Mp3s: Rose Melberg live in Allston
Posted on November 6, 2006 at 12:01 am | 1 Comment
I’ve been in love with Rose Melberg’s voice and songwriting since the first few notes of Tiger Trap’s self-titled K Records debut back in 1992, and feared I’d never get to see her play live when they broke up the following year. With her on the west coast and me up in Vermont, I held out hope that she’d head east with one of her follow-up projects, as half of guitars-n-harmonies duo the Softies or with trio Go Sailor. My wish came true in the summer of ’94 when the Softies came through Burlington on a tour with Crayon, and it was as special as I’d imagined. Her voice always hits me just right, and in person it’s hard to imagine a prettier sound.
Twelve years is way too long to wait for a second fix, but while Rose has been writing and releasing songs all along (solo and with her bands), I’ve been missing her rare live appearances. Distance and motherhood have kept her off any roads near Boston in recent years (she took an almost five-year live break until 2005), and when her newest (and to my ears, most beautiful) solo album “Cast Away The Clouds” came out last Spring I quietly wished she’d tour for it. Months passed with only a couple dates on the wrong side of the continent (she currently makes her home in Vancouver), until word came from record label Double Agent that she’d be doing a few east coast shows in October… and one was about a block from my house.
Although it was a Sunday, I’d rarely seen a night with so many great shows going on in the Boston area at the same time. There were at least three other lineups I might have seen, and all were courtesy of the excellent North East Sticks Together (N.E.S.T) Fest going on that week. But with Rose in town (and also a N.E.S.T. event), there was really no internal debate about my evening plans. All the competing musical choices resulted in a sparser crowd at O’Brien’s than I’d have otherwise expected, but one that was no less appreciative. The lighter attendance may also have been due to the unusual performer/venue combo: the Allston bar is more often host to far louder lineups, so pretty-pop fans might have been out of the loop or too far from the T for this one.
On this night, the loudest sound during Rose’s set may have been O’Brien’s cash register, or even the squeaky bathroom door, which almost act as instruments on these recordings. Also accompanying Rose’s voice and guitar is keyboardist and backing vocalist Nick Krgovich (of P:ano), who is a big part of the reason that “Cast Away The Clouds” is as gorgeous as it is. Here’s their wonderful set…
Live at O’Briens, Allston, MA
on Sunday, October 15th, 2006
1. Ciao Allston
(by Ellie Marshall with Christmas)
2. Things That We Do
3. Irene
4. Take Some Time
5. Putty In Your Hands
6. The Orchard
7. Cold Sea
8. Something Else
9. Golden Gate Bridge
10. Me & the Bees
11. Cast Away the Clouds
12. Coldest Night of the Year
(by Mann & Weill via Vashti Bunyan)
13. Each New Day
Some Rose-y links…
Her Double Agent page, MySpace page, and Wikipedia entry. Stream the lead-off track from “Cast Away The Clouds”, “Take Some Time“, over at NPR, which chose it as a song of the day back in May. The stellar WMBR radio program “Phoning It In” had Rose performing on the phone in July. Unfortunately the ‘listen‘ link is broken at the moment. Get on that, Nadav! 🙂Go have a listen. Speaking of “Phoning It In”, go listen to recent appearances from Portastatic‘s Mac McCaughan and Centro-matic‘s Will Johnson. Those links, thankfully, are very much in service.Download an mp3 of Rose covering Anne Briggs’ “The Time Has Come“, courtesy of Double Agent. In a September guest post on The Rawking Refuses To Stop, Chad from Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands comes up with collaborative gold in the form of Rose guesting on a performance of “The Biggest Lie” with Elliott Smith in Tempe, Arizona back in 1996. Not only is there audio, there’s video. Brilliantly heartbreaking. All sorts of other YouTubey goodness: The video for “Take Some Time“, along with a live performance of the song in NYC last June. There’s also a live clip of her doing “Irene” at NYC’s Cake Shop in April, “My Broken Heart” in San Francisco in May, and a little April on-stage Softies reunion in Seattle. Last but hardly least: Pick up your very own copy of “Cast Away The Clouds“, which you can listen to while sipping from your stylish Rose Melberg coffee mug.
the fine print… If anyone has an issue with this live set being made available, just say the word (contact info in the ‘nac faq). Recorded with a Sony ECM-719 mic and a Sony MZ-RH10 minidisc, converted to .wav and then edited to 192kbps mp3s. Mp3s are made available for a limited time, and are not reposted once removed.
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December 28th, 2011 @ 12:07 am
Great sound quality on this. Her voice and tunes really are enchanting, aren’t they. Fun to see Ellie Marshall mentioned here. I saw her sing with Jonathan Richman several times back in the early 80s (with Beth Harrington). They added a great quality to Jonathan’s tunes. A thousand thanks for making this available.