Kathryn Calder

Last September 11, while we were watching Godspeed You! Black Emperor at Variety Playhouse, Kathryn Calder, our favorite New Pornographer (with all due respect to Dan Bejar), was performing a set in New York's Mercury Lounge, and fortunately for us, the good folks over at NYC Taper caught it and posted it to their web site.  I simply can't say enough good things about this terrific artist.

Here's the set, followed by Calder's video for  When You See My Blood.

Kathryn Calder

Kathryn Calder with The New Pornographers at Buckhead Theater, Rocktober 2014

Kathryn Calder, our favorite New Pornographer, had a new, eponymous album come out last Tuesday, and judging by the first single Take A Little Time, it may very well live up to the mile-high standards she set with 2010's Are You My Mother?  She's playing a few dates up and down the West Coast this month, but so far, no wider tour plans have been announced, including any dates in the Deep South.

Oh look,  She's also released a second song from the new album, the moodier Song In Cm:

An Appreciation of Kathryn Calder

I thought that Thursday night's New Pornographers show could have been better if the band had allowed all of its talented members to perform at least one song each from their solo careers, instead of just strictly New Pornographers' material. Neko Case could have sung something from, say, Middle Tornado, and A.C. Newman something from Shut Down the Streets.  Most especially, it seemed almost negligent to have Dan Bejar on stage and not perform any Destroyer songs.

Throughout the show, Kathryn Calder kept very quiet over on the right side of the stage, mostly singing backup behind AC Newman's voice.  Many people may not even have noticed her, focusing their attention instead on Case over on the left side or Newmman and Behar at center stage, but I would have loved to have heard Arrow or So Easily Fooled from Calder's 2010 album, Are You My Mother? 

Somehow, Are You My Mother? came into my possession a few years ago, and while I didn't have high expectations for it at first for some reason or the other (maybe that title), it fell into heavy rotation on my CD player and eventually the songs on the album came to be among some of my all-time favorites.  Since the album was in the rotation mix with a bunch of other CDs (my player holds 50) and I wasn't that familiar with it at first, I had assumed every time Castor and Pollux came on that it was actually one of Allo Darlin's better songs (I'm glad I didn't call out for it when they played at 529 last month).   

Calder's TED lecture, where she discusses her mother's struggle with ALS (she recorded Are You My Mother? while caring for her), is at the top of this post, and she also performs her songs Turn a Light On starting at 09:14, Arrow (12:38), and Slip Away (15:55),  Several members of The New Pornographers appear in the film clip featured in the lecture.

I'm hoping that her current tour with The New Pornographers doesn't burn her out on the road, but instead inspires her to do a tour of her own, preferably with a stop here in the American Southeast.

The New Pornographers at Buckhead Theater, Atlanta, November 7, 2014

Last night in Buckhead, Canadians The New Pornographers performed a nearly 90-minute, late Rocktober show.

Brooklyn's The Pains of Being Pure at Heart opened.

We last saw The Pains of Being Pure at Heart at Bumbershoot 2012 on a sunny Seattle afternoon after a day spent mostly inside the Key Arena watching Best Coast and M83.

This is a new lineup for the band.  Most notably gone is keyboardist/singer Peggy Wang, and in her place is new vocalist, who's name I did not catch, but frontman Kip Berman keeps the band still more than recognizable as The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.  

The New Pornographers were upbeat and poppy.  A.C. Newman is the defacto leader of the supergroup, which last night included Neko Case, Kathryn Calder, and Destroyer's Dan Bejar.

Bejar played his role as the resident genius well, only appearing on the stage when he had a song to sing, and then disappearing offstage during the other songs.  Case played the diva, at one point insisting that someone in the audience leave the venue "right now" for some offense that eluded most of the audience.  Calder was fairly low-key, mostly singing backup behind Newman, who did most of the heavy lifting. 

In short, all eight musicians played their roles well, making it an interesting show.

Here they are on Letterman, with Neko wearing the same King Tut leggings she wore on stage last night.

New Pornographers

The New Pornographers will be playing Atlanta's Buckhead Theater on November 6.