Carsie Blanton: Wonder in Song

Carsie Blanton: about to delight your ears.
Photo by Chris Kendig.

I can't stop listening. To Carsie Blanton's album, Ain’t So Green, that is. I picked it up some months ago, after seeing her perform at Club Passim. What kind of album is it, and what does it sound like?

The album is:

* Hypnotic in sound (try not playing it often).

* Shaped by the undulations of Carsie's voice, mood, and melody.

* A voice offering careful contemplations and ambiguous convictions.

* Both a keenly-worded critique of the comforts of love, and a tribute to its wondrous delights.

* 13 songs full, including a hidden track that will make you weak at the knees and strong in your heart. This last track is akin to a kiss on your lover's eyelids, or their kiss upon yours (mix tape makers, share!).

It sounds like:

* A stroll through jazz vocalist stylings, folk articulations, and pop witticisms.

* A lover admitting the range of their outward loyalties and hidden reservations.

* The double-edged and layered days of lovesick, love-full, & love-almost.

* Early-fall epiphanies that you get during quiet, leaf-kicking walks.

* The simple pleasure of lounging in the lush, wet grass of spring.

This explanation is purposefully filled with imagery, openness... and thought bullets. Though I have lived with the album, and rejoice in the twists and tug-of-wars of each song, I find it hard to codify. Nor would I like to play the game of "what do you get when you mix Singer X with Band Y, and leave them on a desert island" with her tunes. I've played the album for refined art collectors and jaw-dropping tourists at my gallery job. I've introduced it to friends who have since become hooked on her memorable way with melodies. When it's in my headphones —wherever I may be — I end up whistling and humming along.

After the Club Passim show, Carsie and I shared thoughts on her songs, poets we've learned from, and and our daily rituals. She just may become your new favorite, by the interview's end. If so, get yourself to a rollicking show of hers. In case you need more, pick up Ain't So Green and let it transfix and delight you.

Hellos

CE: So, outside of Club Passim. I'm having a conversation with Carsie Blanton. And you are living where?
CB: Philadelphia.
CE: And you are how old?
CB: 22.
CE: And you moved from Oregon?
CB: Mmhmm.
CE: Did you go to school out there?
CB: No, I grew up in Virginia. I was actually homeschooled. I moved to Eugene when I was 16, and I moved to Philadelphia last year.
CE: What were you doing in Eugene?
CB: Mostly, worked some jobs, played in a couple bands — did some slam poetry, actually.
CE: How did you get into that?
CB: I had been writing for a long time, already, and I liked the idea of a format where I could write poetry and then perform it.
CE: You liked the idea of being in this performative space?
CB: Right. I had a couple songs, but I wasn't writing regularly. I liked the idea of being able to perform anything I wrote, as long as it was conducive to a live crowd like that.
CE: Did you do this weekly?
CB: It was more, like, monthly. There were these competitive poetry slams. There were actually a lot of slam poets in Eugene, Oregon, of all places. So, they get together a couple hundred people on a Friday night. There would be, like, 15 people competing. Then, you get judged, first three rounds, and all that. I bet you're familiar with the slam format.
CE: Yeah. You'd compete sometimes, as well?
CB: I did. I never got very far as a slam poet, I have to admit. Ha ha ha. But I enjoyed it.
CE: Are there any nationally known slam poets that speak to you?
CB: At the time, I was really into Saul Williams. There's a poet, Alix Olson, who did a national tour. She came to Eugene. That was probably when I got excited about it. She is one of these queer, feminist, kind of angry, young poets. She's very good.
CE: Yeah, she's really emotive. She's sharp, but then you kind of cry.
CB: Yup, she's great.
CE: So, I had made a famous tape that went all over Massachusetts colleges, from her performance at Clark. I'd heard about this tape from people at other schools in this area — it was around 2000, 2001. They'd say, "Oh, there's this Clark tape." I would reply, "Oh, I made that." I had no idea that it had this history.
CB: That's great.

Paradoxes & "What Most Moves Me"

CE: So, you found a space to write songs more. How did the songwriting develop?
CB: By the time I moved to Eugene, I had already written a couple and thought of it as kind of the ideal art form. I was already performing a lot of covers and writing poetry. It seemed like an elegant thing, to bring them together. And I'd always been inspired by a lot of songwriters.

So, I went out there and was singing back-ups in a band. I was playing with Nicole Martin, a friend of mine. We had a duo, with two guitars, harmonies, and stuff, called The Short Skirts. We started playing together regularly. That was when I started writing regularly, getting more into the creative side of it.

CE: You were in another band that you were singing back-up for?
CB: Yeah, it was a funk band, called the Champagne Syndicate. I went on tour with them, out west.
CE: Okay. Covers. What were you covering then, and why?
CB: Mostly, Patty Griffin. We did a lot of Patty Griffin songs. We did a couple of Nina Simone songs and some older, jazzy stuff. I know we did "Stormy Monday." One or two Ani DiFranco songs; we were both big Ani devotees at that point.
CE: Which Nina Simone songs?
CB: We did "Sugar in My Bowl."
CE: Wow, wow.
CB: That's what we were doing, Nicole and I. I would find some more obscure stuff, occasionally. There are a lot of songwriters in my family, and I know a lot of people that are songwriters, so I did a few covers of songs that weren't, you know, popular. I had picked them up from one place or another. I covered some Leonard Cohen, some Joni Mitchell, and some older folk, as well.
CE: Which Leonard Cohen did you choose?
CB: Well I did "Famous Blue Raincoat" and "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye."
CE: Wow, wow. He was one of the most influential artists to me, in high school.
CB: Uh huh. I can't blame you.
CE: From 14 to 21, I carried his book, Stranger Music, almost always with me.

When you sing these songs, they're obviously emotionally charged. There's a range of emotions going on in your music, as well.

CB: Yeah.
CE: Are there times when it really hits you, in the middle of singing? Or, what brought you to sing "Famous Blue Raincoat?" If anything is too personal, just let me know.
CB: No, not at all. It's hard to say. I've always listened to and sung what most moves me, and it's hard to say why it moves me. I'm definitely attracted to poetry and more complex uses of the language. I enjoy Leonard Cohen more than Donovan, or somebody who was a little more popular, but a lot more pop-driven. I'm always more attracted to the really emotional and lyrical stuff.
CE: Sure.
CB: I appreciate good insight, and insightful and original use of the language.
CE: Which I hear in your music. Like the song, "Willing to Fall." That has the whole discussion in there. It's very layered. The phrases are very charged. It sounds like you’re convincing a story to someone, but it turns out, there wasn't enough convincing. You're releasing your conviction, by the time of the chorus.
CB: Yeah. That's definitely a theme in my music. Somebody actually gave me a quote one time that was something like: what makes my songs interesting is that I've mastered the ambiguous. Ha. I thought that was a good way to say it. What makes a song interesting, to me, is that it says more than one thing — its complexity. In a lot of my songs, I'm actually saying two things that seem to be contradictory, and then, trying to marry them by the end.
CE: Sure.
CB: "Willing to Fall," it starts out: "I love you so much that/ I feel like I've already lost you." That was this idea that when you're closest to someone is when you are most afraid of being apart from them. And just the inherent contradictions of being in love, which is full of them, of course. That's a good example of trying to bring to light this paradox that we all live in, you know?

CE: Mmhmm. Hmmm. I'd imagine you memorize poems?
CB: Mmhmm. Ha.
CE: Let's talk about a poem or poet we could get on a level with.
CB: Sure. Actually, it's funny, because I was writing my set list and I was going to say something about this poet, Jane Hirschfield. Do you know her?
CE: No.
CB: I wrote a song recently that was directly inspired by a poem, which I don't often do. I mean, I'm often inspired by poetry, in general, but this was kind of like taking the concept of the poem and rewriting the story.
CE: Are the same characters in the song that appear in the poem?
CB: They're not. It's more like, there's a punch line to this poem. I took the punch line, and then rebuilt the rest.
CE: Oh, that's great.
CB: So the poem is called "Da Capo," and it goes... [We are stalled by car noise & voices of people walking by.] Should I wait until the car passes?
CE: Yeah.
CB: Heh, heh. Um. [Pause, pause, pause.] So it is:

Da Capo

Take the used-up heart like a pebble
and throw it far out.

Soon there is nothing left.
Soon the last ripple exhausts itself
in the weeds.

Returning home, slice carrots, onions, celery.
Glaze them in oil before adding
the lentils, water, and herbs.

Then the roasted chestnuts, a little pepper, the salt.
Finish with goat cheese and parsley. Eat.
You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted.
Begin again the story of your life.

-Jane Hirschfield

CE: Wow.
CB: I love that poem. I love that there are really only two lines in it that are meaningful, at all. The rest is just some imagery that you could relate to. At the beginning, she says, "Take the used up heart... /and throw it far out." At the end, she says, "… it is permitted./ Begin again the story of your life." So, it's this beautiful poem about starting over, but she only uses ten words to say it.
CE: Sure. Everything is around the ritual of food, per se.
CB: Right. Cooking and eating as the daily rote of living. So, I took that and wrote a song called "Buoy." The punch line of the song (as I think of it) — the last verse — is: "What fool keeps holding onto something after it is fell apart?/ Hey you, send it to the warehouse/ Get yourself another heart." It's that same idea: there are an infinite number of beginnings; it's not just the one chance.
CE: And the work, the real work, is to get yourself to start over. Just as, the real work, ironically, is to feed yourself.
CB: That's what I love about that poem. She's gently and subtly using this metaphor of eating, because it's just another thing you have to do. Throwing away your heart and getting a new one, as well as cooking your soup. It's just daily life, you know?

"Buoy," or rewriting a poem by way of a song. It is permitted.

Bound for a Song

CE: Who do you go see for shows, when you're not playing with them?
CB: That's a great question, because it's fewer and fewer people, the more shows I play. I'm crazy about a local band in Philadelphia right now, called The Lowlands. They're a bluegrass band. Their singer-songwriter, Chris Kasper, is a brilliant, brilliant lyricist. Brilliant melodies. Great voices. Besides that, I always see Patty Griffin, whenever she's nearby.
CE: I have her set list, on the side of my book shelf, from when she played with Emmylou [Harris] and Gillain [Welch].
CB: Wow, I went to one of those shows.
CE: It was so good. Do you guys take the Mass Pike west, to go down to Philly?
CB: What's the number of the Mass Pike?
CE: 90.
CB: We take 90. 90 to 95, I guess.
CE: If you pass Worcester, that's where "Making Pies" is about.
CB: Really? Worcester? Huh.
CE: Yeah, it's about Table Talk Pies, in Worcester. She's imagining herself as a worker there. I went to school in Worcester and lived there for several years. It's interesting to hear the song. When she was on a Maine radio station, I heard her talk about it. It's this factory that I've known about, driven by. These pies, they're like 7-11 pies.
CB: Little peach pies or cherry pies?
CE: Yeah.

CB: The other artist I'm really into is Devon Sproule. We toured a little bit together. She's a total genius, I think. She's one of the few contemporaries out there that is not known well, that every time I see her, she completely blows my mind. I have to go lay down for a while. She's that good.
CE: What does she do, live, that hits you?
CB: It's mainly her songwriting. She's a meticulous lyricist, as well as being a total jazzhead, and kind of obsessed with jazz guitar and chord progressions. So, she's juxtaposing these beautiful, very, very poetic lyrics about — mostly about Virginia (where she lives), domestic life, and these simple concepts — over these complex and catchy jazz chords and melodies. She's kind of writing Cole Porter standards, only, about modern life.

It's great. She's playful and cute and sweet when she's on stage. She reaches for notes that she might not hit and says really goofy stuff. She completely draws the audience into this childlike world that she lives in.
CE: That's amazing.

CE: You see this [singing professionally] as an indefinite thing, I would imagine.
CB: Yeah, yeah. When I moved to Philly, from Eugene, I went at it like: I don't have any idea about how to go about starting a music career. I'm going to go to Philly and, basically, see what falls into my lap. So far, it's been great things. Lots of great shows and great people helped me out. So, I'm still kind of sitting with my lap open, hoping that things keep falling there, you know?

CE: What are you listening to, in the car?
CB: The Quebe Sisters. They're this band, from Texas of three singing sisters with a country-swing sound. They're such a joy to listen to. It's unabashedly bubbly music.
CE: Nice. What are you reading these days?
CB: Right now, I'm reading non-fiction. I'm reading a book by Temple Grandin. She's an autistic woman who designs humane slaughter houses. She has a thesis about how autistic people think visually, and that's why they're hard for non-autistic people to relate to. Most people think linguistically, while animals think visually. She describes her life with animals and the way she relates to them. It's really interesting.
CE: Did she get famous? Was this a New York Times Best Seller, from a while back?
CB: I think she was on NPR, and probably on New York Times book lists.

CE: Have you ever written a song around non-fiction? Not from your own story, but from a major event, or a political concern.
CB: Not really. I base most of my songs from stories of people's lives. They're not always from mine; they're always just stories — personal stories — rather than stories that I'm not directly related to, in some way.
CE: Sure, sure. So, they're stories you bear witness to?
CB: Exactly. I've dabbled at trying to write more politically, but I have a hard time thinking of anything interesting to say about things that I'm not intimately familiar with.

CE: What drew me to your music is the world it creates, and the possibilities it offers for things like longing. I'd say, there's some relationship to environments, too (for example, "Flight to Philadelphia"). It seems to come from the way you may relate to things — your worldview. I'm interested in what you hold onto: either convictions (like, "This is how I wish things were in human relationships”), or tactile things and experiences.

CB: That's a good question. I find, the more I live a creative life — the more attention I put on writing as my profession — the less abstractly I tend to live my life. So, I'm into tactile pleasures, like dancing and food, stuff like that. In my day-to-day life, I spend a lot less time thinking abstract thoughts, unless they're bound for a song. I spend a lot more time doing things like shopping for tea cups. I'm really into tea cups. I have a dog that I love. I do a ton of dancing. I dance three or four nights a week, right now.
CE: Classes, or?
CB: I actually teach in Philly. I do social dancing, as well. Swing and blues, which are both social dances, rather than choreographed.
CE: You teach choreographed?
CB: No, I teach social dancing. I went to a dance here last night, and there's another one tonight, a little outside of Boston.

Wonderment & Delight

CE: Something that hit me about your music was the way that sound — you offer these aural pleasures, so to speak, with your guitar, with your voice. There is something about certain sounds that you're making. Either, how do you get to these sounds, or what is the sound that you want to make? That you hear in the natural world, or that you've heard in your head, that you haven't hit yet.

CB: I would say that the musical aspect of what I do is the most intuitive and least premeditated. I tend to mull over concepts and lyrics a lot, and not as much about the structure of songs. I'll spend a lot of time coming up with chord progressions that I like, but not a lot of time on melodies. I feel they need to come from not a logical place, but from an intuitive place.
CE: Sure, sure.
CB: As far as the sound that I want to make, I'm thinking a lot about that right now. I'm trying to think about what my next album should be like. The closest thing that I could say is that I'm going for a feeling, more than a sound. The feeling is kind of like: being privy to a 4-piece jazz ensemble in the '30s, with Billie Holliday or some incredible vocalist in the front, that feels really intimate and really creative — relentlessly creative. Something unexpected is happening at every moment.
CE: Sure. Do you listen to Rickie Lee Jones?
CB: I do.
CE: I hear that in her.
CB: Definitely.
CE: Although her music is a bit poppy, when you see her live, you see how raw and rawly orchestrated it is.
CB: Mmhmm. Rather than a sound, I want to be able to create a world, like you were saying. Create a world where the audience is completely transfixed and just delighted. Delight is the main emotion I'm going for. I want there to be this sense of wonderment and delight in every moment. That's what I try to do with my lyrics and my melodies, and that's what I hope to do when I involve more instrumentation.

CE: Beautiful, beautiful. Maybe a few last questions. We were talking about feelings and albums. Let's talk about albums that, for you, capture a feeling, space, era, or mood. Albums that conjure up these whole, autonomous worlds — these possible worlds.
CB: Well, one of my favorites for that is — actually it's my favorite album — Patty Griffin's first record, Living with Ghosts. The amazing thing about it, to me, is that she's completely created an alternate universe, with just her vocals and guitar. There's nothing else happening on the whole record. There are only ten songs, but you completely go there with her. From the first note, she brings you there and you stay there. It's this incredible depth and complexity of emotion. It's just relentless, from the beginning to the end. It's so fresh. Every song is fresh. Every idea is fresh. Every word is fresh. So, that's the epitome of that, for me. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Radiohead's Ok Computer is one of my favorites.
CE: Sure.
CB: That kind of creates a world by creating a lush atmosphere. With Thom Yorke's voice, he just — the same thing — he pulls out that deep emotion.
CE: Any songs that resonate with you, on that album?
CB: I really like "Let Down."
CE: What's the chorus on that one?
CB: "Let down and hangin' around/Crushed like a bug on the ground"
CE: Yeah.
CB: I love that one. And then, "Breathe," or whatever. It has some weird name. The chorus is: "Breathe, keep breathing." That was the one that was on the soundtrack for… oh, that's right. It's called "Exit Music for a Film" because they put it in Romeo and Juliet. So, those two. I haven't listened to that in a while, but I spent many, many hours listening to it.
CE: When you put it on, it hits you. You're like, "Oh, wow," from the beginning.
CB: Maybe I don't listen to it because it's so nostalgic for me. It's the soundtrack to a good three years of my life.

CE: Any books of poems that have hit you in the same way? Adrienne Rich always does that to me. Her books are like complex concept albums. I'd recommend getting The Dream of a Common Language and reading "Twenty-One Love Poems."
CB: For me, the staples are Collected Poems of e.e. cummings. I've read probably every poem in that book.
CE: Any numbers that hit you, or, by the first lines?
CB: Gosh. What recently? I'm trying to remember.
CB: Have you ever played one with guitar?
CB: No. I don't go in for that, because they're not built with a melodic structure, necessarily; I wouldn't presume to be able to write one. I just memorized "my youthful lady will have other lovers." Do you know that one?
CE: I don't know that one, closely.
CB: See if you remember it:

my youthful lady will have other lovers

my youthful lady will have other lovers
yet none with hearts more motionless than i
when to my lust she pleasantly uncovers
the thrilling hunger of her possible body.

Noone can be whose arms more hugely cry
whose lips more singularly starve to press her-
noone shall ever do unto my lady
what my blood does,when i hold and kiss her

(or if sometime she nakedly invite
me all her nakedness deeply to win
her flesh is like all the 'cellos of night
against the morning's single violin)

[Not in poem:
CB: Shoot, I'm missing part of it: "like a bright…trees," um, oh...
CE: I got it at home.
CB: So, the last line is: "My youthful lust will have no further ladies."
CE: Wow, wow. ]

[* remainder of poem:]

more far a thing than ships or flowers tell us,
her kiss furiously me understands
like a bright forest of fleet and huge trees
-then what if she shall have a hundred fellows?

she will remember,as i think,my hands

(it were not well to be in this thing jealous.)
My youthful lust will have no further ladies.

- e. e. cummings

CB: I'm just a sucker for that kind of turn of phrase, you know?
CE: Yeah.
CB: It starts out with one complete concept: my youthful love will have other lovers. And you're going along, oh yes, she's young, and she'll go have other lovers. He loves her, but it's passing. Then, the end is: "my youthful lust will have no further ladies." Again, it's that paradox of love, where you feel, at once, all the possibility and all the doom of the situation. Ha.
CE: There's a delicacy to his intensity, definitely. Like in the one that ends: "nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands." It's delicate, but strong.
CB: And so clever, and so smart. In one of his introductions in that book, he says, the trick of his poetry can be summed up by one burlesque joke, and that is: "'Would you hit a woman with a child?—No, I'd hit her with a brick.'" Which is so true. You read his poems, and so much of it, like "my youthful lady," is puns. They're these very intricate puns. He just strings you all along, to the end.
CE: Like "o by the by."

CB: Exactly. There's Wisława Szymborska, who's Polish. She has a book called View with a Grain of Sand.
CE: She keeps coming up out with new stuff. I keep reading her.
CB: That is the only one of hers that I've gotten into, but I've enjoyed it. And then, Mary Oliver is my perennial favorite.
CE: I was going to ask how you felt about her. Some people are really into her, some people aren't.
CB: No, I love her.
CE: I hear a connection between your songs and her poems: this whole thing about reminding yourself of the world around you, and, at the end, of the world inside.
CB: There's the theme of changing perspective repeatedly, through a piece. She starts out looking at a blade of grass, talking about the blade of grass. Then, by the end she's kind of talking about life and existence and God. And you completely buy it. It's such an easy transition for her to make. I respect that, and I like that kind of writing.
CE: Do you know "Five A.M. in the Pinewoods?"
CB: How does it go?
CE: The end is, um: "I was thinking:/ so this is how you swim inward,/ so this is how you flow outward,/ so this is how you pray."
CB: Yup, yup, it's a great one.

CE: It's funny. I was 19 years old. I mean, I'm 26 now, I'm not much older. I was a sophomore in college. I was coming back home. I said, "Let me show you what I'm reading in college!" I read this honey poem ["Honey at the Table"] from American Primitive.
CB: Mmhmm.
CE: I mean, my father's a content and active theater professor, but most of my family are successful, math and science people. I read my mother this poem about Mary Oliver [/the persona/ "you," the reader] eating honey at her table, and wanting to be — becoming, really — this creature, this bear, going up a tree, to the source of the honey.
And she says, jokingly, "So, you're getting these scholarships, and we're paying more money, so you could read poems about honey?"

CB: Ha, ha.
CE: We laughed at the ridiculousness of it—
CB: Yeah.
CE: But the necessity — it's almost like, if that's how you see the world, or if there are certain things that you want to connect with, then, it's necessary. That is your language. That, to me, is political. This whole site is part of a bigger picture where I like to share culture with people; as opposed to leaving it "up there," bringing it down here, and making it intimate. That calls for the real work, of having to look at it closely, and having to earnestly appreciate it. Then, you're not separate from it, you know?
CB: Mmhmm. Right.

CE: Um, what are you looking forward to, in the spring?
CB: This spring? The first thing that comes to mind is warmth, because it's pretty cold. I don't have any plans, honestly. So, I guess I'm looking forward to the possibility of travel and making a record.
CE: Nice. Pretty, pretty. Thank you.
CB: Thank you.

Ain't So Green: play, bask, dance, and repeat.

Po'Girl: Roaming Through Songs & Towns

Awna Teixeira, Allison Russell, and Diona Davies:

3 of 4 Po'Girls.

The road is still filled with them: wandering musicians who tear through and linger in venues and towns sprinkled across the map. They may have itineraries that are posted in newspapers, or on fliers and web sites. For those of us not on the road, the lists read like an alphabet soup of locales. The constellations musicians come up with for traversing states, countries, even continents, make some of us curious and long to travel, if not ramble along with them. When their maps include our towns (or nearby destinations), we have the chance to (if the stars are right) bask in their live tunes and tones. To make up for not dropping everything and following them to the next few shows, we concede and wait until the next time they come by, making it our beeswax to see them again (and again).

Po'Girl sauntered into Cambridge a couple weeks ago, and I did in fact make sure I saw them live (again). This is because, last February, on one of the iciest days in a sincerely cold week, they wandered into town and played Club Passim, warming up the room with a singular, stirring, hip-swaying music. I went to that show because I had yet had the chance to see The Be Good Tanyas, and at the time, their singer-guitarist Trish Klein, was a Po'Girl, too. More than that, the first Po'Girl album (which I knew from my record store clerk-and-curator days) suggests that the songs may play more poignantly live. Seeing them the first time, I was taken by each phrase, instrument change, and twist and tone of the show. The second time proved to be a refreshing reminder: the popular blues-folk-roots-jazz hybrid (add/alter as many appropriate hyphens) can blossom in earnest and evolve (even within a band), although it is being commodified, hip-ified, and de-sinceritized these days.

Outside the venue and after the show, we spoke about musicians we can't stop listening to, instruments we can't live without, and a few other things that get them through, on the road.

* Po'Girl's tour schedule can be found at their official site, or on their myspace page. Some dates include: Nov. 2, Coconino Center for the Arts in Flagstaff, AZ; Nov. 8, Gig Artspace in Santa Fe, NM; Nov. 10, Lobo Theater in Albequerque, NM; Nov. 14, Cerritos Centre for the Performing Arts in Cerritos, CA; Nov. 17, The Mobius in Ashland, OR; Nov. 21-22, The Dream Cafe in Penticton, BC; Nov. 22, The Royal in Nelson, BC.

Roll Call/ Playtime

CE: One thing I’m going to ask of you all is to re-iterate your first name before you talk, because I am not used to your intonations.
Allison: Right, to know who it is [speaking].
CE: Right, right. Okay, so hello’s around the room. This is outside of Club Passim, October 16, 2007. Tuesday night. Talking with Po’Girl. My second time seeing them. Great show. Over a dozen songs. Then, two encores, blah, blah, blah. Okay.
[All laugh.]
CE: And your names?
Allison: Hello, I’m Allison Russell, from Po’Girl. It’s the second day of the tour. We’re getting ready to do a night drive, to get us as close to Philadelphia as we can tonight, before we all get too tired.
Awna: Hi, I’m Awna Teixeira.
Diona: And I’m Diona Davies.
Benny: And I’m Benny Sidelinger, the happy boy. [All laugh.]
CE: And Benny’s the newest official edition to the band. Benny, you started when?
Benny: Ah, in August.
CE: In August of 2007, shortly before the JT & the Clouds tour.
Allison: That’s right. That was a different band, though, that went on tour with JT & the Clouds. That was Sofia, Awna's and my side project.
CE: Right, right.
Allison: Yeah.

CE: Let’s start with the way you guys play on stage. I have some questions about that, then I have questions about how it compares to the way you play off stage.

So, I noticed that you guys do a lot of playing when you’re performing on stage. Everybody seems like they’re “playing” and enjoying it. There is a melding of sounds going on, and a melding of voice: “this is when this person jumps in, this is when that person jumps in.” It seems to be an ordered sense of play, though. I was wondering how you guys came to that way of working together. You know, how that evolved.

Allison: Yeah, I think it has evolved. It just comes from playing together a lot. And we’re all primarily ear-taught musicians. I play just off what I’m hearing, and listening to what other people are doing, getting inspired by that, and reacting, so. There definitely is a lot of spontaneous, improvisational stuff that goes on; of course, it’s within the structure of a song that we’ve, you know, hopefully run over at least once or twice before we [laughs] unleash it on an audience.
Diona: Sometimes. These days, sometimes not.
Allison: It comes just from playing for a few years, all together. Particularly, Awna and Diona go back about seven or eight years, maybe more than that. And we’ve all known Benny for the last, almost five years. Even though Benny is new to this project, we’ve played with him and his other project, The Shiftless Rounders, many times. So, I think what you are hearing is a level of comfort and familiarity that we have with each other.

CE: Definitely, definitely. And when you write the music in the studio, does it have that kind of melding feel, too?
Diona: Yeah. Usually we start--seems to me--we introduce a song on the road, learn it, and kind of hash it out. Then we have this little package of songs that we go in the studio with, and arrange them more in there.
Awna: A lot of stuff happens in the studio, too. I think that’s because everyone is... like, we’re there: we’re in the studio, there is not a whole lot of outside influence. Most studios don’t have windows, and you kind of don’t know the time of day. We get to focus even more on the songs than we ever have, really. You’ll get in the studio and you’ll record, and then, afterwards, you’re like: “Damn, this harmony would have sounded good!” After the recording happens, then all these things change or flourish with the song.
Allison: Hmm mhmmm.
Awna: You’re just focusing so hard on it for a really long time. In my opinion, the best thing any musician can do for themselves is to record. It betters you.
Allison: You learn a lot.
Awna: Yeah.

I Want to Play Double Fiddles!

CE: And yeah, there is a knowing between you guys. Even though it comes out playfully, it is not a loose playfulness, in the sense, “What’s going to happen next?” It seems like the snapping and the “this instrument comes in at this time” quality occur naturally, with an understanding of the way it all works together, the way you guys work together, and this whole thing.

Speaking of instruments, y’all each play a bunch of different ones. I had a few questions about that:

A) Do you guys teach each other some of the instruments?

B) Are there instruments that you are working to include?

C) It seems like you enjoy hearing each other play the various instruments. When you watch each other perform, it looks like you’re thinking “Hey, wow! Wow!” Are there any songs in which you look forward to hearing each other play the other instruments? For example, when Allison plays the guitar, or Diona plays the glockenspiel.

All: Yeah, yeah.
Diona: I hadn’t played the glockenspiel for a while. Whoo! That was exciting!
Allison: I think we definitely do encourage each other. For example, I keep hinting to Benny that I was up for him to give me some guitar lessons. Broadly hinting, you know. And I’ve been getting into playing keys more, which has been a fun thing. I haven’t done that on stage yet. I’ve done it on recording. But yeah, we do encourage each other to try new things. Diona started playing accordion a little bit, because Awna has one. And then with certain songs, there’s definitely a push and pull, and people going out of their comfort zones, and you come up with a different sound. Sometimes, it’s great to have someone who’s less proficient trying the instrument, and they come up with something entirely different, and maybe that fits really well into the song. Or, even though I will never be the virtuoso guitar master that Benny is, sometimes I can hack something out, and then he’s free to play dobro, and that’s beautiful, or banjo, and he’s a wonderful banjo player. You know, this kind of thing.
Awna: And there’s this the whole world of Benny. He has a huge repertoire of old time banjo songs, and different kinds of stuff that we need to explore. He plays fiddle, too. That’s another element that we, I mean, I would like to hear...
Diona, Allison, Awna: Yeah.
Benny: I want to play double fiddles!

Benny Sidelinger: Guitar Luthier, Guitar Slinger.
[Also, the fourth Po'Girl.]

Diona: Yeah, yeah.
Benny: I almost brought my fiddle onto this tour, but then I chickened out.
Allison: Aw.
Benny: I didn’t, because the back of the car is so crowded.
Allison: We need a tickle truck that travels behind us, that has a bigger inside than outside, that will magically transport us, without having to take airplanes and dealing with that.
CE: Or, people that are willing to let your borrow instruments in various towns. Something like: “We need your violin tonight.”
Benny: That gets tricky, when you start using other people’s instruments. It can be hard, especially with wind instruments. Allie had to borrow a clarinet last night. You know, it’s just not, --especially a clarinet--it’s the type of instrument that, you just—it’s in your mouth. It’s such an intimate thing to be acquainted with. I think it’s tricky, to play other instruments.

It took me a while to get used to playing the banjo these girls had, because… my banjo is quite a bit different.

Allison: Better. Your banjo’s better. [Laughs].

Benny: Their banjo has a decent pick-up in it, and I’ve been sticking with that, because they’re used to that. It would be tricky to just grab someone else’s banjo. Banjo is another one that’s sensitive.
CE: And the violin, too.
Allison: Are you a violin player?
CE: Yeah. I’ve been playing for the last 15 years. But the last couple years, I haven’t had a working one. People say, “Oh you should get this kind of violin, or that kind of violin.” I don’t have enough extra money to get a new one, yet I don’t need more than a piece that sounds like I need it to sound. Something that feels right, but something that I can mess with, because I’ll do off things, like use soft branches, instead of a bow. I pluck a lot. When I was a kid, I didn’t want to keep my parents awake, so I started plucking a lot. I realized I plucked 80 percent of the time, and bowed 20 percent of the time. I’m almost uncomfortable with bowing. You could do a lot of other stuff without the bow.
Awna: Right.
CE: But yeah, it’s so singular.
Benny: So, the fiddle. Actually, I picked up a fiddle yesterday, that-- once in a while you pick up a fiddle that just feels right. You’ve never played it before, but everything there just fits you. I had that experience with my friend’s fiddle. I wish I could have acquired that, somehow.
Awna: You weren’t speaking so broadly.
Benny: I know. “I really, really, really, really like this fiddle! How many fiddles do you have?” Of course, the guy’s got five fiddles. He could have four fiddles, you know?

Awna: It’s almost like they choose you, sometimes. That’s the way it was with my accordion. I found it at Value Village one time, for forty bucks and I lost my mind. I started screaming in the Value Village because I was like, it just felt, everything felt right and I felt like I could play it instantly, even though I had never played accordion before. But I only had twenty bucks, and it was 40 dollars. This lady was like, “Oh my god, you really have to have that thing,” and gave me 20 dollars. That’s how I got the thing.

And it was just like, I put it on, and it suctioned itself to my body.

Allison: They haven’t separated ever since. [Smiles all around.]
CE: What’s Value Village, by the way?
Allison: Oh, it’s a chain of thrift stores across Canada. It didn’t realize that you guys don’t have it. It’s like a Sally Anne’s, basically.
Benny: Or Goodwill.
Allison: Exactly the same thing.
CE: Do you remember which city the Value Village was in?
Awna: Yeah, in Victoria, BC.

Po'Girl Covers: Maps and Songs

CE: Diona was explaining what parts of the map you folks are from… If you would, just restate it for the interview.
Benny: I’m from Maine, originally, and I live in Olympia, Washington now.
Allison: I’m from Montreal, Quebec, born and raised. I did about a seven year stint on the west coast of Vancouver, where I met all these guys initially. But now, I haven’t lived anywhere since December, because I’m just on the road all the time. Although, I do have a storage locker in Vancouver. I also have a bedroom at my friend’s house in Montreal. So, I don’t know what that means. I, I’m in between.
Awna: And I’m from Toronto, originally. I have stuff in the same locker with Allie, in Vancouver, and then I have stuff in boxes in Toronto. So…
Diona: I’m from BC and I live on an island in the middle of the water called Galiano.

CE: Nice. You were talking about mixing instruments around. I’m excited about your covers. When a band you’re into covers a song, it's great when they put the song in their sound, or they push their sound with it. And I hear that from you guys, from the couple times I’ve seen you perform “The Partisan,” which I knew, coming from Leonard Cohen.
Allie: Yeah, we do too. We learned it from him, originally. Not directly from him—I wish—but yeah, from his recording.
CE: And the Bessie Smith song from tonight, the way you guys made it your own.
Allie: Yeah.

CE: I was wondering:

How does a cover come into the repertoire? How does it go from being introduced as a possibility, to getting played on stage? Are there any covers that you want to do later on?

Allison: We’re always thinking about different songs we want to do, particularly from other songwriter friends whom we adore, like Carolyn Mark, Chris Brown, Kate Fenner, and Jeremy Lindsay (who was with Po’Girl last time we were here). There are a lot of people whose songs we love to play. And then, certainly, classic, older songs and jazz tunes that really resonate. Certain songs resonate with you. And then you bring it to the group, and if it resonates with everybody, then it gets played. Ultimately, what decides it, often, is audience reaction. If we play a song a few times, and people just aren’t that into it, we kind of get demoralized with it, with that song, and you give up on it.
Benny: You can’t get too attached, I think, to even your own songs. In the end, you gotta just go with what works.
Diona: Sometimes, it doesn’t. We played a song once, for a whole room full of people, and no one even clapped.
CE: Was it in Boston, because they can be that way?
Diona: No, it wasn’t. It was [somewhere else].

CE: Speaking of audience responses: when I hear “Home to You” and a couple songs from the first album, I connect with them quite a bit. I was wondering, would you share some stories about people coming up to you and saying, “I connect with this song, because…”? You know, that kind of thing. [Lyrics to Po'Girl songs available under the music section here.]
Awna: Lots of different things. We’ve had people follow us around. Like, they just happen at one show on a tour, and find out about the rest of the shows on the tour, and just decide on a whim, after that one show, to come to six or seven shows. That’s wild. That is like, you’ve just decided, last minute, to take time out of your week and drive around the country to come see us, again and again and again. Then, some will request certain songs, or do research on the history of the different things we’re talking about. There are lots of incredible things that happen. I think, as the music’s coming out of you, sometimes you forget that it’s actually affecting people to do stuff like that. It’s an amazing thing to do, to affect people like that.
Allison: A few times, we’ve had come up to us about certain songs, particularly when they’re dealing with the death of someone close to them.
CE: Which songs inspire this?
Allison: Well there was one woman, on the last UK tour. She loved “To the Angry Evangelist,” because it reminded her of this person she had lost recently. And, “’Til It’s Gone” is another one.” And “Drive All Night,” too.
Benny: “Prairie Girl Gone.” A lot of people write to us about that song.
Allison: That’s right. It’s a song that I wrote about my grandma, who now is dead from Alzheimer’s, but at the time, she was living with Alzheimer’s. You know, it was really awful to watch someone ---a very cerebral woman-- have her mind taken from her. I sing that song and, of course, for me it’s deeply personal; but, I’ve had a lot of people come up to me about the song, particularly people who’ve been touched by it, and had people in their lives that they loved lost to Alzheimer’s. Hmmm.

Pizza! Dobro! Jamborees!

CE: Hmmm. I don’t want to hold you up too much, maybe a couple more?
All: Sure, sure.

CE: By the way, there’s a place, right by where Peet’s Coffee is, if you guys are starving and need amazing Sicilian pizza. It’s two slices for four dollars. It’s called Pinocchio's. It’s world famous, but it’s just right there.
Awna: Sicilian pizza is a whole other story than just regular pizza.
CE: Yeah, and they make tomato and basil.
Awna: Sicilians make the best pizza. Seriously.
Allison: We love Sicily. Awna and I went there with our Sofia project and had a great time.
Awna: We basically lived off wine and pizza.
Allison: For ten days, all we could afford!

CE: Tell me about some bands with whom you like performing. Obviously, with JT and the Clouds. Jeremy and I have actually been emailing back and forth, and we’ll be having a conversation soon enough. That last album, The City’s Hot, Yeah the City’s Hot, when I first got it, it’s all I listened to. For four months. I still can’t get over it.
Allison: I know, I obsessively listened to that album.
Awna: Yeah, do you have a copy?
Allison: No, I don’t have a copy.
Awna: They kept having to take it back to sell it. They were selling out of it. They would say, “I’m sorry, I’ve gotta sell it!”
Allison: Ah, and now I don’t have one! Ah, how could I have left Chicago without getting one from Drew. That album kills me. It just… the new one is going to be just as good, if not better.
CE: So, as Sofia, you guys were recording with JT & the Clouds?
Allison: We did, we did. We recorded four tracks with the Clouds while we were in Chicago, and that was so much fun. We want to do more. We’re going to do a tour together in January, on the west coast. It’s always a pleasure to get to play with them, to get to play with The Shiftless Rounders, Carolyn Mark, and last night, Luther Wright and the Wrongs.

CE: You must play a lot of folk festivals, with a range of folk acts?
Allison: Have you been to any Canadian Folk Fests?
CE: No, no.
Allison: You would love it. The concerts always have great lineups, but my favorite part are the workshops, which aren’t workshops in the way maybe people think about them in festivals here, where someone teaches you guitar. They just throw people together from various bands, and give you some ridiculous topic, and then you just play music together and see what happens. Sometimes people are afraid to extemporize a little bit, so they turn it into a songwriters in the round, which can be beautiful, too. But, a lot of the times, it turns into a jamboree, by the end of it!
Benny: Hillside Gospel Jam! Best workshop ever! It was at this festival called Hillside.
CE: In what town?
Benny: In Guelph, Ontario.
CE: Oh, yeah. Guelph. Great music scene there. I have some friends playing music out there.
Allison: You should go. It’s in the third week in July, or something.
Benny: Yeah, it’s so fun. The Shiftless Rounders, Po’Girl, and The Be Good Tanyas. All of us knew each other’s songs-- we had already collaborated. And Josh Ritter, he was the host of it. He kind of led it. And then Paul Reddick, he’s a very famous blues harmonica player.
Allison: He was amazing.
Benny: He was into the dobro: he would take a harmonica solo, then yell, “Dobro!” every other time around. He just kept making me take solos. We have a great recording of that. The nicest letter we’ve ever gotten was from the guy who recorded it. He was just so into it. He gave us some of The Shiftless Rounders tracks, and then some of the tracks from Paul Reddick. We have it on our web site now, with the letter. The only mp3’s we have up are those tracks that everyone was playing on, all the girls singing and everything, I put the letter on there too, because it’s such a cool letter. I think that was one of my favorite musical experiences of my life.
Diona: That was a really, really great time.

CE Speaking of the road, any rituals you guys have?
Allison: We have a group hug before every show. And I use a lot of essential oils. And I do a lot of calisthenics in hotel rooms, while watching mindless television.
Awna: We always try to make sure that we stop to enjoy stuff around us, rather than just driving to a show and playing, driving to a show and playing. Like…
Diona: Hot springs.
Awna: Hot springs. In the summer, swimming holes. We make sure that we are enjoying, as we go.
Allison: And I like running. I go running in every new town we go to.
Benny: Also, we like meeting locals. All of us are big on meeting people in the community, and taking time after the show, when we can, to hang out with some of the local people, and absorb the culture of the places we’re in.

Allison: And pay attention…
Awna: …to what’s going on. Because, it can get, it feels almost strange sometimes, when you’re moving so quickly, in a plane, in a car, you’re doing a little show, and you have your little group of friends you do it with. And you move around. You can get really lost in that. Sometimes, if we get in a cycle—I know we’ve done stints where we’re on our seventh show in a row, or eleventh show in a row, and you’re just trying to make it to the next place. And you’re there, and then you forget, and then all of a sudden you start feeling lonely. "Oh, right. What are we doing?" We’re good at keeping in check.
Allison: We try to.
Awna: Yeah, yeah.

CE: Have you guys been to Philly before?
Awna: Yeah, yeah.
CE: Do you know about Gianna’s?
Awna: No, no.
CE: I’ll write down a few places. And are you going to Baltimore?
Allison: Driving through.
CE: There’s a great, tiny folk instrument shop to visit, if you’re driving through.

Home To You (the album), and at a
venue nearby (hopefully).