metal heart

a very long time ago (maybe almost 10 years ago), my friend conrad worked for matador records and invited me to see cat power perform a private show at webster hall, in one of the smaller rooms. it was her, a piano, and the film the passion of joan of ark projected behind her, in silence. there was a very intimate crowd of less than 50 people if i'm remembering corretly. i almost didn't go because i was feeling anti-social, but i lived around the corner and managed to make it, and i am so glad i went- it was one of the most amazing shows i've ever seen her perform, and i've seen her play at quite a few. i think there was not a dry eye in the house. the reason i am writing about is because i'm listening to moon pix right now and was just transported to that moment...

later, when asked about that show, this is what she said:
"When I got back from the 'Moonpix' tour, I was so much hating what I was doing... that I was so happy with all these new songs that I been playing, all these covers. So I called this club in New York, and I said I wanted to play there. "Can I play there on Sunday?" They said "No, 'cause it's our filmseries night". An old friend of mine from Atlanta, who was in a band called Smoke but passed away last year, he told me that I should really play along with 'Passion of Joan Of Arc'. He told me: "You would like it." Mostly, when people tell you that, you don't listen to them. But when people you care about tell you something, you always remember what they said. So they said it was their filmseries night. "So what if you got this movie 'Passion of Joan of Arc' by Dreyer, can you get that on reel to reel?" And they said they could do that. I had never seen the movie. So I show up at soundcheck, I'm looking at the film, they are playing it to make sure they got the angle right. So I just play all my songs, watching the movie, people are watching the movie. I felt really comfortable because they weren't looking at me. It was really a great experience and the movie blew me away."