/  by Michael Arthur

joespub:

[Over the next several months leading up to the celebration of our 15th Anniversary in October, Joe’s Pub will be highlighting drawings from archival artist Michael Arthur who has captured the likes Amy Winehouse, Pete Townshend, Alicia Keys, Carly Simon and many more on our stage. Read about Michael’s story, and stay tuned for details on how you might earn the opportunity to work with Joe’s Pub as an archival artist by submitting your artwork via Tumblr.]

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ADELE

Like Amy Winehouse, Adele had her American concert debut at Joe’s Pub, and—also like Amy Winehouse—I got to sit in on the sound-check and draw. Adele and her two accompanists were very gracious about having me around and it’s one of the singular pleasures in my life that my first experience with Adele’s voice was just hanging out with her while she sang a bunch of unknown songs that were about to become monstrously huge. My sister in law happened to be in town that day and I invited her to the show saying something like, “I dunno. She’s got a lot of positive buzz and I thought she sounded good at soundcheck.”

PAM ANN 

I’ve encountered so many artists for the first time on the Joe’s Pub stage. I had never heard of Pam Ann and I happened to be nearby the Pub, so I wandered in and caught her show with absolutely no idea who she was. It didn’t hurt that the first evening I saw her happened to be a winter night right after a plane had crash-landed in the Hudson river after hitting a flock of geese, leading to the sudden stardom of Captain Sullenberger. Pam Ann started the evening by shouting “What about the geese??!” Pam Ann’s audience is pretty evenly weighted between professionals from the airline industry and passengers and the place erupted.

NELLIE MCKAY

When I began drawing at the Pub, Nellie used to play there a lot and her concerts were always compelling and great while also perilously dangerous. It was not unusual for her to stop a song suddenly or move in a completely different direction or really to just put her head down and leave the stage (she almost always came back). She seemed to present a mesmerizing musical combination of absolute confidence and rattling insecurity. My favorite Nellie McKay moment was a night when she was struggling on stage and suddenly broke in to an impromptu version of “Anything I Can Do, I Can Do Better”, which she presented as a passionate duet with herself.

/  by Michael Arthur

joespub:

This June features Symphonic Sundays here at Joe’s Pub. It’s a new series running June 2, 9, 23 & 30 that pairs TONY TRISCHKA, RAUL MIDON and KELLI SCARR with the 16-piece orchestral pop outfit MOTHER FALCON. On June 30 Mother Falcon will perform Radiohead’s  OK Computer in full. It’s going to be eeeeeeeeeeeepic and you should obviously join us! Tickets are on sale now. Listen to a song from the first night of the series with special guest, banjo legend Tony Trischka while you enjoy the drawings above from our archival artist Michael Arthur.

 

***JUNE 9 KELLI SCARR*** Singer-songwriter Kelli Scarr will take centerstage with Mother Falcon complimenting her ethereal vocal chops with a sweeping orchestral sound. Scarr has collaborated with Moby on the song “Wait For Me,” was nominated for an EMMY Award and NPR Music compared her album Dangling Teeth to Neil Young’s Harvest Moon.

***JUNE 23 RAUL MIDON*** Raul Midón will step up to the microphone backed by Mother Falcon to unleash his silky, soulful tenor and dazzling percussive guitar. Midón uses a syncopated, flamenco, and jazz-infused style in which bass, harmony, and melodic lines emanate from the fretboard. His signature improvisational mouth horn technique, in which he creates a bebop “trumpet” solo entirely with his lips, has earned him applause from audiences worldwide. It’s a virtuoso performance, and one that reveals what has made Midón such an exciting artist to watch over the past few years.

***JUNE 30 OK COMPUTER*** Mother Falcon will cap off Symphonic Sundays and celebrate its critically acclaimed new release You Knew with an epic tribute to Radiohead’s 1997, Grammy Award winning album OK Computer played in its entirety.

ABOUT MOTHER FALCON: Mother Falcon includes three cellos, six violins, pianos, a horn section, a bassoon and a glockenspiel. Born in Austin, Texas, Mother Falcon began to coalesce around multi-instrumentalist and composer Nick Gregg while the members were still teenagers, coming together via orchestral and chamber music classes. Composing as a collective, the 18 piece ensemble includes several multi-instrumentalists, and most players contribute vocals as well. Guitarist/pianist Claire Puckett, accordionist/pianist Tamir Kalifa and percussionist/saxophonist Issac Winburne form the creative core along with Nick Gregg. “Its songs shimmer and boom with infectious joy…crafting impeccable, surprisingly airy three-minute pop songs…positively spills over with ideas and enthusiasm.” – NPR Music

/  by Michael Arthur

joespub:

[Over the next several months leading up to the celebration of our 15th Anniversary in October, Joe’s Pub will be highlighting drawings from archival artist Michael Arthur who has captured the likes Amy Winehouse, Pete Townshend, Alicia Keys, Carly Simon and many more on our stage. Read about Michael’s story, and stay tuned for details on how you might earn the opportunity to work with Joe’s Pub as an archival artist by submitting your artwork via Tumblr.]

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AMY WINEHOUSE

Amy Winehouse’s first American concert was at Joe’s Pub, in advance of the American release of Back to Black. The album release may have been about a month away, but there was a lot of hype and it felt like a loaded event. I had only just started drawing at the Pub and I was told there was no room for me in the booth during the shows and the seating and standing room was going to be packed. When I asked if I could draw the soundcheck, no one had any objection, so I got to spend the afternoon with her and her band as they prepped for the show. She and her background singers seemed interested in what I was doing—the singers mugged for me—which shows up in the drawing—and Winehouse kept coming over and looking at my drawings, checking in. I liked her a lot. I wrote a blog about this experience and—over the years—it probably has had more reads than any other post I ever wrote.

KENNY MELLMAN

I first saw Kenny Melman perform—partnered with Justin Bond—as half of Kiki and Herb. Later, I spent many, many evenings being shocked, amused, amazed, delighted and surprisingly touched to my core by him, Neil Medlyn, Bridget Everett and the many regulars of Our Hit Parade. Our Hit Parade’s rotating cast of regulars and special guests carved out a downtown community by doing things no one had ever seen while making it safe and keeping it dangerous all at the same time. Kenny’s hard to categorize because he’s a leading man whose role always makes him look like a sideman. It’s a challenge to capture that contradictory essence in a drawing, but I’ve tried a few times over the years. This drawing was actually drawn on an iPad using the brushes program, which I experimented with a few years back. I only did a few portraits on the iPad, because I feel like the glow is distracting in a dark theatre. It’s kind of like saying “look at me, I’m drawing” which is the last thing I want when I’m doing a show portrait.

ABIGAIL WASHBURN

Abigail Washburn has great frizzy hair and that makes her amazing to draw. It doesn’t hurt that her band, The Sparrow Quartet (herself, Ben Sollee, Bela Fleck and Casey Driessen) was like a supergroup that somehow slipped in and played under the radar. The first four or five times I saw Abigail she was exploring her mix of Appalachian and Mandarin music with these curious and amazing collaborators. Most recently, I got to spend a week with her while she and director Meiyin Wang developed a new musical based on Abigail’s experiences and songs. Also, I went to my first rap concert with her, Shanta Thake (Joe’s Pub’s director) and Carla Parisi at SXSW. That’s where drawing can get you. heh.

Captions by Michael Arthur.