Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Dreary Are the Raindrops
Dreary are the
raindrops
Dropping in wet dreariness,
Splashing on the pavement
helplessly.
raindrops
Dropping in wet dreariness,
Splashing on the pavement
helplessly.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Jeff Daniels In BLACKBIRD
I hopped on the train from Huntington yesterday, got out at the last stop, Penn Station and went to 55th Street, home of the Manhattan Theatre Club at City Center. At the box office I bought a ticket for that evening's performance of a play which is still in previews, BLACKBIRD. I went because I wanted to see Jeff Daniels on stage. The play (which has an author whose name I can't remember) is about a sixty-year-old man being confronted by a young woman he sexually abused, years earlier, when she was twelve. It is a well-focused play. Mart Crowley, who wrote BOYS IN THE BAND, wrote a similar one thirty or so years ago, the title of which I can't recall, about a young man confronting the priest who abused him when he was a child. It's in a collection of Crowley's plays. I've not seen that one performed, but it strikes me that Crowley's take on the theme is unironic, and, therefore, perhaps, more powerful than BLACKBIRD, if only because the Crowley play seems to be mournful and BLACKBIRD is, essentially, ironic.
The actress playing the woman confronting her abuser is excellent in the role. She is waiflike well into adulthood. Jeff Daniels, of course, plays the more interesting role. He is cast well because almost any other actor would come across as a monster. Another actor could play this very well, but Jeff Daniels removes the freak factor, somehow.
Crowley's play was deeper. It indicted history, the church, society and the powewrful in general. BLACKBIRD may be more realistic. The two characters are truly postmodern, subject to their own sentiments, whereas, in the other play, the priest feels the pull of his calling and the young man marches with the strength of what was a new phenomenon then called Gay Lib. In BLACKBIRD, clinical detail heightens the reality. But Crowley's play has an apocalyptic feel. In fact, it is a more felt play.
But BLACKBIRD moves briskly. The set, showing the hallways and breakroom of an office-building of the wall-to-wall-carpeted, charcoal gray and chrome sort, reflects the anonymity of the two characters. Indeed, the predator has changed his name and the victim, although speaking her name to another character who appears fleetingly, considers herself "a ghost."
Opening night is less than a week from now, I think. One thing might need working out. I'm not certain the slow fading of the ceiling lights during the monologues of the protagonists helped. The lights are glaring for the rest of the play and I think the revelatory speeches would play better if the light stayed harsh.
Jeff Daniels sold me on this play. It was what I expected it to be. It has an important subject.
But it lacks the anger which made its equivalent from three decades ago profound.
The actress playing the woman confronting her abuser is excellent in the role. She is waiflike well into adulthood. Jeff Daniels, of course, plays the more interesting role. He is cast well because almost any other actor would come across as a monster. Another actor could play this very well, but Jeff Daniels removes the freak factor, somehow.
Crowley's play was deeper. It indicted history, the church, society and the powewrful in general. BLACKBIRD may be more realistic. The two characters are truly postmodern, subject to their own sentiments, whereas, in the other play, the priest feels the pull of his calling and the young man marches with the strength of what was a new phenomenon then called Gay Lib. In BLACKBIRD, clinical detail heightens the reality. But Crowley's play has an apocalyptic feel. In fact, it is a more felt play.
But BLACKBIRD moves briskly. The set, showing the hallways and breakroom of an office-building of the wall-to-wall-carpeted, charcoal gray and chrome sort, reflects the anonymity of the two characters. Indeed, the predator has changed his name and the victim, although speaking her name to another character who appears fleetingly, considers herself "a ghost."
Opening night is less than a week from now, I think. One thing might need working out. I'm not certain the slow fading of the ceiling lights during the monologues of the protagonists helped. The lights are glaring for the rest of the play and I think the revelatory speeches would play better if the light stayed harsh.
Jeff Daniels sold me on this play. It was what I expected it to be. It has an important subject.
But it lacks the anger which made its equivalent from three decades ago profound.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
My Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem Review
Here I reprint a review I posted on a superfamous book and music selling website which has the name of a river in its address. The review is from 2005. (It's a review of a CD called LUCK OF THE IRISH.)
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Where's the Rest of Their Catalogue?, July 5, 2005
Reviewer: Fred Wemyss (Actual Name) (Huntington, NY United States) - See all my reviews
Chances are that those reading my review already have a concept of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. So, with a nod to the knowing, I'll begin: In the early 60s, more than one musical quartet from across the Atlantic got a boost from going on THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW. When this particular team did the show, the folk-music fans responded positively, but a demographic which had not yet been tapped also suddenly made its spending-power known. The vast Irish-American consumer block wended its way to the record store and Columbia had a fairly unlikely hit. Of course, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem had been playing clubs in Greenwich Village for three or four years and had recorded a lot of songs for a label Tom and Pat Clancy had founded, "Tradition." But, by the time they made their first record for Columbia, their singing had become incredibly forceful and distinct. From 1961 (or '62) until 1969, the team recorded at least ten full-length albums for Columbia, some live, many in the studio. Eric Weissberg (who had a hit in the early '70s with "Dueling Banjos") often played on the Columbia recordings and their first Columbia album featured him and Pete Seeger. In short, the Clancies and Makem were in top vocal form here and had the best musicians in the business backing them. Makem's tin whistle was of course at its hypnotic best. These were funny, exciting, moving albums. The bulk of them are NOT available on CD. THE LUCK OF THE IRISH has tracks from various times in the sixties, some of which made it to the albums and some which are either alternate takes or which were never used. "Home Boys Home" is marvelous and sounds like the exact recording on the unavailable-on-CD LP HOME BOYS HOME except that a rhythm guitar has been removed. Like other releases by Sony (which IS Columbia)
the booklet tells you very little about the Clancies progression in the sixties. Is there some taboo on telling the fans which albums came out when? It's as if some Soviet bureaucrat were given the keys to the Clancy vault and caused most of their recordings to vaporize before the wall came down. This is not only really good music, it's important to the Irish folk movement, and it's not on CD. Bob Dylan, thankfully, invited the Clancy Brothers to sing at the Madison Square Garden tribute to him in 1992, so people will, through that CD, run into the Clancy Brothers, but Sony otherwise seems to try to keep them hidden. A bunch of CDs of random tracks packaged for a Saint Patrick's Day audience does no justice to this seminal folk group. Here, off the top of my head is a list of their Columbia LPs. The boldfaced ones are the ones available on CD as of July, 2005:
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem
Hearty and Hellish
The Boys Won't Leave The Girls Alone
The First Hurrah!
In Ireland!
IN PERSON AT CARNEGIE HALL
Isn't It Grand, Boys (Not to be confused with the boxed set "Ain't It Grand")
Freedom's Sons
IN CONCERT
Sing of the Sea
So, two, count 'em, two actual albums have made it to CD and the other CDs are culled from different albums with many, many tracks left off. May I also point out that at least three of these are concept albums. HEART AND HELLISH, for example, is a truly well recorded live nightclub performance and the audience, roaring with laughter and cheering and, at solemn moments, almost prayerfully quiet, is as much a part of the recording as the group. Did some manager throw this stuff in some legal hell-hole? It's as if only two stories from DUBLINERS were allowed to surface. What gives?
So, if you buy LUCK OF THE IRISH you'll like the songs. But they jump back and forth through the Clancies 60s career. Why not allow the CDs to reflect the albums, as is done with the Clancy Brothers' friend Bob Dylan? And if the answer is "The album's are short," MY answer will be, put two on one disc. But put them in order and let's hear them in their entirety!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Where's the Rest of Their Catalogue?, July 5, 2005
Reviewer: Fred Wemyss (Actual Name) (Huntington, NY United States) - See all my reviews
Chances are that those reading my review already have a concept of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. So, with a nod to the knowing, I'll begin: In the early 60s, more than one musical quartet from across the Atlantic got a boost from going on THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW. When this particular team did the show, the folk-music fans responded positively, but a demographic which had not yet been tapped also suddenly made its spending-power known. The vast Irish-American consumer block wended its way to the record store and Columbia had a fairly unlikely hit. Of course, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem had been playing clubs in Greenwich Village for three or four years and had recorded a lot of songs for a label Tom and Pat Clancy had founded, "Tradition." But, by the time they made their first record for Columbia, their singing had become incredibly forceful and distinct. From 1961 (or '62) until 1969, the team recorded at least ten full-length albums for Columbia, some live, many in the studio. Eric Weissberg (who had a hit in the early '70s with "Dueling Banjos") often played on the Columbia recordings and their first Columbia album featured him and Pete Seeger. In short, the Clancies and Makem were in top vocal form here and had the best musicians in the business backing them. Makem's tin whistle was of course at its hypnotic best. These were funny, exciting, moving albums. The bulk of them are NOT available on CD. THE LUCK OF THE IRISH has tracks from various times in the sixties, some of which made it to the albums and some which are either alternate takes or which were never used. "Home Boys Home" is marvelous and sounds like the exact recording on the unavailable-on-CD LP HOME BOYS HOME except that a rhythm guitar has been removed. Like other releases by Sony (which IS Columbia)
the booklet tells you very little about the Clancies progression in the sixties. Is there some taboo on telling the fans which albums came out when? It's as if some Soviet bureaucrat were given the keys to the Clancy vault and caused most of their recordings to vaporize before the wall came down. This is not only really good music, it's important to the Irish folk movement, and it's not on CD. Bob Dylan, thankfully, invited the Clancy Brothers to sing at the Madison Square Garden tribute to him in 1992, so people will, through that CD, run into the Clancy Brothers, but Sony otherwise seems to try to keep them hidden. A bunch of CDs of random tracks packaged for a Saint Patrick's Day audience does no justice to this seminal folk group. Here, off the top of my head is a list of their Columbia LPs. The boldfaced ones are the ones available on CD as of July, 2005:
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem
Hearty and Hellish
The Boys Won't Leave The Girls Alone
The First Hurrah!
In Ireland!
IN PERSON AT CARNEGIE HALL
Isn't It Grand, Boys (Not to be confused with the boxed set "Ain't It Grand")
Freedom's Sons
IN CONCERT
Sing of the Sea
So, two, count 'em, two actual albums have made it to CD and the other CDs are culled from different albums with many, many tracks left off. May I also point out that at least three of these are concept albums. HEART AND HELLISH, for example, is a truly well recorded live nightclub performance and the audience, roaring with laughter and cheering and, at solemn moments, almost prayerfully quiet, is as much a part of the recording as the group. Did some manager throw this stuff in some legal hell-hole? It's as if only two stories from DUBLINERS were allowed to surface. What gives?
So, if you buy LUCK OF THE IRISH you'll like the songs. But they jump back and forth through the Clancies 60s career. Why not allow the CDs to reflect the albums, as is done with the Clancy Brothers' friend Bob Dylan? And if the answer is "The album's are short," MY answer will be, put two on one disc. But put them in order and let's hear them in their entirety!
