|
From Melody Maker; 24 Jan 98 KRISTIN HERSH: 12 BAR CLUB, LONDON by NEAL KULKARNE Five songs in, she sings "Delicate Cutters" and it really hits
hard. Little shards of
electricity through your face, felt at the back of your jaw, scattering
across your cheek to your open mouth. It happens all night. it's been
happening all my conscious life. In 1987, I was 15 and only three voices
mattered to me - Chuck D, Rakim and Kristin Hersh.
If that seems like strange company, it isn't.
They all helped emotionally in ways I couldn't even begin to
detail. They were all
absolutely galvanizing in terms of political commitment.
And although ever since then, an awful lot of voices have crowded
in and spun me round, only a few still occupy that absolute centrality
to my life, that feeling that I couldn't imagine myself intact not
having heard them, that to lose them would be a genuine bereavement.
Kristin Hersh's voice is as much a part of my life as the hands
that type this, the neck that bristles werewolf-like for 20 whole
minutes tonight, the back that right now is trying not to wriggle at the
mere memory of what happened here. So,
if it's possible to talk about incident rather than resonance, she comes
on and sings eight songs. She
punctures the revolting veneration that this venue inspires with some
good gags. She's a pro, but
when she opens her mouth she's still a radical, still resisting the
nodding heads and "appreciation", still militantly convinced
by her own voice. 'Gazebo
Tree' is from the new LP, "Strange Angels'; it's down-home
Morricone which spits out "Spare
me your whining. . your female's a garbage can' wisecracks into pure
desert abstraction with the twist and shake of Kristin's throat, weaving
her head like Stevie Wonder all night, ending it with a smile and a
beer. 'Like You' follows
some family gossip, it's tuff kitchen-sink stink, Richard Thompson
miserabilism aproned-up in a trailerpark and just as vicious: 'A
doormat is good honest work/only the bored and the wicked rich don't
know that' spat out so f***in' badass so brutally pitiless that 1
think of Schoolly D. "Stained"
is gorgeous blues.. 'Use me, I get
stronger/I get weaker when you treat me like a queen/you have nerves of
steel, you know the sleaziest attacks", and suddenly the
acoustic embarrassment of these things gets skewered in a swell of
sound, holding her voice up, fractured and fearless.
'Shake' is 'Voodoo Chile" unplugged, but she doesn't crack
up or smirk, just calmly blasts the planet and takes another swig of
beer. 'Your Ghost"
sweeps in unannounced, hearts thud, fingers try to find something to do
and end up held to the lips, on a tightrope holding in a squeal.
'Heaven' asks us to catch up with too many great lines, and the
chorus 'this is heaven where the
sissies hang' - sticks in my mind all week.
Then 'Delicate Cutters' does things I can't share, 'Cartoons'
closes with 'I'll shut up soon,
then. we'll go home... covered
in band-aids and casts'. Pure
soul, blotting out the journey home. I'm shivering.
Still. |