All Hail The Queens

Today Kate & Anna McGarrigle came on my iPod. I'm not sure how many of you guys are acquainted with the french-canadian sisters but in this writer's humble opinion, the McGarrigles are quite special. Their songs range from being a little silly (Swimming Song), to beautiful (Petite Annonce Amoureuse - which means Classified Love Ads or something close to that) and poignant (I Eat Dinner). This would make their albums both silly, beautiful and poignant (sort of like Leonard Cohen, a fellow Canadian) and that's the making of a horse that's going to win some races for you.
Before plowing any further, it should be pointed out that the sisters are fluent in both English and French and record in both languages. The albums they have released in French are just as great as their English counterparts. There's something nice about music in other languages. For one,you have no f***ing clue what they are speaking about but still you get the point. Ever hear a Kinks song in another language? You understand that the shit rocks.
Pulling this vehicle back onto the highway, about two years ago, Kate & Anna McGarrigle played Zankel Hall which is located two floors under Carnegie Hall and seats a few hundred people. It's quite a nice play and has grat sound. I highly recommend taking in a show there sometime should you have the opportunity. The show I saw was part of a series of concerts that Emmylou Harris curated. Steve Earle performed either the night before or after the McGarrigle's and at the time I was pretty bummed, actually pissed, that I wasn't going to see Steve Earle play in the basement of Carnegie Hall and would instead be spending the evening with a bunch of French Canadians and their offspring, Rufus & Martha Wainwright. Not the type of night I desperately wanted for myself, but we must pay our debts to society sometime, or at least our family. But I was quite wrong about these McGarrigles, boy was I off base.
A few songs into their performance I had one of those feelings. The kind you get after taking a vicodin (though I had not taken one) where you feel a pitter in your stomach and a flutter of excitement in your mind. I had no idea what to expect, no clue where all the sounds coming into my head were coming from or even what the languages was that came seeping out of the speakers. The only thing I could discover, in the moments of lucidity I was able to grab was that this was something special that needed to be enjoyed right there, that there was no time to think about how great the show was. I could do that some other time (like right now). I just needed to soak it all in. So that's what I did. As I sat the songs began blending in with one another until it wasnt clear whether it was English, French, or instrumentals. The music left the stage and came coursing right at us. I knew I had been in Zankel Hall for a while but for the life of me it felt like a few fleeting moments. Sort of like a calming psychedelic or something.
The culmination of all this was the curator herself coming out to sing Going Back To Harlan. If ever there was an icing on the concert cake this would have been it. A wad just waiting to explode, if you know what I mean. This was not like Bruce Springsteen coming out as a guest when you see U2, something you just have to dig, even if it sounds like crap. These women had rehearsed and if they hadn't they faked it quite well (they are middle-aged women after all). The blending and twisting together of their voices was something I wish I could carry with me forever but alas it was not meant to be. Just a fond memory.
Looking back, it's good the show ended soonafter Emmylou came on stage or who knows where I would be now. I could have quit my job and moved up to Montreal or Quebec and went searching for that sound, like one of those space eating freaks who left there lives in the 60's and moved to San Francisco so they could hear the Dead all the time, but then ended up wandering the Haight instead. But I didn't do that. I just loaded up my iPod with a bunch of Kate & Anna McGarrigle albums which will always remind me of that night at Zankel Hall.

I figured while I'm kind of on the topic here is Rufus Wainwright performing Leonard Cohen's Chelsea Hotel No. 2. Once I begin listening I find a hard time turning this one off.