“If you’re seething with hatred, don’t blame yourself,” she says as she switches from the book in her hand to the Fender guitar at her side. In an evening at Clwb Ifor Bach in Cardiff, Kristin Hersh shares songs and stories from her latest book and CD combination, Wyatt at the Coyote Palace. The work is a compilation of near-death experiences, told in her characteristically humorous and eloquent style. Founding member of both Throwing Muses and 50 Foot Wave, Hersh’s current tour is a rare opportunity to experience her singular work.
The opening song, ‘Bright’, lays down a melody that envelopes the audience, like a blanket that tucks us in, as we settle down for the stories about to unfold. Hersh’s hands create an uncompromising sweetness, an almost romantic air that is heightened by the inevitable crash of her chord progressions. Her performance is serpentine-like, her head slyly tilting back and forth, with a fixed gaze, as if the songs were coming up to meet her. The songs she has chosen are from the span of her career and tell tales of “slow motion knife fights” or planes falling from the sky. She offers more than just a cautionary tale but speaks of death in a way that is refreshing, like sharing stories of an old friend.
Equally, refreshing is the new music she shared. ‘Bubble Net’ creates a momentum with her fingers picking out a unique angular melody and it is as if Hersh is leading us to somewhere special. The song opens up with a rhythm that keeps you focused forward to the next change around the corner. Then it is Hersh’s voice that grounds you with her voice in an almost chant-like lilt “There’s no tomorrow.”. You hear the words, the resonate with the uplifting register of her music. Hersh successfully holds us in the in between.
Readings from the book, spoken word crafts the atmosphere as successfully as her songs. There is an intimacy in the air, a vulnerability that shows its strength in each of Hersh’s lines. We are “not dead, just dead-end,” reminded that “not caring keeps you from taking care of each other.”
The near-death scenarios and stories that comprise Wyatt at the Coyote Palace, are expressed in Kristin Hersh’s unique way. By exercising her “power of slow motion,” Hersh is able to capture a perspective of death that forgoes morbidity and offers an opportunity for familiarity. This moment is captured in the music that comes from Hersh. Reaching what I can only subjectively describe as one of those points in time Patti Smith has talked about. There is no wall between you and them, between the artist and the audience, the music holds us in the moment. Her chord progressions crash like waves, and everyone is embodied in the vulnerability and strength of her voice, holding us in the paradox of opposition. “It’s not my fault that you don’t love me“; one of Hersh’s elegantly crafted moments. In a rare evening, we witness the grace of both Kristin Hersh’s stories her guitar. The memoir reads and sounds like truth. The truth of every day, every instant, filled with the grace of friends, music, kids, touring, life, love and everything in between. Everything that can be lost and gained, if you are willing to look at the other side.
Photo Credit: Emma Lou Lewis
