{"id":9906,"date":"2011-11-14T18:31:31","date_gmt":"2011-11-14T22:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.opticality.com\/blog\/?p=9906"},"modified":"2011-11-14T18:33:45","modified_gmt":"2011-11-14T22:33:45","slug":"girlyman-at-joes-pub-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/14\/girlyman-at-joes-pub-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Girlyman at Joe’s Pub"},"content":{"rendered":"

Girlyman<\/a> played Joe\u2019s Pub<\/a> last night. Let\u2019s the get the statistics<\/em> portion of the post out of the way. This was our 21st time seeing Girlyman perform (give or take some arbitrary number, likely zero). We hadn\u2019t seen Girlyman at Joe\u2019s Pub since April 2009 (31 months!). We hadn\u2019t seen any<\/strong> show at Joe\u2019s Pub since March 2010! Joe\u2019s Pub was completely renovated over the summer, re-opening roughly six weeks ago.<\/p>\n

It seemed fitting that our return to Joe\u2019s Pub (post renovation and long absence) would be to see Girlyman. Our original, accidental discovery of Girlyman occurred August 21st, 2007, at Joe\u2019s Pub, purely because Joe\u2019s Pub was our favorite venue. Before describing the evening, let me just say Bravo<\/strong> to the new Joe\u2019s Pub. The exterior is still a full-on construction zone, but inside, they have built a gorgeous listening room.<\/p>\n

\"Girlyman\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We saw Girlyman just 10 days earlier in VA, at The Barns at Wolf Trap<\/a>. How things change in 10 days. The most striking difference? Nate was clean shaven after having a beard (for the first time) at The Barns. Man, you just never know what you\u2019ll experience at a live show. \"Winking<\/p>\n

Seriously, there were qualitative differences and even some musical surprises. First, no two venues are (exactly) alike and The Barns and Joe\u2019s couldn\u2019t be more different. Second, while Girlyman calls Atlanta home, they were formed in NYC (first scheduled rehearsal was on 9\/11\/2001, obviously canceled). Their NYC shows (not just at Joe\u2019s, but for us, particularly at Joe\u2019s) have an extra sprinkling of magic dust.<\/p>\n

It comes somewhat from within them (NYC is still home, even though they no longer have to pay local income taxes), but mostly from the indescribable bond that the NYC audiences have with Girlyman (if you were there last night, you\u2019re nodding your head in recognition\/agreement right now).<\/p>\n

What makes Girlyman special? Phenomenal songwriting, delivered in luscious three-part harmony. Completely independent, non-stop laughter between numbers, seamlessly gluing the songs into a fun-filled event. In other words, never a dull moment<\/strong>. You\u2019re either listening to a great song, or a funny bit, often created on the spot based on something that just happened or was mentioned on stage. A few examples below.<\/p>\n

Girlyman is producing a new CD. It will be out sometime next year (hopefully in Q1, unless they want their fans to get the shakes). That means that shows on this tour (last night was the last show) have been filled with spanking brand new songs. Of course, no Girlyman show leaves their long-time fans without multiple tastes of their favorites, going all the way back to album #1<\/a> (Remember Who I Am).<\/p>\n

The new CD is called Supernova, and you can pre-order it now<\/a> (do it). Buy multiple pre-orders, get a couple of bonuses.<\/p>\n

The show last night was magical, as most Girlyman shows are. Everything flowed, musically and comically. While Girlyman often has wonderful openers in other venues, they never have an opener at Joe\u2019s because the set time is constrained (Joe\u2019s had another show after this one). I prefer the purity of a Girlyman-only show, even though one could argue that the value in having a high-quality opener is better.<\/p>\n

They played roughly six songs from the new CD (including the opener). One of them (later in the set) was a song they had never played in public, a very personal song by Doris about her year-long battle with Leukemia (thankfully, now in full remission<\/strong>!). A gorgeous song. They said that the live arrangement is different than the one on the upcoming CD. I really look forward to hearing the fully produced version!<\/p>\n

\"DorisMuramatsu\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For those who can\u2019t wait any longer, here\u2019s the set list:<\/p>\n

\"SetList\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I mentioned above that there were musical surprises in saying that there were differences from just a week earlier. In my previous post I noted that Everything\u2019s Easy, performed with Coyote Grace<\/a>, was spectacular, as each (normally) solo part was sung in harmony with a paired member of Coyote Grace.<\/p>\n

Girlyman decided to reproduce that feeling without any outside help. For the first time in my experience, rather than each of them singing their verse solo, Nate\u2019s verse had Ty singing harmony with him. Ty\u2019s verse had Doris singing harmony with her and Doris\u2019 verse had Nate singing harmony. Then they of course all sang their separate verses simultaneously, which was the only time they couldn\u2019t fully reproduce the magic that Coyote Grace added. Awesome<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

There were two requests and two encores not listed that I\u2019ll add momentarily. Joe\u2019s has always had black acoustical padding lining the walls of the stage. The renovated Joe\u2019s has that too, but the design is slightly different (even more prominent). JJ Jones<\/a> is a very active drummer. Nate pointed out that Joe\u2019s is perfect for JJ as the padding protects her from injuring herself as she bounces off the walls. A number of times during the show, JJ did indeed show off that technique. \"Winking<\/p>\n

This is just JJ sitting at the drums, not showing off the technique<\/em> (which would have looked like a blur, even if Lois had captured it):<\/p>\n

\"JJJones\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking of JJ, since she was wearing black and sitting way back on stage, she blended with the padded walls. Some of the shots Lois took last night make JJ appear to be a projection<\/em>. Here\u2019s one example:<\/p>\n

\"JJJonesProjected\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While Doris and Ty were tuning, a young girl walked up to the stage (accompanied by her mother, don\u2019t worry folks) and handed Nate a note. He read it and noted that it was a specific request. He told them that there was an upcoming request section so he would have to ignore it for now.<\/p>\n

But, the ladies continued to tune and Nate decided that he probably had enough time to sneak in this request. Before I tell you what it is, let me say that often, Girlyman asks the audience to vote for one of three (or four) songs, by simply describing each with a single word. Long-time fans know which song is tied to which word, but newcomers have no idea. That has never happened at a Joe\u2019s Pub performance in all the times we\u2019ve seen them there (meaning, they never offer this particular choice).<\/p>\n

One of those four words is German<\/strong>. I always<\/strong> scream my head off for that choice. While I\u2019ve seen them perform it three or four times, usually, I lose (at least in the past two years). It turns out that the note that was passed to Nate specifically asked for that song, Rock Me Amadeus by Falco. I would embarrass myself if I told you how excited I was (and that I paid that kid a lot of money to pass that note). \"Winking<\/p>\n

We all get to sing along (not to the German lyrics, which Nate nails).<\/p>\n

\"NateBorofsky\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For the formal request section, they settled on Reva (a song about Nate\u2019s grandmother). Settling is always difficult, since nearly every song Girlyman ever wrote is called for at every show during the request section. People brought hand-written signs<\/strong> to hold up because they knew they were too far from the stage to be heard.<\/p>\n

For the first encore, they played Stayin\u2019 Alive by the Bee Gees, to honor Doris\u2019 journey. After leaving the stage for the second time, they were forced back out for a second encore. They knew what they were going to play, but someone called out for Doris to play the banjo (Ty had played it, but Doris hadn\u2019t touched it as yet). Doris pointed to it (standing quietly next to her) and said “There it is\u201d. \"Smile\"<\/p>\n

Ty and Nate encouraged her to pick it up, changing whatever they intended to play. They performed Kittery Tide (at a much faster clip than usual), but still nailed the tricky guitar and banjo leads. Well done ladies!<\/p>\n

Coming back to one last humorous example. At one point Nate said \u201cWho needs therapy?\u201d. There was dead silence. Nate followed with \u201cWe\u2019re in NYC, everyone in the audience is probably a therapist!\u201d. Then he added that they lived in Atlanta. He said that if the show were in Atlanta, the equivalent question would have been \u201cWho has a chicken?\u201d, to which the answer would have been \u201cMost of the audience.\u201d.<\/p>\n

After a few more cracks about NY Times articles on many 30-somethings now buying\/raising chickens, Nate started up a classic Girlyman Tuning Song about therapists and chickens. As they often do, the girls chimed in with harmony along the way, only this time, they clucked<\/strong> the harmony (literally, it was hysterical).<\/p>\n

At the end of the song, Nate finished with a line \u201cSix of one, half a dozen of the other\u201d. Other hadn\u2019t been rhymed yet, but he was clearly done. Without missing a beat, surprising Nate (and the rest of us completely), Ty finished it off with something like (this is a complete paraphrase, I can\u2019t remember her truly clever words!):<\/p>\n

What issues did you have with your mother?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bringing it all back to the therapist line that started everything out. It was (yet another) hysterical moment, showing how clever and quick all of them are.<\/p>\n

\"TyGreenstein\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We shared the evening (and a table) with two friends who were new to Girlyman. We continued our 4+ year streak of constantly introducing as many new fans as we can. Last night\u2019s mission: accomplished<\/strong>. Mirroring our seats on the other side of the stage were Kevin and Edith. They were very sneaky<\/strong>. We can\u2019t thank them enough, but they better start worrying about our escalating retaliation. \"Winking<\/p>\n

\"RachelRebeccaHavilandKevinEdith\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We were the first two people on line (in line for the Brits amongst my readership). Shock, surprise, mock horror. \"Smile\" We got to say hi to Genevieve, Girlyman\u2019s manager, both before and after the show. Here she is pictured with Ty, and Ty\u2019s dad, Ron Greenstein (a wonderful musician in his own right, currently performing with The Chad Mitchell Trio<\/a>!).<\/p>\n

\"GenevieveTyGreensteinRonGreenstein\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One of Girlyman\u2019s songs, Easy Bake Ovens (co-written by Ty and Nate), is a conglomeration of Ty\u2019s earliest childhood memories. It ends with:<\/p>\n

Dad took a picture on August the nine
\nOf us with the newspaper and the headline
\n‘Ford Steps Up; Nixon Resigns’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It turns out, this is literal. Here\u2019s a blog post by Ty<\/a> that shows her as a baby, with that newspaper headline! Last night, Ron Greenstein showed me the same photo on his little flip phone. So cool. It\u2019s historic(al) on a number of levels. \"Smile\"<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll finish with a photo that Lois accidentally hijacked (don\u2019t worry, they got plenty of other good ones). She noticed that Girlyman was lined up nicely for a shot with some fans. She was willing to get an off angle shot of them. JJ noticed Lois and pointed to her, which made Doris turn as well. \"Smile\"<\/p>\n

\"GirlymanPhotoHijacked\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Already counting the days until we see them again!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Girlyman played Joe\u2019s Pub last night. Let\u2019s the get the statistics portion of the post out of the way. This was our 21st time seeing Girlyman perform (give or take some arbitrary number, likely zero). We hadn\u2019t seen Girlyman at Joe\u2019s Pub since April 2009 (31 months!). We hadn\u2019t seen any show at Joe\u2019s Pub […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,2],"tags":[31,29,1367],"class_list":["post-9906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-2","tag-girlyman","tag-joes-pub","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9906"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9908,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9906\/revisions\/9908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opticality.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}