Last night I made the trek down to Prospect Lefferts Gardens in Brooklyn to see Jean Rohe at the Owl. Jean is perhaps may favorite musician and The Owl is a hoot. I should just stop right there; you now know everything you need to know about me. I won’t because you don’t know everything you need to know about Jean. I’ve known Jean for ten years and still don’t know everything I need to know about Jean; I discovered something new last night, something important, why I love her music. I have not seen her live in almost two years, we tried to figure out the last time. Time has not passed linearly during the plague years, decades? Centuries? Days? See it’s all the same now. We think it was June 2020, almost exactly two years ago at a porch concert. Before that going two months without seeing each other would have felt like a long time. Maybe that’s why I learned things; I was hearing Jean with fresh ears; make that a fresh brain.
It was Thursday so Gord’s Gold was on last night. It was on during the past part of Jean’s set. I played Jean on the show; I was hearing her sing live while her song Long Lost You was playing on the internet radio. She sang the song live about 20 minutes too early for them to synch. I didn’t play the song because I knew I’d be seeing Jean, I played it because it’s Pride Month and she recently released the Long Lost You even though I think it was written before I met her. I knew it was a song I needed to play but it wasn’t until I listened to her sing it live, that I realized why it was the platonic ideal of what I wanted in a queer set. Before I go on listen to the song. Pay careful attention to the words.
Take a deep breath, that affected you. You were inside the mind of adult Jean being inside the mind of teen Jean, that’s a lot to handle. I have a queer friend who was deeply affected by the song. They could relate. No surprising. But I’m not queer and I can intensely relate. That’s genius. This is not a gay anthem; this is not Jean flying her colors. This is a classic song type, regretting lost love. There have been songs about this forever, including my favorite Beatles song, In My Life. I’ll have to remember to play them back to back. But even that is not the thing, what makes it the archetype Gord’s Gold Pride Month song. It isn’t the classic song subject that just happens to be about same-sex love. The queerness is essential to the story. The boys would not be throwing rocks if her love interest was a man. It was an integral part of the experience, while not being the sole focus of the experience. It’s that multiplicity of layers that I love.
After the show I told Jean that I was going to write about discovering why I love her. She of course asked why. I almost didn’t tell her I was writing that because I didn’t want to give a short answer. What I’m writing here is not long enough. But I didn’t decline her request for an answer because in addition to loving he as an artist I love her as a person and I’m not good about resisting requests from loved ones, so I answered. “It’s that you see the universe in a grain of sand.” Think about that song, how specific it is. It’s not a song about love, it’s not a song about lesbian love or high school love. It’s a song about Jean’s specific love for a specific person. Yet it leads the listener to an entire universe of emotions and thoughts. I had thoughts about a classic old science fiction story, The Girl in the Golden Atom. I think it’s from 1919. The physics is ridiculous even for the understanding of the time. It’s not the greatest story. But what has stuck with me for over 50 years is the idea of this man shrinking and entering a gold ring. He walks down a groove. As he shrinks the landscape grows, the bumps become boulders. Eventually at atom becomes a solar system and an electron a planet that he lives in and finds love on. That’s what listening to Jean’s songs does, you descend into the microcosm until you discover it leads to another macrocosm. If I lost, you there think of Ant Man entering the quantum realm.
I could write another essay on Jean’s new autobiographic 74 Bus Line songs. These are personal songs about her father who spent much of his life on along that bus’s route. But I can’t. I have a life outside of blogging.
I’ve been looking forward to sharing these thoughts with you since halfway through Jean’s set. It’s a relief to get to do so.
Jean was just the opener. The headliner was Zoe Guigueno. She was there with her full band. They keyboard player was Michelle and the guitar player Adam. The drummer’s names and all their last names have also fled to sunnier climes. I’m just showing off I remember two names. After what I wrote about Jean, nothing I write about Zoe can do her justice. I feel bad about that but sometimes the art rules the artists who can only take orders. Just go and listen to her. After the show I saw friends in the audience. I’m in Brooklyn, I’m going to see friends. Liam was expected, he’s Jean’s significant other(a song about him would be quite different) and they live close by. I should have expected Dave as he’s my stalker. If I go to a show in Brooklyn he’s there. Taylor was there, I had just seen him when I saw Hannah Read and the Stephanae playing. The person I didn’t expect to see was Lily Henley. I played her on Gord’s Gold last night to. I’ve been playing her new album, Oras Dezaoradas frequently. She was a surprise as I thought she was in France. She’s back for a short stretch but I didn’t know that. I was just lucky to run into her.
Or was I unlucky. The show started late and then instead of leaving so I could get home before midnight when I turn back into a pumpkin, I stayed and schmoozed. That has always been one of my favorite things to do but after the long isolation it’s even more important. I finally pulled myself away, said my goodbyes, got my hugs, and headed home. The ride seemed like it would be easy, no wait for the 3 train and not too long a wait for the D. Famous last words. They were doing construction and the D went slowly. Then right before my station it stopped dead and sat there. It felt like two hours. I might have been as short as five minutes. Most likely it was somewhere in between. That meant I didn’t get enough sleep. Then I kept falling asleep once I was awake. I had my last session with my therapist, she’s retiring. I love her and usually that would be the focus of an entry. But I have to be good. I have to set an appointment for a job interview then head out to the Sunset Singing Circle.
Wise Madness 