Nellie McKay and the day off...

There is a whole world (probably more like 100 worlds) of New York that I will never even come close to experiencing. I can at least try but where do I start? What exactly is there that I am missing? We all exist in the routines that we create and repeat and repeat and repeat; building a sort of comfort that is hard to break. As I take the subway each morning to the Met I already see myself viewing familiar faces and taking the same stairs and curving around corners at the same angle. Of course now is probably the worst time of year for me to be worrying about trying new things seeing how hectic life is at the moment, but when I walked around downtown the other day I was craving to explore even through my exhaustion. I went to the designers market and watched all of the young artists peddling their merchandise, pushing boundaries and attempting to say something with their designs. Then last night I experienced the incomparable Nellie Mckay at Joe's Pub.

I had seen her perform one time before but this time was different; more intimate, and somehow more desperate. For those of you who don't know her she is one of my favorite singers, a mix between jazz, rap and pop running the gamut in many ways lyrically and musically. She is notorious for forgetting her lyrics (which there was a little of) as well as speaking her mind (which there was a lot of) but what she personified was the idea of channeling your brain into your art. In the world of contemporary pop it is almost impossible to find people doing things differently and showing any attention to the lost art of melody and lyric writing. She focuses all of her energy into these two aspects of her music and sitting behind her last night watching her fingers pounding the keyboard with such intensity every aspect of her body was oozing devotion to her mind. This seems to have become problematic as she hinted at in her rants about strained relationships with her Threepenny Opera co-stars but I find myself admiring the fact that she speaks her mind. There is no doubt in my mind that she must be hell to work with but when the result is so electric I can't help but skip over that downfall. I highly recommend that everyone go and buy her CD as quickly as possible. It frustrates me that someone as talented as she is can't seem to find an rabid following in this confusing pop music landscape we have created. Radio friendly seems to be all that can really carry success these days.
The easy way out seems to be what people want most of the time instead of the subtle nuances of art. How does this change? Whether it is dance, music, or film complexities are not admired as much as I wish they were but Nellie McKay personifies the kind of complexity that needs to be celebrated.

On the subject of complexities this next week is sure to be a muddle of them. Teching Cinderella while doing Petrouchka is going to be tough, but I will make it through. I feel as if my blogging is getting a little neglected and incoherent but I promise to get my mind back together once this week is up!