Hometown girl

I saw Kristin Hersh with Grant-Lee Phillips at Berbati's last night with That Jolie Girl and Record Store Geek, and it was awesome! I thought she was a little technically off (or maybe it was me?) a couple of times, but she played great songs, her voice was awesome, and she was obviously having fun up on stage with her pal Grant.

Here's a must-see 5-minute interview with Kristin Hersh in her NW Portland house - where she practices with 50 Foot Wave. Desperate fan girl that I am, I'm tempted to start walking around NW with my ears open!

Here's KH's set as best I can remember - not in order, though:
Sundrops
White Bikini Sand
Hook in Her Head
Tar Kissers
Pearl
37 Hours
Your Dirty Answer
Listerine (awesome!)
Uncle June and Aunt Kiyoti
Gazebo Tree
Under the Gun
Your Ghost (w/Grant-Lee)

When the Levee Breaks (w/Grant-Lee)
Adult Books (X cover w/Grant-Lee)

"Listerine" was my favorite song of the night - for some reason, it hit me in a different way than it ever had before that it's about losing her son, cheating, and the Muses breakup (and maybe some other stuff) all at once. She has an uncanny way of capturing a lot of messy life in one "little" song. And her vocals at the end - amazing.

Grant-Lee was good, too. I've seen him perform with Robyn Hitchcock, and I think I saw him open for Kristin once, too. His new album is called "nineteeneighties" and, appropriately enough, is all covers of 80s tunes. As someone on Amazon said, "Grant-Lee stole my record collection!" He definitely grew up on the same college rock (remember when that's what it was called?) as I did - REM, The Cure, The Smiths ... I think "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me" was my favorite cover of the night. I was disappointed by "Killing Moon" because, a) The only more obvious Echo and the Bunnymen cover would be "Lips Like Sugar" and b) There's already a completely kick-ass cover of "Killing Moon" done by Pavement. Also, the only Psychedelic Furs cover I ever need to hear is Robyn Hitchcock's "Ghost in You." I did love the New Order/Roy Orbison combination, and the X cover, too. On the Throwing Music message board, Billy O'Connell (KH's husband/manager) said that at the Seattle show,

Kristin and Grant [had] to phone John Doe from backstage for lyrics assistance. They left him a voicemail, so Grant kept his phone in his pocket so he could answer it onstage if John called back with who "shackles Jane". Grant decided to go with "Rico" just because he felt like it and it worked fine.

Grant-Lee must have gotten a call back from John because last night he clarified that it is, in fact, Clifford who shackles Jane. Then he mentioned that Kristin, John Doe and him were "almost in a band together." How the hell did I miss that?! Update: They actually did a "songwriters tour" together, which never made it to Portland. Here's a good review of a 2002 gig in Pittsburgh.

Speaking of shows, Jolie asked me last night how many times I've seen Kristin, and I honestly don't know. I started a list, and so far I've come up with 17 shows, including solo, Muses and Wave gigs. Does anyone know if there's a good Muses/KH gigography out there?