― Sean Carruthers, Wednesday, 2 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― the pinefox, Thursday, 24 April 2003 11:19 (twenty-one years ago) link
'miss america' is an odd record. The production is almost punishingly bland mid-80's adult contemporary rock/country. But then she begins singing and I just can't believe it. The album really grew on me, especially the quiet opening & closing.
― milton, Thursday, 24 April 2003 18:02 (twenty-one years ago) link
― donut bitch (donut), Thursday, 24 April 2003 18:03 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Thursday, 24 April 2003 18:07 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Nicole (Nicole), Thursday, 24 April 2003 18:10 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Nicole (Nicole), Thursday, 24 April 2003 18:40 (twenty-one years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 21:53 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 22:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 22:05 (nineteen years ago) link
no direct mention if O'Hara's in the SF production. amazing to think of being disappointed by seeing a Wilson/Waits/Burroughs collaboration, but I certainly will be if she's pulled out before I get to see her.
― (Jon L), Friday, 30 July 2004 07:21 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Friday, 30 July 2004 07:41 (nineteen years ago) link
― gaz (gaz), Friday, 30 July 2004 08:30 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Friday, 30 July 2004 10:20 (nineteen years ago) link
No i didn't but i would REALLY have loved to.
― jed_ (jed), Friday, 30 July 2004 10:45 (nineteen years ago) link
― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Friday, 30 July 2004 13:26 (nineteen years ago) link
get tickets now, they're going fast.
― (Jon L), Wednesday, 11 August 2004 19:17 (nineteen years ago) link
I'm a big Burroughs fan; it's a great cast; the final Wedding scene is pure Wilson lucid dreamstate. But the reason I'm thinking of going again is Ms O'Hara. Every second she's on the stage is just unbelievable, especially the first duet with her suitor, which was the one bafflingly emotional moment of the whole night purely on the basis of the tone of her voice, and getting to watch her as sang it.
The way she veers from perfect songbird to absolute raving madwoman; I can think of other singers who have the technical range, but it's always a bit of an exercise. When she does it I believe her.
A few tickets left for San Francisco. Some without Marianne Faithful, but she is the least of the reasons to see this actually; she's barely in it. The production is going to Australia next.
― (Jon L), Thursday, 16 September 2004 18:27 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/features/live/b/black-rider-06/
I'm definitely thinking of seeing it again. And if anyone, anyone, hears of any surreptitiously announced solo shows of hers while she's in town... please wake up this thread, or at least let me know.
― milton parker (Jon L), Thursday, 18 May 2006 17:04 (seventeen years ago) link
― milton parker (Jon L), Thursday, 18 May 2006 17:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― milton parker (Jon L), Thursday, 18 May 2006 17:11 (seventeen years ago) link
― Paul Eater (eater), Thursday, 18 May 2006 17:28 (seventeen years ago) link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIhu2CcH7tw
'bodies in trouble' video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z14wPTz6PdY
― milton parker (Jon L), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 17:40 (seventeen years ago) link
― milton parker (Jon L), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 17:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― Owen Pallett (Owen Pallett), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 15:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― Milton Parker, Friday, 23 February 2007 00:39 (seventeen years ago) link
― jed_, Friday, 23 February 2007 01:33 (seventeen years ago) link
― jed_, Friday, 23 February 2007 01:37 (seventeen years ago) link
― jed_, Friday, 23 February 2007 01:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― Milton Parker, Friday, 23 February 2007 02:01 (seventeen years ago) link
― Milton Parker, Friday, 11 May 2007 01:09 (sixteen years ago) link
― Milton Parker, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 07:47 (sixteen years ago) link
― Jon Lewis, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 19:38 (sixteen years ago) link
MMoH on the left
SCTV's The Last Polka - The Lemon Twins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JreEPKE7FMA
― Milton Parker, Thursday, 1 November 2007 21:54 (sixteen years ago) link
I'm sad no one else has posted this yet. And I'm sad I'm finding out about this about a week before it's going down.
http://www.villagevoice.com/nycguide/ev121095,6.html
Mary Margaret O’Hara and Guests The Stone E 2nd St & Avenue C, New York, NY Sat, Jan 05, 08:00 pm
― Milton Parker, Wednesday, 26 December 2007 23:02 (sixteen years ago) link
$10, baargain.
― Billy Dods, Wednesday, 26 December 2007 23:05 (sixteen years ago) link
bargain for all 50 people who can fit into that room
I know she's modest, but that is going to be madness
― Milton Parker, Wednesday, 26 December 2007 23:11 (sixteen years ago) link
very surprised that alex ross liked this album. i am a sucker for good drumming too but no drummer in the world can save these shitty ballads (even reckoner which may be the best song is totally annihilated after one and a half minutes by the string section).
― alex in mainhattan, Wednesday, 26 December 2007 23:22 (sixteen years ago) link
sorry, wrong thread!
― alex in mainhattan, Wednesday, 26 December 2007 23:30 (sixteen years ago) link
I love that bodies in trouble song but know nothing else. Is it all as off kilter and beautiful?
― I know, right?, Wednesday, 26 December 2007 23:43 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQbAr1DCjYw&feature=related
if you like this, find a copy of miss america
― Milton Parker, Wednesday, 26 December 2007 23:50 (sixteen years ago) link
I actually just rapidshared one. I'll have to get sick of listening to Body's in Trouble before I listen to anything else.
You want to feel somebody, *oh* who do you talk to?
― I know, right?, Thursday, 27 December 2007 00:05 (sixteen years ago) link
Did anybody make it to the show?
― Billy Dods, Monday, 7 January 2008 04:57 (sixteen years ago) link
I love this album, especially Anew Day and Not Be Alright
― I know, right?, Thursday, 24 January 2008 20:35 (sixteen years ago) link
She's playing Saturday in a festival with AR Hacke and Tony Conrad at the Funny Farm in Ontario. http://www.electric-eclectics.com/ Here's her piece in the Hal Willner/Kurt Weill movie. This is when I fell for her: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgQBdxA47lE
― dad a, Tuesday, 29 July 2008 06:43 (fifteen years ago) link
ok that Kurt Weill clip
there's no one like her
― Milton Parker, Friday, 12 September 2008 00:35 (fifteen years ago) link
oh WOW WOW. i need an mp3 of that. pretty amazing playing on the track even without MMO'H but she's incredible. utterly unique.
― jed_, Friday, 12 September 2008 01:48 (fifteen years ago) link
Damn you I can't find my headphones!
― I know, right?, Friday, 12 September 2008 01:55 (fifteen years ago) link
still, just watchin' her twitch there
― I know, right?, Friday, 12 September 2008 02:01 (fifteen years ago) link
http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/cms/images/20070811ohara/ohara4-t.jpg
[Removed Illegal Link] has streaming audio from a performance at the 2007 Edmonton Folk Music Festival.
― drone/a/sore, Friday, 12 September 2008 02:08 (fifteen years ago) link
i don't think i've been so excited to see something for years.
― i lost my shoes on acid (jed_), Thursday, 19 September 2013 00:54 (ten years ago) link
Cohen also had a hand in arranging the collaboration that recently brought O’Hara to Montreal’s Hotel2Tango studio to work with Constellation Records’ Thierry Amar, Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto (members of Vic Chesnutt’s band) and Australian drummer Jim White of Dirty Three.
http://www.nowtoronto.com/music/story.cfm?content=188372
― scott seward, Thursday, 19 September 2013 00:56 (ten years ago) link
there are some sisterly themed alice munro stories where i totally picture the sisters as the O'Hara sisters.
― i lost my shoes on acid (jed_), Thursday, 19 September 2013 01:01 (ten years ago) link
interesting, i don't really know his story. i noticed in the credits patti smith exec produced museum hours. xp
― zvookster, Thursday, 19 September 2013 01:02 (ten years ago) link
that movie looks like something I would enjoy.
I read her Wikipedia entry thanks to this revive and found this very amusing:
In 1983, O'Hara left Go Deo and was signed by Virgin Records. Andy Partridge of XTC was scheduled as her producer but was fired after his first day [3] due to his reported difficulties with O'Hara's musical approach.
― money, chicken and other DNA (sleeve), Thursday, 19 September 2013 01:05 (ten years ago) link
ha!
― i lost my shoes on acid (jed_), Thursday, 19 September 2013 01:07 (ten years ago) link
Andy Partridge of XTC was scheduled as her producer but was fired after his first day [3] due to his reported difficulties with O'Hara's musical approach.
Partridge has also intimated that devout Catholic O'Hara wasn't thrilled to find out her producer was an atheist and engineer John Leckie was under the spell of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. So suddenly they had a few weeks vacation on their hands, and Partridge mentions this idea he had to record a psychedelic album.
So we can thank Mary Margaret O'Hara for the Dukes of Stratosphear.
― Hideous Lump, Thursday, 19 September 2013 01:52 (ten years ago) link
Scott, you have to see this. it's wonderful. really beautiful.
― i lost my shoes on acid (jed_), Monday, 23 September 2013 23:06 (ten years ago) link
i was bored a couple of times -- where the camera lingers on urban scenes where i don't see the point of lingering
zvook, i'm kinda surprised at this since the film was completely about looking and seeing everything with equal weight and importance but choosing your own centre within the seeing and it's set up fairly early on. where the narrator describes the egg shells, bones, cigarette butts, old newspapers, spent beer cans and cuts from the Breugel to the scenes in Vienna. It's about slowness and lingering as well so i can understand the boredom but it's part of it and it pays off very gently at the end.
Then the Lecture on Breugel where the tour guide talks about finding the centre (for you) within the painting which analogues to as much time being spent looking at the people looking at the paintings as the paintings themselves in wide or in detail and the same techniques being used in the shots of the city referencing back to earlier in the film where Johann talks about seeing Anne and somehow "finding" her within the plethora of museum visitors and being interested in her, wanting to know her and not knowing why. it's not sexual - he's gay - it's really about making connections or finding a connection.
i was bowled over by this. i've not seen anything like it. really wonderful.
― i lost my shoes on acid (jed_), Monday, 23 September 2013 23:24 (ten years ago) link
yes that's true but it's still boring a couple of times (i didn't mean every time, btw, far from it). it's true of his short work too, which i'd seen before i saw this, and is made up of just this sort of looking. there are always a few scenes which strike me as almost without value as if pulled at random from a day's cheap digital shooting.
― zvookster, Tuesday, 24 September 2013 00:44 (ten years ago) link
what did u think of mmo'h in it?
― zvookster, Tuesday, 24 September 2013 00:46 (ten years ago) link
I saw Museum Hours. I liked it quite a bit. It's true what zvookster says, about Jem Cohen's work being very much about this "looking." I don't know that he pulls his images at random, he's just someone who shoots a lot on his own, constantly, and creates a kind of personal archive of footage from which to pull shots from. I do think that stuff stands out in films like this or Chain, where he also uses actors, but it's his style and I like that he finds ways to expand what is obviously a very limited way of working. FWIW I think all the exterior/street stuff was shot on film, so maybe "cheap digital shooting" isn't really fair...
― Chantal Anchorman (admrl), Tuesday, 24 September 2013 00:57 (ten years ago) link
movie is fine, many of Jem Cohen's past films also worthwhile (Benjamin Smoke, Chain; never saw the Fugazi doc) xp
MMO'H never seems to be acting, A-
― Miss Arlington twirls for the Coal Heavers (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 24 September 2013 01:00 (ten years ago) link
zvook, i didn't mean to describe the film to you. i knew you got it perfectly well, i was just thinking it through for myself. there were 5-10 minutes or so when i thought it was too much and, yes, a little boring but he pulled it back since, of course, that's a major point of the film. I'm interested to see his other stuff.
i though MMO'H was astounding.
― i lost my shoes on acid (jed_), Tuesday, 24 September 2013 02:15 (ten years ago) link
It hasn't aged too well, but "Lost Book Found" is on Vimeo:http://vimeo.com/63141083
― Chantal Anchorman (admrl), Tuesday, 24 September 2013 16:56 (ten years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9rZyMRdwwg
― vmajestic, Thursday, 3 July 2014 16:37 (nine years ago) link
Wonder if anyone's heard anything other than this from that Go Deo Chorus demo tape that got them/her signed...
― vmajestic, Thursday, 3 July 2014 16:40 (nine years ago) link
http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/apr/19/cult-heroes-mary-margaret-ohara-miss-america
― Kibbutzki (Jaap Schip), Tuesday, 19 April 2016 16:17 (eight years ago) link
I don't consider those tributes to Weill and Cohen, nor The Black Rider productions, to be "relative trifles." And if she thinks she said it all on one album, so be it, right or wrong. Wonder how many people keep cranking it out when they secretly feel that way, or should?
― dow, Tuesday, 19 April 2016 18:50 (eight years ago) link
WOW I had no idea the album was recorded in 83 and 84!
Author should have mentioned her track on Gary Lucas Gods and Monsters, v memorable
― scarcity festival (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 19 April 2016 19:05 (eight years ago) link
For some reason I heard this for the first time tonight - loved it. Lots of bits hanging at the edges throughout - whether that's a guitar, violin and the voice but there is so much to her voice I wouldn't reduce to that.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 13 June 2016 21:23 (seven years ago) link
My t-TAAAALE is TALLLLLL
― scarcity festival (Jon not Jon), Monday, 13 June 2016 21:54 (seven years ago) link
i never contributed to this thread. why? mmoh is one of my favourite singers, miss america one of my favourite albums. i wrote something about it some time ago in my old blog.
how i love those simple, to the point lyrics:
"But if our love is all for notI'm still happy with what I've gotNot having you,But keeping you in mind"
― it's the distortion, stupid! (alex in mainhattan), Tuesday, 14 June 2016 15:04 (seven years ago) link
For some reason I heard this for the first time tonight
― xyzzzz__, Monday, June 13, 2016 9:23 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I'm gobsmacked at this!
― Pastoral Fantasy (jed_), Friday, 17 June 2016 02:57 (seven years ago) link
https://vimeo.com/147145241
― Kibbutzki (Jaap Schip), Monday, 11 July 2016 21:44 (seven years ago) link
i just found a copy of Miss America on LP for a couple bucks stashed in the celtic music section at amoeba. incredible album.
― nomar, Friday, 6 January 2017 19:06 (seven years ago) link
I was just thinking about MMOH last night because we finished watching The OA and I got some of the same feelings from it that I get from this album.
― his eye is on despair-o (Jon not Jon), Friday, 6 January 2017 19:09 (seven years ago) link
my TAAAAALE is TAAAAAALLLLLL
― his eye is on despair-o (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 10 January 2017 22:37 (seven years ago) link
I'd forgotten about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPtuYmYg8OU
― djh, Friday, 24 March 2017 23:34 (seven years ago) link
I didn't know this happened!
― cwkiii, Tuesday, 19 December 2017 04:36 (six years ago) link
wow...this first improv is something else
― Joan Digimon (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 17:59 (six years ago) link
Very very stoked. Just bought two tix to see her in June!
― everything, Friday, 13 April 2018 19:51 (six years ago) link
ohhhh!!!!
― ... (Eazy), Friday, 13 April 2018 20:03 (six years ago) link
It's the "Beautiful Tool" combo who performed a handful of shows three years ago and I don't think anything since.
― everything, Friday, 13 April 2018 20:32 (six years ago) link
??Where is this happening??
― when worlds collide I'll see you again (Jon not Jon), Friday, 13 April 2018 22:27 (six years ago) link
Canada. At the Vancouver Jazz Festival. Tix were $28. A bargain imo.
― everything, Friday, 13 April 2018 23:03 (six years ago) link
Here's a baffled review from (I think) the last show in 2015.
― everything, Friday, 13 April 2018 23:05 (six years ago) link
Haha I just noticed she did "The Snake" - that thing that Trump performs from time to time.
― everything, Friday, 13 April 2018 23:09 (six years ago) link
Man so jealous
― when worlds collide I'll see you again (Jon not Jon), Friday, 13 April 2018 23:25 (six years ago) link
Show was good. A few reservations but I enjoyed it a lot. It didn't blow minds or anything. It was unrehearsed and the band could've used more direction. The starts and ends of the songs were all ramshackle, much of it was improvised and they overplayed on most songs imo. There was one bit near the end when they did a great key change and I thought "fucksake-an arrangement!"
She herself forgot the words on dozens of occasions and barely two lines in a row were ever sung straight. It was like Liza Minnelli slipping back and forth between Ella-style focused scatting and Yoko Ono making whatever noises she's feeling in the moment. Followed by some whistling or whatever. Pretty amazing.
If I'd wandered in not knowing what it was I might have been racking my brains for what Shimmy Disc act might have reformed - the only previous time I saw a balloon used as a musical instrument was at a Eugene Chadbourne gig.
― everything, Friday, 29 June 2018 05:41 (five years ago) link
She's on Bandcamp:
https://peggylee1.bandcamp.com/album/beautiful-tool
― Kibbutzki (Jaap Schip), Sunday, 25 November 2018 01:14 (five years ago) link
Oh wow thanks!
― The Poppy Bush AutoZone (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, 25 November 2018 02:06 (five years ago) link
New one-minute ditty
― ... (Eazy), Wednesday, 18 March 2020 14:55 (four years ago) link
This inimitable bit of O'Haratude popped up unexpectedly in my Release Radar today
https://rising.melbourne/wormhole/singles-club-jim-white-and-mary-margaret-ohara
― Piedie Gimbel, Friday, 10 June 2022 11:58 (one year ago) link