Bat For Lashes @ Bowery Ballroom NYC

Natasha Khan is a force. This sounds completely cliche until you actually see Bat For Lashes perform live, and then you walk out of the Bowery Ballroom thinking, "Natasha Khan is a force!" The show started late. Late like the opening act (Lewis & Clark) that was supposed to start at 8:30pm took to the stage at about 9:30pm-ish. Lewis & Clark was actually quite a good time: Low key ballads mostly (five of them. every last one...a waltz. curious). Lovely, really. But the tardiness of an opening act can only herald the even tardier-ness of the main attraction. And once you're crammed up against the stage, there's really not much wiggle room in your psyche for waiting around. You want Bat For Lashes, and you want Bat For Lashes now.

When Bat For Lashes took to the stage, the crowd went bananas. And understandably so. Natasha came out in a leopard print tank top, dark chocolate, skin tight pants with some sort of reptile texture to them, black knee-high boots, ruffled lace collar with matching fingerless gloves, and her signature sparkle of make-up around the eyes. Few women could pull off an outfit like that, but Natasha slipped into it like a second skin. In a backhanded compliment sort of way, listening to a Bat For Lashes album on constant repeat is a superb music-listening experience (I’ve done the research on this one; it’s 100% true), but pales greatly in comparison to seeing her perform live. The live show is positively transformative. If you heard one of her cd’s (Fur & Gold or Two Suns), and thought, “Hey, that’s pretty good. Yeah, I’d go see her live,” then by the time she hits song number three on the set list, you will be a fully converted Natasha Khan acolyte. The funny thing is, there’s nothing all that spectacular about the show itself. Natasha is not a larger than life idol sort. She sort of wanders onto the stage in the unassuming manner of a back-up vocalist. The only difference being that she takes center stage instead of hugging the periphery. She’s a lithe, slight sort of girl. Her make-up is fun and creative, but by no means over the top for someone headlining a sold out show. She moves to the music and is genuinely moved by her own expression and the crowd response, but there are no hysterical theatrics. She doesn’t roll around on the floor or dive from the stage into the awaiting arms of her rabid fans. Since there are none of the usual “underground-come-indie rock phenom” antics, there can only be one reason that the show is so powerful. That reason is Natasha herself. Her voice. Her songs. Her creative vision. Natasha Khan is Bat For Lashes. Put it this way: I’m pretty sure she’s a couple years my junior, but I still want to be her when I grow up.

Apart from the clear purity in vocal tone that really just isn’t done justice on the record, the other facet of the live show that doesn't come across quite as strongly on the recording is how powerful the drums are. I want to be Natasha…but I want her drummer to be my best friend. That girl kicks ass! As well she should. Sarah Jones, of New Young Pony Club fame, definitely knows her way around a drum kit. She made being at the show akin to standing at the center of a thunder storm amidst a severe weather alert.

The towering sound of the drums completely envelops you. Add Sarah's backing vocals and it makes the faerie land created by Natasha's writing and singing all the more complete.

With Ben Christophers on keys and Charlotte Hatherley on...well, on everything else (autoharp, bass, guitar, percussion, accordion, keys and backing vocals - take your pick), the entire show was like being lost in some enchanted forest at night.

From the lead-off of Two Suns' first track, Glass, opening the show, two different versions of Daniel (a paired down version accompanied by the autoharp and the big, synth-heavy album version), and crowd moving favorites Sarah, Prescilla, and Horse & I, it's difficult to pick out the high points of a show that really had no lows. They pretty much started at OHMYGOD!!! and kept it steady there for the rest of the performance. Take a gander at the set list...

The word on the street: go see Bat For Lashes on tour now because the next time they come around it may be at a much bigger, less intimate venue, and cost you three times as much. Besides, you want to be able to tell your friends you knew Bat For Lashes was cool before everyone else did.

Here's a little snippet of Horse & I so you can see what you missed...

Staceyann Chin @ Barnes & Noble Union Sq. NYC

This past week, I was fortunate enough to have yet another opportunity to see world renown poet/spoken word artist/writer/activist Staceyann Chin. This time was a little different though. This time, instead of performing her volatile mix of powerfully stirring activist poetry and inwardly conscious and very personal spoken word (okay, okay...there was still a little bit of that, too), Staceyann was reading excerpts from her newly published memoir, "The Other Side Of Paradise", about growing up parentless, bi-racial, and gay in Jamaica.

book cover photo by Tomas Rodriguez

Staceyann took to the stage and admitted to being a little bewildered at the difference between performing poetry to a poetry-loving audience and reading excerpts from a book that you really hope people will buy. As she mentioned more than once during the evening, it is amazing that Barnes & Noble is celebrating a Black, Asian, lesbian, woman poet with a book reading and signing...and if you want to see more of this type of thing, you need to buy this book and show them that their support is not misplaced. After getting settled, Staceyann opened with a short poem, Haiku On Turning 30: "Look at me. Writing poems. Lobbying to make boobs sexy when they sag." She followed by reading some excerpts from her memoir. One about self discovery that ended a bit tragically and could have taken a very bad turn if not for the poet's winning sense of humor. The other a taste of the heartbreak she felt upon meeting her father for the first time in her teens. She followed with a question and answer session, fielding topics ranging from "What advice do you have for an aspiring writer?" to "What kind of women are you into?" She answered with all the deft aplomb and quick wit that one would expect from a Def Poetry Jam alumnus. After staying to sign books, shake hands, and chat briefly with her admirers, Stacey ajourned to Bar13 for the afterparty which featured some words from Vivette Miller, Gloria Bigelow, and Tiona McClodden among others, as well as Staceyann herself. With music spun by Deejay Reborn on the one's and two's, a good time was definitely had by all.

On the written page (as in her live performance), Staceyann has unique ability to be heartbreakingly, startlingly honest, deeply dramatic and serious, and then turn it all around and laugh at herself in the same sentence. Because she so often lays bare some of the most intimate details of her life on the stage, the idea that there is still enough yet unsaid to fill an entire book may be quite a surprise to some. But for Staceyann and countless others who have grown up with Jamaican sands beneath their feet, being gay is not only frowned upon, it is illegal. It is dangerous. Much too often, it can be deadly. And though this has informed a large part of who Staceyann Chin is as a person and as a poet, she does not let it define her. Not on stage. And not in this memoir. Just as the little girl on the book's cover stands at once defiant and hopeful, so stand the stories told between its leaves. After all, one does not start out life, in any place, as an outspoken lesbian activist and poet. There are a lot of steps that fill the space between the choices made for us in childhood and the choices that we make for ourselves as adults. Staceyann gives us leave to poke our heads through the windows to her past to see what kind of a girl she was, what kind of a life she lived, and what kind of circumstances and happenstances led her to her current vocation (poetry) and her current location (Brooklyn, New York). It may not be all holiday, but it's most definitely a trip that I recommend we all take. If you are a woman. If you are gay. If you were an orphaned child. If you grew up poor. You need to read this book and see a side of yourself that you don't often expose to the light, and rise up and embrace your struggles. If you are none of these things, you need to read this book and try to experience life from someone else's point of view so that you can look upon your fellow human beings as human beings and not just a collective "THEM" over there. As illustrated in the title of Staceyann Chin's memoir, there is another side to paradise...but it is still paradise! So you'll want to check it out!