If I could trace the lines that ran
Between your smile and your sleight of hand,
I would guess that you put something up my sleeve.
Now every time I see your face, the bells ring in a far-off place,
We can find each other this way I believe.
He said:
As my life spills into yours,
Changing with the hours
Filling up the world with time,
Turning time to flowers,
I can show you all the songs
That I never sang to one man before.
Text 1 : Excerpt, ‘Come and Find Me,’ Josh Ritter (2001)
Text 2 : Excerpt, ‘Since You’ve Asked,’ Judy Collins (1967)
Image : Unknown (early 20th c.)
Yesterday evening saw the launch of Riceboy Sleeps, the bewitchingly mesmeric debut album from Jónsi and Alex. Being as Jónsi’s day job is as the lead singer with the eminent and equally magical Sigur Rós, Woolf & Wilde attended the opening expecting the unexpected and we weren’t remotely, even momentarily disappointed.
Spurning the faux bonhomie and empty glamour of Soho House mere feet away on the wrong side of the road, the beautiful boyfriends didnt take over so much as transform the already much loved patisserie Maison Bertaux at the secret end of Greek Street. Every wall had been hung and adorned with their broodingly childlike but never childish paintings and etchings. The basement, where mere weeks ago Woolf & Wilde brother in arms Barney Ashton Bullock had performed his most recent work, had been dressed as a nordic dream forest listening room, replete with tent, projected mountains and a ceiling festooned with the strings of floating balloons while their album chimed forth. It was as though one had accidentally tripped into Where The Wild Things Are, something we at Woolf & Wilde have always hankered to do.
Venturing upstairs to greet the chaps we were met by a clutch of photographers capturing the three chuckling drinks boys employed for the evening. Their dress code? Old school rugby shorts and socks, bejewelled red indian head dresses, a smearing of body paint and smiles that didnt let up all night. Well if you looked like something from a Bruce Weber fairy tale and were being employed to hand out the Icelandic liqueur Brenniven on an unexpectedly sunny Soho evening to a crowd comprising artists, friends, parents, children and uber chic and adorably ever loyal Sigur-ettes what reason not to darling?
Spilling swiftly onto the pavement, Jónsi and Alex chatted their way through the crowd who were relentlessly plied with Maison B’s most temptation thwarting cakes and savouries. Wine ran as did ever more Brenniven but blame it on the pure spring water used in it’s creation, blame it on the fragile but effortless art of two watchful Icelandic boys but Woolf & Wilde didn’t wake with a hangover this morning. If only all openings could be so charmed.
Jónsi and Alex have been making music together since 2003 when they first met in Boston, USA. Things ramped up in 2005 when Alex moved to Reykjavík, Iceland, and the pair started to create the visual art that would form the basis of their limited edition hardback book, ‘Riceboy Sleeps’ in 2006. They continued to make music at home in the periods between Jónsi’s touring and studio commitments with Sigur Rós, slowly building the substantial body of work that now forms the album Riceboy Sleeps.
The pair have exhibited their artwork, videos and installations at exhibitions in Iceland, USA, UK, Belgium, Spain and Australia. They are also certified raw food chefs and have the dinky diplomas to prove it.
Read the interview with Jónsi and Alex from the 17 July 2009.
Riceboy Sleeps – The Exhibition
From today, Tuesday 21 July 2009
Maison Bertaux
28 Greek St
London, W1D 5DQ
United Kingdom
+44 20 74376007
Flowers on the hillside, bloomin’ crazy,
Crickets talkin’ back and forth in rhyme,
Blue river runnin’ slow and lazy,
I could stay with you forever
And never realize the time.
Situations have ended sad,
Relationships have all been bad.
Mine’ve been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud.
But there’s no way I can compare
All those scenes to this affair,
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.
Yer gonna make me wonder what I’m doin’,
Stayin’ far behind without you.
Yer gonna make me wonder what I’m sayin’,
Yer gonna make me give myself a good talkin’ to.
I’ll look for you in old Honolulu,
San Francisco, Ashtabula,
Yer gonna have to leave me now, I know.
But I’ll see you in the sky above,
In the tall grass, in the ones I love,
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.
Text: Bob Dylan, You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go (excerpt), 1974
Photographer/Photo Subjects: Unknown, early 20th century
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.
We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
Text: Maya Angelou, Touched by An Angel
Photographer/Subjects: Unknown
Nostalgia is a curious, dark beast. It imbues virtually everything we taste, hear, see, discuss, recall, cherish and too often despise also. Even the stoniest of hearts must endeavour hard to deny it’s foundation in our collective psyches. One of many reasons that makes Richard Avedon’s brutal, solemn In The American West such a bold, hypnotic masterwork.
An internationally acclaimed fashion photographer since the late 1940s, a master crafter of high fashion and seemingly effortless chic Avedon was comissioned in the Spring of 1979 by Mitchell. A. Wilder the director of the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. His task? Over five summers to scour the wild wild West of the United States and capture the battered character, soul and heartland of America resulting in an exhibition in the Autumn of 1985 with a set of prints and negatives that would become a permanent part of the Amon archives. County fairs, coalmines, truckstops and stockyards, diners and beauty parlours were his and his assistant’s hunting grounds.
Even though the book of the exhibition was first published in 1985 it somehow felt like this unique collection of images had always been here. You don’t recall a fanfare, or a declaration, a cavalcade or a ticker tape parade. This wasn’t that side of America. This was a land of elements and expanses, family, poverty and hard, hard work. It was nothing you’d ever experienced, a barely shared language yes but really no frame of reference other than an inherent, simple humanity.
These tough, battered, occasionally broken but more often noble faces calmly, solemnly stared back at you. Engaging, defying, watching. Reflecting your own thoughts, worries, hopes and way too many silent fears. As a teenage art student – all Face and i-D magazine literate, you knew your Gaultiers from your Gallianos, thank you – holding this huge, clean tome in Foyles or Waterstones and staring into the louche, creased face of the dandyish drifter worried you. You saw even the vaguest glimmer of yourself in there and it scared you ice cold. He’d lived. He knew. He’d had it all – you could see it in his eyes – and he’d lost it. And so, Child could you.
If you want a lover
I’ll do anything you ask me to
If you want another kind of love
I’ll wear a mask for you
If you want a partner
take my hand, or
if you want to strike me
down in anger
here I stand
I’m your man
Text: Leonard Cohen, I’m Your Man
Photographer: Miklós Barabás, Subject Unknown, c. 1860s
A master composer of our time will celebrate his 78th birthday this week. He is a man who has been nominated for five Tony awards, won two, and was just presented with a special Tony for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater last month. One Broadway song he wrote was recorded by Louis Armstrong in 1964 and it sent the 63-year-old singer soaring to the top of the Top 40 chart before the show even opened, knocking the Beatles from the number one spot in the process. Impressively, this man is the only composer/lyricist – ever – to have three Broadway musicals each run more than 1500 consecutive performances.
And yet, an astonishing number of people will hear his name and think they aren’t familiar with his music. But ya are, Blanche, ya are.
His name is Jerry Herman and yes, one might say he’s one of the greatest songwriters you think you’ve never heard of.
Among Jerry Herman’s hits are shows such as Hello Dolly!, Mame, and La Cage Aux Folles. Some of America’s most treasured songs came from these shows including the title songs from all three, plus We Need a Little Christmas, Before the Parade Passes By, If He Walked Into My Life, Open a New Window and I Am What I Am.
Jerry Herman writes old-fashioned songs, in the best sense of the term. Even in the 1960s they were old-fashioned, a musical theater style of cheerful music crafted from clever lyrics wrapped in melodies which lend themselves to being sung, whistled and hummed as you leave the theatre. His work can stand proudly next to the music of the giants of the Great American Songbook: Irving Berlin, the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Cole Porter.
Herman’s music is marked by a distinct sense of optimism and enthusiasm, as is the man himself. There’s no problem that can’t be faced by pulling one’s self up by the boot straps and forging ahead. “Put on your Sunday clothes when you feel down and out / Strut down the street and have your picture took / Dressed like a dream / your spirits seem to turn about…” he writes in Hello Dolly!
Herman has always said he creates music to entertain people, to lift them up. In a song called Just Go to the Movies, Herman offers up a salve that might have a great deal of resonance today:
Swamped with your bills
Late with your rent
Watch Bette Davis walk out on George Brent
See Fred Astaire stepping in style
When everything’s dark and upset
Try calling on Clark and Claudette
And go to a marvelous movie and smile
Jerry Herman has been accused of writing songs that are made from simple sugars – is life really as sweet as he says it is? But there’s a complexity that lies beneath his enthusiasm. Behind the wit and carefully turned phrases, he’s able to reveal a good deal about perseverance, humanity, love, us:
How often is someone concerned
With the tiniest thread of your life?
Concerned with whatever you feel
And whatever you touch?
Look over there…
When your world spins too fast,
And your bubble has burst,
Someone puts himself last,
So that you can come first.
So count all the loves who will love you
From now ’til the end of your life,
And when you have added the loves
Who have loved you before,
Look over there.
Look Over There (La Cage Aux Folles, 1983)
Jerry Herman’s songs will endure, they are too good not to. They deserve to be heard again and again, to be discovered by new audiences who appreciate their genius or who just want to lose themselves in the escapism that music can provide.
Luckily, fans of Jerry Herman have a chance to hear a collection of his music sung live this month down at the Henley Fringe Festival just outside London. July 20-25, singer Leanne Masterton is performing her one-woman cabaret show, Hello Jerry, a tightly-knit celebration of Mr. Herman’s songbook.
Masterton had a sold-out run of the show in London’s West End this past Spring. The veritable optimism and sweetness that she exudes makes her perfectly suited to the music, while her acting skills bring charm to her delivery of Herman’s hits as well as songs from lesser known shows like Dear World. Masterton has a clear, lovely and commanding voice that’s right on the money. Match that with the warm and easy grace that is her presence on a stage and you can see why she draws audiences in.
“The beauty of Mr Herman’s music is that it’s timeless. Many pieces can be taken out of context and they are as relevant today as they were when they were written 30-40 years ago,” she told Woolf and Wilde. “Evidence of that is the success that La Cage Aux Folles has had in London recently and the news from Mr. Herman that Dear World (a story about ecology, terrorism and capitalism) is to be revived.”
A back injury led Masterton to think about returning to cabaret after having been absent from it for some time. Agreeing that selling a show about Jerry Herman — one of the greatest songwriters you think you’ve never heard of — presents some challenges, Masterton says. “loving something is not necessarily the best option to make your money back in this business. When you talk to the general public about Jerry Herman, people initially don’t really know who he is, but when you say Hello Dolly, Mame or songs like I Am What I Am, people know exactly who he is. I think of Hello Jerry as an “elbow” show…people come along thinking they know his songs but then realise they have forgotten many and they are digging their companion in the ribs saying ‘I love this song!'”
Catch up on your Jerry Herman, and see Leanne Masterton. Just like Mame herself could do, these two will make your black-eyed peas and your grits seem like the bill of fare at the Ritz.
Leanne Masterton in Hello Jerry 20-25 July 2009
The Green Room Kenton Theatre
New Street
Henley-on-Thames
Oxfordshire, RG9 2BP
United Kingdom
T: +44 (0)149 122 002 12
His voice first attracted my attention, his countenance fixed it, and his manners attached me to him for ever…I certainly love him more than any human being…
Text: Lord Byron writing to Elizabeth Bridget Pigot about his boyfriend, John Eddleston, 5th July 1807
It was my turn to decide,
I knew this was our time.
No one else will have me like you do,
No one else will have me, only you.
You’ll sit alone forever if you wait for the right time,
What are you hoping for?
I’m here and now I’m ready,
Holding on tight.
Text: Lyrics from ’23,’ Jimmy Eat World
Photo: Unknown
