Saturday, June 03, 2006

(Do you wanna) come walk with me, by Isobel Campbell


I know, someone said one shouldn't write when one's jolly drunk but I want this to be fresh... like orange juice in Mexico City's morning corners. I just saw Isobel Campbell playing at the small Homefires-Coway Hall festival and it was the mellowest concert I've ever been to. Before Campbell played there were other good bands like Grizzly Bear, ex-Beta Band members as the Aliens and another guys from Glasgow, I think their name was P.C.O. or something like that -they didn't give programs, so that explains why I don't know the name.
I went on my own because, as always, I told my friends at the very last last minute, and they couldn't aford it. Prrrrt. Glasgow was in tha house tonight and the Scottish crew made the London music scene appear pretty upight. Man! Londoners are uptight that's the truth.
The Scottish girl is more like a woman actually. I expected her to be dressed in pink or something retro but she was wearing a plain black dress. While she was playing the cello she looked like the typical mucisian of a chamber orchestra. She is beautiful of course and very very shy, but that wasn't an impediment for her to shut up the people at the back because they were too drunk and not giving a damn bout the gig. Oh that woman is in love, and one doesn't have to be Dr. heart to know it.
Her voice is like a whisper said on a distant cold mountain, warm and sweet as honey. The combination of hers and Mark Lanegan's voice, is a good one coz, as she says, their voices are 'like the two sides of a coin.' Some people call them the beauty and the beast duo, but anyone -well, not actually, I'm thinking of Liz Fraser, but mmm, let's say, any man- could appear as a beast when singing with her.

She wrote the lyrics of her last album, The Ballad of Broken Hearts, from a male's perspective, and made Lanegan sing them. I can imagine that must have been fun.

I'm not saying I love you
I won't say I'll be true
there's a crimson bird flying
when I go down on you


I wonder how many men would dare say something like this, since they're not only afraid of love and compromise but also of expressing that they actually enjoy giving pleasure to girls.

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