mr. Cohn captured something unspoken but universal about how we view our fathers. It’s poignant and sweet and one of the reasons that first album evokes such fan loyalty.
2. Paper Walls: He introduced this by saying that after you tour for long enough, you have to come up with a “road song” and this was his. He then strummed through the opening bars a couple of times and then admitted, in singsong, that he couldn’t remember the opening lines and we would have to wait for it to come around to him. Then he did recover the lyrics and launched into this tale of temptation and descent. This was another song where the band really cut loose and made it clear that they just love performing. The guitar work was impressive and the drums inspired.
3. Let Me Be Your Witness: This was the first song I’d heard off the long-rumored “new album” (Join the Parade) and it remains my favorite. Toby Lightman came back on stage for this one, to outstanding effect. “Witness” is a culmination song, something that just seems appropriate at a moment when you stand back and look at your life. I guess I’m also a sucker for the defiance in it, for the sheer doggedness of the singer that he will stand by (whomever) at their darkest moment when everyone is arrayed against them.

“Let Me Be Your Witness” is tailor-made to be the song that ushers out an evening. (Actually, Mr. Cohn has a number of these.) The soft beginning and the ending swell can carry you out into the night satisfied. But last night, we got a second encore (an encore encore?):

1. True Companion: After “Walking in Memphis”, this is the song Marc Cohn “has” to play. Too many fans have co-opted it for their weddings to allow it to slip away. I find that a little disappointing, because — much like “Perfect Love” — this is a bit cloying and heavy-handed. It feels like it was written to be co-opted into wedding playlists, the way the latest pop star’s Christmas album cynically gloms onto holiday spirit. I will admit that I’ve softened a little bit for it now that I’m in a relationship wherein the sentiment can be imagined. Still, it is simply never a high point of a Marc Cohn concert for me.
2. One Safe Place: This is a different logical “closer” song. It perhaps perfectly encapsulates the Marc Cohn experience: Gravelly voice plus tight lyrics plus that indefinable, indelible quiet yearning. It is a song that will carry you out into the night, and it did for us.

So, overall, another fantastic night. So far Mr. Cohn has never failed to render a moving, rousing, eminently enjoyable show. My personal thanks to my friend Angela Haberle, who came along and provided the ride that got me from Princeton to Staten Island and back with a minimum of fuss.

(Updated 2 PM 2008 Jul 20)
The latest Joss Whedon effort, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is a short musical made available on the Web and starring Neal Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion (better known as Doogie Howser and Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, respectively). The plot revolves around the titular villian — more like, villian wannabe — and his twin quests to be invited into the Evil League of Evil and to win the heart of mild-mannered activist Penny. Harris captures the awkward offness of the maladjusted Dr. Horrible while Reynolds takes a nice turn as the arrogant and obnoxious (and more than a little crude) hero Captain Hammer.

Short form: 4 out of 5.
Long form: spoilers after the fold.

The plot is relatively straightforward, as I suppose an abbreviated, three mini-act play requires. There are a few nice twists on the old superhero routine. Dr. Horrible is a well-drawn conflicted character who seems honestly upset at the terrible shape of the world but who decides upon exactly the wrong way to effect change. It being a Joss Whedon piece, it’s a given that before the end (SPOILER WARNING) a beloved character must die. Seriously, I love Whedon but he’s got to work out the issues that keep dragging him and us through that patch of ground. We get it, OK, Joss? The work is Serious.

Character development is minimal. Captain Hammer starts off as a luggish jock of a superhero, and stays that way pretty much until after the Big Moment. Penny is likewise a little cardboard. There’s a hint, right at the Big Moment, that she’s seeing things more clearly but by the end that’s back in doubt. Dr. Horrible, on the other hand, is well fleshed-out and is an interesting character. He’s pathetic as a supervillain but at the same time is a lovable loser. It’s clear he hasn’t done any actual big-time Evil; he’s mostly a geek hanging out in his basement and recording a video blog. At least, he is at first. But as he watches his archnemesis waltz off with his One True Love, Dr. Horrible darkens. Likewise, his confused justification for his evil — the world is a bad place, so it might as well kneel to him — transmutes into a deeper, truer cause. If there is a purpose to this musical, it’s to examine the fall of a mostly-normal person.

It’s not clear to me if there’s any chance of a sequel or if we’re expected to make our peace with the Downer Ending. I suppose there’s room for more adventures of the conflict between Dr. Horrible and Capt. Hammer, though that would betray the original a little.

All in all, this was pretty good. Whedon et al are attempting an unusual method of distribution, putting it all out there for free and adding paying options only later. I’ll probably bite and get the DVD version.

After the fire, the fire still burns

The heart grows older but never ever learns

The memories smoulder and the soul always yearns

But after the fire, the fire still burns

About twenty years ago, I saw this video on U68, an over-the-air UHF “competitor” to MTV. It never actually competed, of course, being locked out of the best videos and cycling the ones it could show over and over. But I liked U68, and I liked this song a lot. It’s a haunting coda to love lost that’s really stuck with me.

About two weeks ago I finally found a version of it on iTunes, albeit by Peter Townsend rather than Roger Daltrey. Ah, well, one Who is as good as another, right? It’s a decent live version and starts off with the same haunting coda, so everything’s great. Except… the second verse is sort of goofy. I mean, Matt Dillon in black and white? Laughing at Dom DeLouise? What’s up with that? I assumed this was a twist by Townsend while “borrowing” Daltrey’s song, a little joke between former bandmates.

Then I went online and searched for the actual lyrics, and discovered Townsend got them right. The actual song is just as bizarre and goofy in the second verse. It ticks me off, just a little, because the chorus is so amazing. Another cherished childhood memory, slain by the Net and by time.

Damn you, iTunes!

Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin?

Or the shape of their eyes? Or the shape I’m in?

Should I hate them for having our jobs today?

No, I hate the men who sent the jobs away.

This is a modern protest song from James McMurtry (on the album Childish Things) from a year or two back. It’s raw and angry and brilliant. I like this particular snippet because it really sums up the challenge of a globalized economy: How do we prevent hatred from poisoning our relations with the rest of the world, especially in an economy that’s going to send jobs overseas? It also obliquely indicts the very tip-top of our economic pyramid: We could pay Americans decent wages to manufacture things, if we accepted that the ultra-rich would be a little less ultra-rich. There does come a time when a profit is obscene; we are long past it.

It’s not so much starting a class war, as it is recognizing that a state of class war already exists.

There are so many different worlds

So many different suns

And we have just one world

But we live in different ones…

This is a haunting melody that I can’t hear without thinking of the second-season finale of The West Wing (“Two Cathedrals”), where it was used to tremendous effect.

One of the things that goes along with advising Student Council at my school is orchestrating the annual Talent Show. For the past four years, that’s included performing as the first act — largely because I badger my fellow faculty into performing, and I feel I should ask them to do something I’m not willing. Also, because secretly I am a ham. The song is always something of my own writing and always a capella, because I don’t know anything about playing instruments or writing music for them. I like this because it gives me a chance to demonstrate that I am every bit not a singer as I am not a songwriter. This year’s offering was called “Nothing But a Dream”. Because I have no shame I’m including a Quicktime movie of it as well.

Life is nothing but a dream
I drift along the stream
And never make it back to your shore.
I wait, lying by the track
That train’s never coming back
You’re never coming round any more.

Now the calendar sheds another page
And this weary world sheds another age
And if it’s better off, well it’s hard to gauge
But from where I stand, it doesn’t feel it
I’m older now but I’m not so wise
I don’t want to see but can’t close my eyes
I’ve lost the truth behind the lies
And I always needed you to reveal it

Life is nothing but a dream
I drift along the stream
And never make it back to your shore.
I wait, lying by the track
That train’s never coming back
You’re never coming round any more.

It was over long before it had begun
I’m standing still but I’m on the run
I can’t escape what I haven’t done
But I still needed you to forgive it
Where I head is not where I go
What I reap is not what I sow
The live I lead is not one I know
There’s nothing left for me but to live it.

I am not really much of a “joiner” and I don’t have many entertainment things about which I get passionate. Long ago, however, I decided that I would pick an artist and follow them closely. I chose Marc Cohn, whom you might remember from a 1991 hit “Walking in Memphis”, which still gets significant airplay, at least on the sort of stations I listen to. Anyway, Cohn has continued to release albums at a gushing dribble (three in fifteen years) but also tours a lot and plays intimate, small venues.

Last night I rode NJ Transit up to NYC to catch his show at Zankel Hall, a small 600-person adjunct to Carnegie Hall.

First, the main play list:

• “Ghost Train”
• “Ghost of Charlie Christian”
• “Giving Up the Ghost”
• “Dance Back from the Grave”
• “Becoming Gold”
• “Listening to Levon”
• “Walking in Memphis”
• “Miles Away”
• “Blow On, Chilly Wind”*
• “Strangers in a Car”
• “Dig Down Deep”

followed by an encore:

• “Silver Thunderbird”
• “Paper Walls”
• “Witness”

followed by a second micro-encore:

• “One Safe Place”

He only played the opening bars to “Blow On, Chilly Wind” (of which I’d never even heard before — indeed, Cohn seemed surprised when someone in the audience called it out). Mostly he used it to bridge to “Strangers in a Car”, which he wrote after waking from a rough dream. After penning the words, he was looking for the right music and decided to recycle the motif from “Blow On, Chilly Wind”.

This brings out the main reason I keep going to see Cohn whenever he’s within a practical distance. His shows are always excellent, chock full of humor and detail. He always seems to get a thrill from the crowd itself. I find it tough to imagine that he is still caught off guard by the enthusiastic response to “Walking in Memphis”… but it appears he is, every night. This is a guy who still hasn’t quite gotten his head around his supernova-like moment of fame. And I like that a lot.

A quick look at the playlist reveals that of the 14 songs he played, six of them have not yet been released. He did confirm that the recording is done for his oft-promised, oft-delayed next album, whose release date he would only give as “this fall… hopefully”. He said that his part (making the music) is done. Then he recounted a tale about Duke Ellington, who was apparently dropped one time by his label because (he was told) “You’re not selling enough records anymore.” To which the Duke replied, “It’s my job to make the records. It’s your job to sell them!”

Cohn also related the tale behind “Dance Back from the Grave”, which is a tribute to New Orleans after Katrina. It’s a heartwarming tale — he heard a poet reading a moving piece days after the disaster and he felt compelled to set the lines to music. Using his “connections in the news business” (he’s married to Elizabeth Vargas of ABC News), he tracked down the poet and arranged a co-writing of the song. All that being said, I’ve heard the song four times now and it’s consistently failed to grow on me. It’s possible that Cohn isn’t compatible with other writers, even ones he admires.

That was the only flat patch in the evening, though. The opening song (“Ghost Train”) included Shane Fontayne’s patented liquid guitar work. It’d be a truly haunting song except for its location at the start of the set. If he ended with it, it’d be in everyone’s head for days (and probably lead to depression, but hey…)

He told us about his early days with Atlantic, when they’d just signed him for the first album. He flew out to LA to work with the producer he’d been assigned, someone who’d just produced a 20-million-sold album. (No names were named.) But when Cohn sat down to work out the album that eventually became Marc Cohn, they just didn’t click. The music coming out wasn’t anything like what he wanted. So, after just signing his first contract, this 29-year-old singer called up his label and said he couldn’t work with the producer — in essence, the whippersnapper fired the industry veteran. It was a nerve-wracking moment, apparently, and on the plane ride back to NYC, Cohn bolted out “Miles Away”, because he thought at that moment he’d lose the contract and sink back into obscurity. (Ironically, he then apologized for the mundane inspiration for the song, saying “I know a lot of you think it should mean something deeper” — ironic because the song itself has the lines “There’s always something we have to go through // that has some deeper meaning but // right now I just can’t say.”)

“Becoming Gold” is perhaps my favorite Cohn song of his whole repertoire, and it did not disappoint last night. Again, Fontayne captured the melancholy aura perfectly. Though Cohn doesn’t generally tour with a band, he does have regular opening acts. Tonight there was no opener, so he brought them on stage as his “band”. Sadly I didn’t catch either singer’s name (obviating, I suppose, the whole point of bringing them on stage) but the female vocalist, in particular, moulded her voice well to Fontayne’s guitar and really add richness to the refrains.

My other favorite song is “Dig Down Deep”, which he never fails to embellish somehow. Tonight, his recently-usual injection of Van Morrison (“no guru, no method, no teacher”) somehow didn’t end up at “I was only eleven years old when I heard that but I knew I wanted to ‘make love behind the stadium’.” Indeed at the Morrison bridge Cohn seemed about to lose the thread of the song, which I’ve never experienced at one of his shows. But in fact he rallied and went acoustic for a minute, then brought the band back in spectacularly. It was the sort of rendition to bring down the house and close out the show, and it did so nicely.

Of course in the game played by artists and fans, the first ending is never really an ending. So we had an encore set, with one song from his debut (“Silver Thunderbird”, in part in response to audience requests), one from his second (“Paper Walls”), and one from the coming album (“Witness”). An astute reader might notice that neither then nor earlier did he play anything from the most recent release Burning the Daze. Since the album’s release in 1998, I’ve noticed, Cohn has been playing less and less from it. I’m not sure if he finds it unsatisfactory or if he senses that his listeners did not respond to it. There are quite a number of good songs on it, in my opinion, and it’s a bit of a shame he doesn’t cover it.

On the other hand, I was underwhelmed by The Rainy Season when it came out. But after attending these concerts I’ve gained a whole new appreciation for it. Some of it is just growth and some of it is the better arrangements he pulls off live. Last night, he played “Paper Walls” as a sultry jazzy thing, with a fantastic bit of double bass viol played by someone who’s name I also did not catch. The studio version of the song leaves me dry but it has always stirred me in concert.

Shockingly, despite many cries from the audience, we did not get any rendition of “True Companion” or “Perfect Love” — and I for one was just as glad. They’re workable songs but a bit cloying and bit heavy-handedly melodramatic. They’ve never been hits with me, even though apparently they are tops for many people, and I wasn’t sad to miss them.

Cohn ended the night with “One Safe Place”, which is just one of those haunting melodies that won’t let go. I expect this will be the closer on the new album because, so far, he’s always closed with a bittersweet yearning song, and this fits the bill more than any of the other new songs he showed off. (Of course, together, they’re only half an album so who knows what awaits in the other half.) It was a really nice way to close the show (for real).

Overall, another fantastic outing by Cohn, Fontayne, and the others. It certainly justified the late-night train ride and the walk through surprisingly brutal winds on Broadway.