(le) poisson rouge

Renowned singer-songwriter John Wesley Harding, hailed by Rolling Stone as, “a literate and ironic neo-folkie with enough bile to win over a younger, hipper audience not attuned to folk music,” recently released his latest album, Who Was Changed And Who Was Dead , via Popover Corps/Rebel Group. In support of the record Harding will be reviving his three-show residency at Le Poisson Rouge on March 25, April 15, and May 20. Part variety show and part concert, the Cabinet of Wonders will draw together collaborators from the worlds of music, literature, comedy and even ventriloquism all hand-picked by Harding himself. “I wanted to bring together my novel writing friends (who mostly envy my musician friends) and my musician friends (who mostly envy my novel writing friends) under one flag,” says Harding. “The fact is: I like everyone who’s performing.”

You can read about their 11/18/09 show at LPR here.

Tanya Donelly is a songwriter and recording artist based in Boston, MA. On this website you can learn about Tanya's history in Throwing Muses, The Breeders, and Belly.

Tanya Donelly's latest album, This Hungry Life, was released by Eleven Thirty Records on October 17th, 2006. The former member of Throwing Muses, Belly, and The Breeders holed up in an old hotel in Vermont and recorded this one under hot and crowded conditions that are apparently conducive to the production of great music. Tanya had this to say about the process: "This album was recorded during a heat wave in front of a live, patient audience over two nights in Bellows Falls, VT at the Windham, a hotel closed since the 80s except for its small club. The idea was more 'album recorded live' than 'live album'; there were stops and starts, multiple takes, endless tunings, lots of sweating and a little swearing. Every couple of songs, the whole roomful of us would pour out onto the street to let our clothes dry and to breathe some new air. We were all pretty familiar by the end of the weekend. Recording can be tedious and shows nerve-wracking; this was neither. It was a blast, and I loved every second."

One night in suburban Detroit, a twelve-year-old Rosie Thomas lay sleepless in her bed, obsessively dwelling on what she perceived to be her lack of life purpose. Then, well after 2 AM, it suddenly hit her. She sprung up and raced down the hall. “Daddy, Daddy, I know what my mission in life is,” Rosie exclaimed, poking her father. “I just want to entertain people.”

Fast forward one decade later, recently transplanted to Seattle and frustrated with her decision to attend theater school, Rosie sat one night voicing her disappointment to new friend, singer-songwriter Damien Jurado, when he promptly turned to her and said, So, Rosie came to the city, trading the stiff route of producer-led studio recording from her previous album for the modest confines of a Brooklyn apartment with Sufjan and another songwriter friend, Denison Witmer. They set no deadlines or official recording schedule. The group of friends simply set up one or two microphones in a bedroom, living room, or kitchen and captured the songs as they happened.

“Whether you are a musician, painter, or whatever, there is a passion that sometimes gets lost because all of the sudden you have to clock-in or have deadlines. I sort of wanted to get back to that time when I played music for nothing,” Rosie says.

Most of the songs were recorded immediately after Rosie wrote them, with Denison and Sufjan scrambling to quickly write their own parts before Rosie herself forgot the songs. The laid-back gatherings, conducted off and on over two years, sparked a healthy creative process. By the end, Rosie realized that the recording had produced something completely unintended, an album.

Eventually, those songs, hastily recorded outside of a proper studio, became the aptly titled These Friends of Mine, her fourth release. The recording process was so liberating that Rosie’s even left the proper label practice behind, opting instead to release the album on her own imprint through Nettwerk Records.

Possessing a homespun familiarity, many of the songs on These Friends of Mine are characteristic of Rosie’s other work, with her fragile falsetto lilting over sparse piano arrangements, like on “Kite Song,” a hushed, near-lullaby that attempts to find the supernatural in simplicity.

Rosie’s music typically exists in the intangible realm of memory where childhood idylls meet adult expectations, and this album is largely no different. But These Friends of Mine finds Rosie more often channeling the concrete – the actual concrete, the streets and sidewalks of New York City.

“New York has always been this obsession of mine. So, that makes it all that much easier to write about. It’s just such a huge theme, especially when you are actually living there like I was when we were recording,” Rosie says.

Songs like “Much Farther To Go” and “New York City” reflect Rosie’s city-centric approach, where lightly strummed guitars meet whispered vocal harmonies imbued with a sense of plaintive longing.

But more than location, the songs and their origins emit friendship. Co-written with Sufjan, “Say Hello” came to life as the pair thumbed through a hymnal for inspiration while seeking to pen their own version of the many call and response standards.

Even the three cover songs on the record were chosen because of the kinship they embodied. While on tour with Rosie, Denison covered Fleetwood Mac’s “Songbird” and Sufjan performed a re-imagined rendition of R.E.M.’s “One I Love.” Rosie recorded her own versions of the songs to pay tribute to both of them, also including a cover of Denison’s own song, “Paper Doll.”

Well over a decade ago, a teenaged Rosie knew that being an entertainer was meaningless – even impossible – outside of a fostering community.

“When I woke my Dad up that night, even then I understood that you couldn’t be an entertainer unless you did it for the benefit of other people. That’s just a valuable lesson I have to keep reminding myself,” Rosie explains.

And for Rosie that reminder took a familiar incarnation, a gathering of friends, collaborative creation, and, in the end, a sincere celebration of music and people called These Friends of Mine.

Martha Plimpton was born November 16, 1970, in New York City to two actors: Keith Carradine and Shelley Plimpton. Martha began her career at age 8, when her mom had a friend of hers, composer Elizabeth Swados, enroll her in an actors' workshop. At age 10, she got a small part in Rollover (1981), and also made a series of Calvin Klein commercials.

Her first substantial film role was as a tomboy in The River Rat (1984); the following year, Steven Spielberg cast her in The Goonies (1985). Martha met River Phoenix while they were both filming The Mosquito Coast (1986), but since she was only 15 at the time, she did not go out with him. Even though she had a small part in the movie, it established her as a serious actress. Martha appeared in movies such as the screwball comedy Stars and Bars (1988) and, that same year, she was paired again with Phoenix in Running on Empty (1988). They dated for a while and then broke up. For a while, she was engaged to actor Jon Patrick Walker.

As if making movies didn't keep her busy enough, Martha frequently worked at theaters and made her Chicago debut with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company Ensemble in "The Libertine" in 1996. As a member of that ensemble, she received a National Medal of Arts award in the autumn of 1998. As for movies, Colin Fitz (1997) and Eye of God (1997) in which she plays the starring role, have been run at the Sundance Film Festival. Although some recent movies have had low box office (Pecker (1998) $2.1 million, and 200 Cigarettes (1999) $6.8 million), Martha's performances shine and she often rises above her material.

Perhaps recalling how important acting lessons were to her as a child, she donates her time and efforts to the "52nd Street Project" which is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to matching the inner-city children with professional theater artists to create original theater, by writing, directing and performing their own plays. Perhaps one of the inner-city kids she is coaching will be the next famous actress in Hollywood.

I started using comedy as a defence mechanism in junior high and high school and then turned it into a career, once it became clear that I make a terrible temp. I moved to Brooklyn eight years ago from Somerville, MA. Sometimes, I am on television (which makes me professional!). I’m a regular on HBO’s Flight of The Concords, and on Adult Swim’s Delocated. Sometimes you can catch my half hour special on Comedy Central. I voiced the nun on Lucy, Daughter of the Devil. My first book, The Will to Whatevs , is now out from Harper Perennial.

More: Interview at Pitchfork.com

You may have seen Todd as Mickey Rourke's no-so-nice boss in The Wrestler; as the annoying bongo player on HBO's Flight of the Conchords; or in roles on Sex And the City, The Larry Sanders Show, Chappelle's Show, The Sarah Silverman Program, Pootie Tang, and Road Trip . In 2003, he was named Entertainment Weekly's "It Standup." He's performed on Letterman, Conan, and in two of his own Comedy Central Presents specials. You can also hear his voice on many cartoons, including Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Home Movies, Squidbillies, Hey Monie, Freak Show, and Lucy, The Daughter of the Devil. Check out his web site: toddbarry.com

Rick Moody is an American novelist and short story writer best known for the 1994 novel The Ice Storm, a chronicle of the dissolution of two suburban Connecticut families over Thanksgiving weekend in 1973, which brought widespread acclaim, became a bestseller, and was made into a feature film of the same title.