Kristin Hersh (solo) - C/D, S/D, OPO, RFD, &c.

So I'm a teacher, planning my lesson for the day, and I see that one of the supplemental exercises is about someone named "Hersh"

KRISTIN HERSH

She is in my developmental English grammar textbook! There must be a fan on the editorial side. Ha.

What, her lyrics are in the book? Please tell us more.

HA seriously, what??

No, it's like a grammar exercise about "musician Kristin Hersh"
It's about how she balances work (being touring musician) and home (being a mom/wife). It is used to practice correcting run-on sentences.

"I had to play the Palladium Thursday night but first I needed to take Dylan to a doctor's appointment because he had an ear infection so I arrived late to the gig and David was really pissed at me so he threw a tom-tom at me and hit me squarely in the eye and I had to go back to the very same doctor which I thought was pretty funny."

Kristin Hersh is a working mother, she has a rather unusual job.
A. Kristin Hersh is a working mother; but she has a rather unusual job.
B. Kristin Hersh is a working mother, although she has a rather unusual job.

That's a riot. I bet she'd get a kick out of that.

B, right?

Yes, B is the correct answer. A++ for you! You really know you've made it when you appear in a textbook.

Queen Latifah and Jon Stewart are both in the new edition as well.

fucking hilarious

i've been feeling kristin a lot lately. i mean, not just that i need to listen to her, but more generally. i feel her presence in my house, when i'm home alone, at night, in the studio. i wish the whole house could fill with wind, howls and kristin's voice, on the guitar. well, i suppose it can. nothing fills a house like her records.

summertime -- time for sunny border blue! !

her harmonies are always surprising

I have Sunny Border Blue but I haven't been able to get into it yet.

Summertime, though - time for Hunkpapa! Extremely underrated album.

Re: Sunny Border Blue. Get into it. It's probably (taking the long view) the best thing she ever did.

Holy mother of god, "Sundrops":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRoqCBlzKhg

I'd forgotten this song...and today out of the blue I heard the lyric "I never, never knew" and it took me awhile to figure out where it came from but I am AGHAST. Oh my god I don't even have Hips & Makers anymore and I need that shit like heroin right now.

i know that song is pretty spectacular!

Something I hadn't been aware of -- and quite enjoyable it is:

http://www.throwingmusic.com/lists/archive.php?listID=2&layoutID=1&pagerows=50&pagenum=1

I hope Kristin and Billy's 'The Shady Circle' idea takes off.

I saw Kristin perform her 'Paradoxical Undressing'* show in Edinburgh last month, and fascinating it was too. Can't wait for the book.

*http://www.edinburghfestivals.co.uk/view_item.aspx?item_id=50407

Speedbath. Enough said. Dear God, Speedbath.

I also think I need that textbook.

I've just been listening to my tape of Hips & Makers again. What features or tracks does anyone now think is good about it?

...and now continuing the thread a bit, if you've not heard the Strings EP, which consists of a Martin McCarrick-arranged string section working with Hersh on rerecordings of four Hips and Makers songs, you have no idea how you're missing out. It's absolutely wonderful.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 28 February 2005

I haven't heard this for years, if ever, but I think Raggett is right. There was this STUNNING song called 'The Key' way back when (1994?) - did it appear on that ep? don't know - but if she did more work like that then I would like to have it.

Kristin Hersh is a working mother, with an unusual job.

Lots of lines (and the delivery thereof) worth treasuring on H&M.

I've been on the other side of the Blue Ridge, seen the Shenandoah rolling there

Start with your eyes when they eye me in twilight

I fell to the bottom of Thales' well, caught like a thief with a lamb

Love Kristin, P.S.: Keep them coming

"The Key" is on the American release of the Strings EP, but not the UK one. In the UK, it was on the Your Ghost single. Also "Uncle June and Aunt Kiyoti" which is equally amazing.

i guess the comparison to Johnny Cash musta been made before now, but i'm only putting the words together in my mind now. it makes a lot of sense.

I've unexpectedly found myself back into Hips & Makers after all these years. I revisited with it around 2001 but couldn't really bring it into a present context at that time, it was more about memories for me. This time it's resonating with me in the present moment. It's funny that I always tend to think of it as an good album with a few really standout tracks, but in reality it all hangs together very well and feels very complete, like taking a journey through different parts of a forest or something.

I was so disappointed in Strange Angels that I quit paying attention to her work at all after that. The way I remember it, the songs that appear on Hips & Makers are ones she'd been saving up for years.

Haven't heard this Strings EP mentioned upthread...will have to track it down.

Also this line especially gets me - "I've been on the other side of the Blue Ridge, seen the Shenandoah rolling there" because I grew up in Virginia and it makes me remember the mountains there.

Strange Angels isn't all that bad, although it is a let down after Hips & Makers, which she's never really come close to in her solo work since then IMO

see i thought h+m was patchy - stuff like beestung and velvet days i find a bit trite. prefer the grotto, sunny border blue and learn to sing like a star. her current track-a-month-to-download output is pretty great too.

Going to restate that Strange Angels is (to me) far superior to Hips and Makers. It's her best album, in fact.

ooooh the strings version of Sundrops! WOAH! WOAH!

Have you listened to Uncle June and Aunt Kiyoti yet? Or the Key?

sky motel still my favorite, hugely underrated

Listening to the Key now. Poor Mike Kozelek, he's just not QUITE as good as her. Not QUITE. Almost, though. He just edges it.

Whoops! MARK Kozelek, of course.

Anyone read Rat Girl yet?

not published yet, is it?

Oops — perhaps. A close friend of hers told me she was half way through it. Probably an advance copy.

Yep, you're right. Amazon has it coming out Aug. 31.

I've got it on reserve at my library. I may be the only one, and it looks like the county library system is getting three copies.

Ha, I did the same thing. Only one library in Rhode Island has reserved it so far.

So this interview with Hersh is beyond kickass.

100 pages into Rat Girl and I can't recommend it enough. So endearing.

I really need to buy that book.

UK title: Paradoxical Undressing. The book version of her latest album is really good as well!

I've only written one book and I didn't know how to write that

Good interview in the Guardian:
"Yeah, I hate music. Everyone knows that about me. Even my kids hate music. When they're watching a kids' show on TV, as soon as a song comes on, the TV is muted." She reconsiders. "Maybe hate is the wrong word. We can't bear it. The intensity of good music is too much to bear. And bad music is so offensive that that's also too much to bear. I'm in heaven when it's good, but that doesn't happen very often. And anyway, you don't want to be crying over the breakfast table. I don't want that life."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/aug/22/kristin-hersh-memoir-interview-edinburgh

i interviewed kristin in 2007 and she told me the same thing. sadly i can't seem to find the article i wrote about her online at the moment. love her, of course -- i might even like the solo stuff more than the muses.

For anyone interested, there are still a few copies of Kristin's 2015 Record Store Day single 'Sundrops'/'The Cuckoo' available via the label's website (heliospheric.co.uk).

It was only released in the UK, so this is the best chance for US and European fans to get hold of a copy before they all go. The two songs are acoustic versions recorded for a never-broadcast local radio session in 1994 while Kristin was in the UK touring 'Hips and Makers', and have never been released until now. They are fab and all KH fans should hear them!

Wyatt At The Coyote Palace streaming now at NPR:

http://www.npr.org/2016/10/27/499145143/first-listen-kristin-hersh-wyatt-at-the-coyote-palace

Saw her in Cambridge MA tonight. I haven't followed her work in a decade but it was a great voice and guitar performance with lots of anecdotes and poetry between songs.

oh shit new throwing muses AND new solo kristin hersh next year (I really need to renew my lapsed subscription)