Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl are The Ghost Of A Saber Toothed Tiger, apparently named for one of the latter's childhood plays, the scribblings of which the former came upon during some girlfriend due diligence. Bemused and not above cool-band-name fever, the project was born, or so the myth goes. From there, the couple abducted a Japanese sign painter and started a record company, called Chimera Music. On the label are The GOASTT, Sean Lennon, Yoko Ono, but also Kemp and Eden and If By Yes, both of whom I know nothing about. Seems like a fun family hoedown to me.
On Saturday night, GOASTT played what I think was only their second New York show, debuting some new material and making an uncharacteristic queue of middle-aged Living Room patrons wait and then stand to see them. The room was packed, but not over-crowded. The tables quickly transformed from sanctuaries into satellite outposts, swarmed, surrounded. The pair sang clearly, beautifully, revealing a wealth of material that I found to be extremely interesting and poetic. Beautiful lyrics like "Taxidermy dreams. Bury them under the leaves. Let the Willows weep." evoked a sweet sentiment in me, leaving me a bit enchanted. Being in love with Lennon's record from 2006, I am so glad to see that the songwriting just seems to be getting better, albeit collaboratively now with his lady.
The same night Paul McCartney was on at Radio City, which meant that a lot of Lennon's pals, including his mother, were not at his show. Unbelievable! In an eerie moment, Sean put on his Scouse accent to impersonate Paul giving his promise to send "24 people" to the show. Eerie, because he sounded more like Ringo. Other notable stage banter: finding 4 human skulls in Papa New Guinea, painting banners in Tokyo, flying back to Bora Bora for Sean's glasses, etc.
MY ONLY BEEF: 12 dollar cover @ The Living Room? Why on Earth did they decide to do that?!
"The World Was Made For Men" by The GOASTT Download mp3 (permission requested)
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3 comments:
Great review! It sounds like it was a fantastic show. Drop by seanlennon.com to chat with some of Sean's fans.
thanks for the review!
You really need to check out all the artists on the Chimera label! If By Yes and Kemp & Eden are equally incredible!! go to this link to learn more and hear all the songs on the Chimera sampler release:
http://www.fina-music.com/catalog/index.html?id=103925
Every song is perfect!
The link will give you ordering info as well. A must own! Artwork that comes with the cd is also absolutely amazing. very very cool! I love it!! Wish I could have seen the show. lucky you!
only one question, why the beef? The price was right and the The Living Room is nice for a smaller audience. And to me that's the best way to see artists like Sean and Charlotte.
Hi Anonymous,
Yeah, I felt weird calling it a "beef." I don't really care about it at all - I was trying to say that everything about the show was so lovely, that the only non-positive thing was having money extracted by a door-guy. I have never seen a door-guy at the Living Room before, that's all.
Did you know that the etymology of "having a beef" comes from one person literally complaining about another person eating his/her meat? In a way this makes my comment sort of funny. 12 bucks at the door and 2 samplers later, and I couldn't afford my midnight burger.
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