Numb Trolleybus

  
Quotables
"Only I wasn't steering anything, not even myself. I just bumped from my hotel to work and to parties and from parties to my hotel and back to work like a numb trolleybus. ... I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo."

-- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
"On the surface, it sounds irresponsible, but to flourish in a rapidly changing world, you actually need to make more mistakes. Fail quickly. Fail often. If you do something and it doesn't work, just recover in a hurry and try something else. ... Help develop a culture that is willing to fail its way to the future."

-- Price Pritchett, Culture Shift
"There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room. It's like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in the opposite direction -- every second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it's really you getting smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier, rushing away from all those lights and that excitement at about a million miles an hour."

-- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Jill Sobule takes Kansas City
Monday, November 30, 2009
And this is what it takes for me to come out of semi-blog retirement, apparently. Last night, at The Record Bar, I had the absolute pleasure of meeting everyone's favorite supermodel, the great Jill Sobule.



As these things usually do, it got off to a pretty inauspicious start.

The Facebook event said the show began at 7:00 p.m. with Erin McKeown opening, and Jill taking the stage around nine. The Record Bar's web site, though, said Erin went on at 9:00 and Jill at 10:00.

That's on a Sunday night, mind you.

Well, if working at the Pitch only taught me one thing -- and it's entirely possible that it did -- it's that the listed showtimes will bite you in the ass. And there's usually no telling how big the crowd will be, especially given some of the off-kilter music I tend to gravitate toward. A folk/pop dyke like Jill is bound to have a following, so with a 9:00 start time in mind (I wasn't putting any stock in Facebook), I left my apartment at 7:15 and took a book.

I got there much quicker than I expected, and the moment I walked in, I spotted Jill herself standing at the bar, flipping through an issue of the Pitch; the bartender on duty was telling her about different restaurants in the immediate area. I grabbed a table near the back of the place (for now), across the way from an attractive but obviously lesbian girl with enormous brown curls; I would find out later that she is Jill's girlfriend and merch coordinator for these small-venue shows. All the tables bordering the stage were already full, of course, but the rest of the place was pretty empty.

I started casing the joint for comfortable seats closer to the stage, because I didn't want to miss a gem one from Miss Sobule once the party started. The closest booth to the stage would do, but it was covered in used dishes and tips for the server. I accosted one of the wait staff to take care of that for me, and once I got sat down, it wasn't but another ten minutes before Jill took the stage.

That's right... at 8:00 sharp. A full hour before the web site indicated. Glad I showed up when I did.

And I did say that Jill took the stage first; despite all listings and available show information, Erin McKeown was not opening for her, it was the other way around. And let me tell you, Jill did not disappoint. She started out with a ditty the two of them had written on he road called "Kansas City, Missouri," since they'd basically taken a simple tune and fit the name of their current tour city into it, making up local lyrics as they went. She included old favorites like "Lucy at the Gym," which is always a treat no matter your mood, and more recent irreplaceables from the new album like "San Francisco" and "Where is Bobbie Gentry?" In fact, upon listening to the new album on my way home, I was shocked at how many tracks she'd played for me (and me alone!) just a couple of hours earlier. But probably the biggest surprise of the evening, at least for moi, was the complete absence of the two songs that really put her on the map back in the mid-1990s: "I Kissed a Girl" and "Supermodel."

Many times did Jill Sobule ask for requests during the show, sometimes outright and other times making it a multiple choice endeavor. Not wanting to be the one-note character in the front row who only knows the artist onstage by one or two songs, I declined to suggest the two overly-obvious hits that one-note characters in the front row suggest and betray the fact that they don't exactly know what they're talking about. I know you're thinking, what did he say? Re-read that if you need to. I did.

Jill was only on for about an hour, but she warned she'd be back as Erin McKeown took the stage. That's when Erin made mention of the Christian side-hug; during her years as a Catholic youth, she was once treated to a video lesson on how to hug someone without... arousing yourself or the other person. And in her estimation, it essentially amounted to putting your arm around someone's shoulders, from one side or the other, and giving a squeeze. Thus, the term "safe Christian side-hug" was born, and she and Jill were more than happy to demonstrate the folly of the lesson for their Kansas City audience.

So Jill made good on her threat to return, because once she got back onstage with Erin, she continued to play a supporting role until the show was actually over. They ended their set with a bang, only to come back almost immediately once it became clear that we wanted an encore, and they treated us to a reprise of "Kansas City, Missouri" before jumping off the stage and heading to the back, both of them high-fiving me as they went by. That was definitely a highlight of the show.

After all shows were finished, I began to gather my things and noticed that both Jill and Erin were making themselves available to chat, sign albums and memorabilia, and otherwise show their social sides to the small-ish audience that had nonetheless ventured out on a Sunday evening to catch a show. My camera and case were presenting problems; I was trying to wrangle them and a book and a coat and the cash I'd thoughtlessly left in my pockets instead of walleting away like I usually do. Out of the corner of my eye (this corner being situated near the top, if you can imagine), I could see Jill slowly making her way across the venue in my general direction, and just as I'd finished getting my belongings situated, I stood up, rounded the corner of the table, and immediately found myself unavoidably face-to-face with Jill fucking Sobule.

Standing there, stopped in front of me. Looking me in the face. No one else within arm's length. Unbelievably, I spoke first.

"Jill... brilliant. Absolutely brilliant show."

Hey, not bad.

She thanked me profusely, sincerely, and eagerly, as though it was the first time she'd ever heard such a thing. She immediately asked what I was reading, having spotted my "souvenir" copy of The Bell Jar, and commented not on having read it herself (I was too flustered to ask if she ever had), but on the fact that it looked old and bound in such a way that made it look like a library book.

Yeah, you could call it that. I didn't give her the story.

I asked if I could take her picture, and she suggested that we hand off the camera to a trustworthy stranger and pose together in a safe Christian side-hug. Later on, after I'd bought her newest album at the merch table from the lesbian girl with enormous brown curls, Jill came directly up to me and asked, "Can I sign that for you?"

To which I replied, after a few false starts, "You're asking me?"

At the same time, she was nice enough to sign one of the promotional posters for that night's show that I'd pulled down off the wall; Erin McKeown also signed. And I could not get over how incredibly nice, social, and accommodating both artists were. Both made themselves completely available to talk to fans and sign autographs whether the merch in question was bought at that show or not. For an artist who's been at this twenty-some years by now, Jill Sobule has not lost sight of the fact that her fan base, extremely niche but equally dedicated, is the reason she's still doing what she loves. I was charmed beyond the telling of it; I just hope, for KC fans' sake, she doesn't let the small crowd prevent her from coming to Kansas City again. It would definitely, definitely be our loss.
posted by N.T. @ 11:41 PM  
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