Neurotic and Lonely....Gabriel Kahane

I had the pleasure of seeing quirky American composer/singer songwriter Gabriel Kahane last week at Heritage Hall as part of Dave Pay's great Music on Main series.  I hadn't heard of him before, but a friend asked me to go and a little research revealed that he has worked with Sufjan Stevens and a few other notables, so I figured heck, why not?  What an unexpected treat.  The audience sat around the centrally placed Kahane - along with his baby grand, and his accompanist Rob Moose (described by Kahane as his "nemeru" - part nemesis, part guru) - and he had us in the palm of his hand the whole time. His work is a bit hard to describe - there are classical influences mixed with opera, quirky pop - but whatever it is, it worked really well.

Highlight for me was his performance of CraigslistLieder, an 8 part song cycle with lyrics taken directly from Craigslist -  oh lord, so very funny.  And slightly sad.  You can download the whole thing for free, or just listen, here.  For those that care, my favorite is the last part of the cycle, Opera Scene, an ad placed by a guy looking for a roommate that can put up with his compulsion to put ice cubes down people's shirts.  The clip above is the only thing I could find online that had decent sound quality -  "Neurotic and Lonely" - a personal ad that you really have to listen to to appreciate.

And speaking of neurotic and lonely (ok, not quite but it was a good segue) - life is challenging me in some interesting ways this week.  I think it's good...but heck it's challenging.  I've had a bit of a rude awakening that my cool calm together self is really only that way when it's not faced with things that threaten that stability.  So, I will try to breathe.  And not panic.  And not self-sabotage.  And not run. And maybe, just maybe, in the coming weeks I will actually tell you what the heck I'm talking about...or not ;)