Thursday, September 18, 2008
Slanted and Enchanted
Posted by Noah Bonaparte Pais on Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 3:30 PM
With political posts proving to be neodymium-strength ass magnets these days, it’s back to covering obscure music for the time being. (If there’s one thing asses value less than progress, it’s culture.) I was walking on Decatur Street last night when a concert flyer shouted at me. Jana Hunter, it seems, is playing at the Saturn Bar tonight. For the unfamiliar, Hunter is a true talent: a woebegone Texan who runs with the ethereal spook-folk crowd (i.e., Devendra Banhart, Marissa Nadler, Vetiver, Castanets, et al.) and conjures up spookier folk than any of them. Her ghostly, barely there vocals can sound like shortwave radio transmissions from beyond the grave, but she also pens achingly beautiful, three-minute pop songs that take on a sort of otherworldly weight from her sideways delivery. My question is, where was the word on this booking? If it takes a street team to inform a listings editor — and a big fan — 24 hours out about one of the best small-venue shows of the month, something in New Orleans needs fixing.
Comments (4)
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Happens a lot in NOLA. A similar problem with Titus Andronicus a month or so ago. They played Dragon's Den with just a few lookers-on and the other bands in the audience. But it was fantastic.
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Yes! Dragon's Den is better than the Saturn about sending out bookings, but I also found out about that Titus show from a poster — and that time it was the night after, not before. Hard to complain about crappy attendance when the people most inclined to come to these shows don't even know they're taking place.
yeah... I think with the Saturn you have to keep checking their Myspace, and their schedule seemed touch and go lately because of the fire. Is this their first gig since the Gustav?
Interestingly, it's listed as only Silent Cinema on their MySpace. (Hunter's page confirms the flyer, though.) Perhaps they just secured this, too late for press? A phone call went unanswered.
