On 14 November 2003, singer/songwriter Libby Kirkpatrick came by Laser’s Edge for a visit and an in-store performance. When I went to her car to help unload her stuff, she showed me what she called her current favorite CD, one she’d been listening to lately on the road, one that had her in its thrall. It was a mix CD, made by a friend, and I was intrigued by the unusual assortment of tracks on it, songs with titles that were scribbled on the white tray card with a very fine ink pen. Seeing my interest, Libby naturally did what any selfless, giving person might: she offered it to me as a gift. I still have it somewhere (I ran across it recently, but hell if I can find it right now when I want to!).
I, in turn, made her a mix CD as a gift later that night, and gave it to her the following morning over breakfast at the Pancake House (in Five Points South). The disc was inspired by her apparent eclectic interests, and features some of my favorite songs (“Tears of Rage,” “Michigan,” “You’re a Hurricane, I’m a Caravan”) as well as what I thought of at the time was an international flavor. I adorned the cover of the jewel case with a nighttime photo of the alley behind my house, strung with hundreds of feet of white incandescent (see below) lights and taken with a handheld slow exposure, giving the picture a shaky, eerie, dreamlike quality. I thought later that it would be just like Libby Kirkpatrick, and completely in character for her, to offer the CD I’d made to the next person she met who showed an interest, in whatever town she visited next, who might in turn make her a mix CD, and so on, and so on…
That’s the way the world goes, sometimes.
Here is a shot of Libby on that in-store performance day. Yes, that is a plate containing an apple, a pear, a plum, some grapes, and chocolate (“green room” goodies). And a candle, as she disliked the room tone provided by our overhead fluorescent lights (see above). We turned them off at her very reasonable request.
(photo: spitballarmy.com)
Libby’s playlist has an approximate playing time of 80 minutes.
- Grey Larsen & Andre Marchand
“Acadian Mouth Music / Horses, Geese & One Old Man” (1993) - Joseph Arthur “Evidence” (2002)
- Oranger “Static on the High Desert” (2003)
- Josh Rouse “Princess on the Porch” (2003)
- Tractor Kings “Gone to Heaven” (2003)
- My Morning Jacket “The Way That He Sings” (2001)
- January “Eyes All Mine” (2001)
- Bee Gees “Please Read Me” (1967)
- The Shins “New Slang” (2001)
- The Shangri-Las “I Can Never Go Home Anymore” (1965)
- Thomas Newman “Bloodless Freak” from American Beauty (2000)
- Neko Case “Stinging Velvet” (2002)
- World Party “You’re a Hurricane, I’m a Caravan” (2000)
- The Band “Tears of Rage” (1968)
- The Vessels “Delight” (2002)
- Antonio Plotino & New Music Studium
“Poulenc: Suite Francaise (VI. Sicilienne – Tres Doucement)” (1998) - June Tabor “Paint Me, Redouté” (2001)
- Los Zafiros “La Luna en tu Mirada” (1965)
- Chris Kowanko “Modern Daze” (1992)
- Ron Sexsmith “While You’re Waiting” (1997)
- Josh Rouse (again) “Michigan (live, acoustic)” (2003)
[audio:Fred_FM_playlist_050910.mp3]
Fred FM playlist for Libby Kirkpatrick (14 November 2003 / 9 May 2010)
The cover of Libby’s mix CD.
3 responses so far ↓
1 bureaucratist // May 9, 2010 at 7:08 PM
I was the smudge of ashen fluff–and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.
And from the inside, too, I’d duplicate
Myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate.
2 spitballarmy // May 9, 2010 at 7:22 PM
Very nice, B. Vladimir Nabokov, “Pale Fire.” Life imitates art.
3 bureaucratist // May 9, 2010 at 7:57 PM
“As a young man, I worried almost exclusively about waking from the dream and somehow jinxing what I perceived then as my good fortune but would come over the course of years to understand was my birthright. I wondered, too, at this other life, an apple on a plate, the first in my experience to grant me a lengthy, firsthand, low-distance look at its particulars. The first at least that was neither a child’s nor my unreliable parents’. The Old Masters take these ordinary objects and imbue them with a light at once utterly strange and determinedly familiar. Penned now in a bigger, stranger field, I attempted to graze, but in my unaccustomed state each new detail was another spin at a crooked carnival on a broken merry-go-round accelerating quickly out of control, the central pin threatening to come unmoored and send us all rolling through the countryside, crushing small children and causing damage to homes unlikely to be covered by insurance.”
That one is just me 🙂 . There’s an Elvis reference in there, too.
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