The Post-Rockist

Recently I had the pleasure of seeing Jolie Holland live in her native San Francisco, along with a band made up of her favorite local backing musicians. The show took place in the posh Bimbo’s 365 Club with its elegant seating and two drink minimum. However, it was clear from the very start of the show that this was no fancy recital. I felt like I was in the prescence of royalty, although Ms. Holland has to be the most foul-mouthed queen that ever lived. On the opening track of her fantastic new album, Springtime Can Kill You, she sings, “I feel like a queen on this dirty city bus, look what you’ve done to me.” This line seems to sum up the mystery of Jolie Holland. She’s constantly characterized as an elegant songbird with a voice so beautiful and heartbreaking that she frequently gets compared to Billie Holiday, even though they sound nothing alike. The reason they are so often compared must lie in the degree of beautiful sadness with which they sing. The two of them sound so haunted that the only thing left for them to do is sing. That “lady sings the blues” cliché works for Ms. Holland as well since she looks and sings like an angel, but one that can be found passed out drunk in an alley.

Early into her set, Ms. Holland found herself distracted by a young woman in the front row who was doing her best to get attention and disrupt the show. She handled the heckler in her hometown like a cabdriver would. “Baby girl, if you’re going to be loud you’re gonna have to move and get as far away from me as possible,” she sneered with vehemence. After the crowd cheered to show their support, the heckler promptly shut the hell up, probably out of fear that Ms. Holland wouldn’t hesitate to drop kick her with high heels. Ms. Holland handled the situation with such unwavering confidence that I thought she might be the boldest woman I have ever seen. However, I was proven wrong shortly thereafter when she had a difficult time going into the next song, apparently shaken up from the incident. She may be a street-smart queen, but that doesn’t make her a goddess.

Ms. Holland’s humanity is in fact the best part of her music. The way she attempts to create the most gut-wrenching, emotional performance possible, no matter how many mistakes there are, proves that she is interested in making real human music with a beating heart. Several of the tracks on her recent album were recorded live in front of an audience, in an attempt to get the most honest performances possible, instead of being inhibited by a lifeless studio atmosphere. Judging from the Jolie Holland live experience, she seems to crave the human interaction that occurs between audience member and performer. Throughout all of her songs she seemed to be singing from the bottom of her gut, creating a loud and forceful sound, but one filled with heartbreak, sort of like how Hank Williams used to sing. Live and on record, the phrasing with which she sings has an elastic quality that twists each sound until it fits the exact feeling she’s trying to convey. This technique gives her music its loose, improvisational feel, while she attempts to get to the deepest, darkest place that she can with her voice and her melody.

Ms. Holland’s live band included two electric guitar players, who provided the textures of the songs without ever drawing attention to themselves. The band was without a bass player, relying instead on the kick drum and the low end of the Epiphone hollow body guitar. There was also a horn section part of the time, which included two musicians, one playing trumpet and the other switching between clarinet and tenor saxophone. The band ran through songs off of each of Ms. Holland’s three solo albums with so much ease, even though these musicians weren’t a part of her current touring band. The six of them were so in sync with each other that they played a couple new songs that most of them had never heard before. It was amazing to hear the results of a first time jam on some dreamy jazz and blues that she had apparently just written a few nights prior in a hotel room. I felt like Jack Kerouac hearing improvisational jazz for the first time in a sweaty, low-lit club deep in the city. It was fascinating to witness the spiritual heights the band was able to reach. This is the kind of synchronicty that can only happen among people who completely trust each other with their talents and creativity.

Ms. Holland’s between-song banter alone was well worth the ticket price. She would often praise her band by saying, “Isn’t this a fucking great band!” She also had plenty to say about San Francisco after being on the road for a little too long. “I fucking love this city. The people here are so fucking kinky!” It was a trip hearing her go from these curse-soaked comments right into something like “The Littlest Birds,” where the line “the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs” is repeated so innocently and joyfully that it seems like it was written by a child. Her voice hit me so hard during her first song that I spent the rest of the night trying to get my heart beating normally again. Hearing her live made me realize why I have become so obsessed with her music. Her voice always manages to reach me on a total gut level that pains me deep and lifts my spirit in a way that only a few singers, like John Lennon or Otis Redding, can do to me just with the sound of their voices. During her song “Mexican Blue” she sings, “there’s a mockingbird behind my house that’s a magician of the highest degree. And I swear I heard him rip the world apart and sew it back again with his fiery melody, melody.” I swear Ms. Holland has to be singing about herself because that is exactly what her voice and her melody can do.

(Ms. Jolie Holland is currently signed to ANTI-. You can find media downloads from all three of her studio albums by clicking here. You can purchase her latest album, Springtime Can Kill You, here.)

Jolie Holland’s home page.

-Posted by Daniel