According to the notice he had attempted suicide several times and failed. The day before Christmas in 2009 he succeeded.
Vic Chesnutt was a great singer songwriter. Confined to a wheelchair since the age of 18 when a car accident left him paralysed he relearnt the guitar by playing only the easy chords. His simple melodies wrapped themselves around witty and sometimes complex lyrics - often with an apparent sense of humour.
His songs have been performed by many big acts: REM, Madonna, The Indigo Girls and Smashing Pumpkins.
The financial burden of having to pay for his medical treatment seemed to have played a part in his depression. This prolific songwriter will be sadly missed.
From not wanting to go, to dragging my sorry arse out of the house I was glad I did - Justin Townes Earle was fantastic.
He played a huge range of musical styles, alone, just him and his guitar. From swampbilly rock, to western swing, to hillbilly there were shades of his father’s voice, and even particular mannerisms - that “bending over and holding his head on the side” thing that he does.
He’s a prolific performer. Malcolm Gladwell has that Outlier theory that people need to do 10,000 hours to get really really good at whatever they do well. With the number of gigs that Earle has done Malcolm Gladwell’s hypothesis stacks up beautifully.
Here’s a video that I shot of Justin’s second to last song. Enjoy.
Try the All Blacks lineout challenge - click on the image to view full size
The All Blacks were pitiful. And I gleaned that just from the edited highlights on the news.
Now everyone is calling for Graham Henry’s head to roll. Sorry to disappoint you but he’s just been signed up til after the next World Cup.
So, while reading the NZ Herald article on the beating that the All Blacks are suffering at the hands of the foreign press I couldn’t help but be drawn to this lovely online ad for Mastercard.
Mastercard ad gone - click on image for larger view
Featuring Richie McCaw the advertisement from Mastercard encourages us to “Try the All Blacks line-out challenge”. Slightly ironic perhaps, given that the All Blacks couldn’t win any lineouts.
I checked the same story tonight and the advertisement is gone - replaced with white space. Oh dear.
Update: seems I was premature and that Mastercard are standing behind the men in black - the add miraculously appeared. It’s still funny.
I had the greatest pleasure of seeing Victoria Williams and Vic Chesnutt perform at the San Francisco Bath-house last night. What a joy!
The first few notes are sung by Victoria and tears well up in my eyes. It’s going to be a great concert.
I have known her music since the early 1990’s - and Vic Chesnutt’s since the turn of the century. I confess, I was there to see her and not him, but Vic was a bit like an added bonus.
Victoria Williams has the most beautiful voice - at times a mezzo soprano (just) and at others sounding like a screeching six year old girl. As a solo artist (there was no-one else on stage other than Chesnutt) her piano accompaniement is spartan but perfectly balanced, playing notes only when required, allowing the listener to fill the gaps. Her prowess on guitar was similar. Beautifully haunting and melodic. She swept the small crowd along with her charm and her beguiling sense of humour and graciousness.
Is it obvious I’m more of a fan now than I was when I went?
Miss Williams had not long hopped off the plane - she admitted she was jet-lagged. But there was no evidence of a lack of energy. In her self-confessed muddled state she had forgotten her notebook of songs. So she interspersed each song she played with humming and strumming, while she played with the audience deciding what to offer us next. Long silences were not embarrassing, far from it. Instead they raised the level of expectation as to what was coming next.
Her lyrics are very conversational and rambling, but there seems to always be a definite purpose - “Happy” is a perfect case in point. After fourteen albums (seven as part of the Creekdippers and seven as a solo artist) she had a lot of material to draw from. It seemed like she would never stop. Every ‘this-will-be-my-last-song’ led to another, and another, or so it seemed. That was OK by me.
Vic Chesnutt took over as ‘lead’ while Victoria remained on stage enamoured with his performance and his music. Vic started the set with a little impromptu ditty about New Zealand and our ‘giant calamari’ - a running joke between the audience and both performers in the latter stages of the night.
He started his set with “The Gravity of the Situation”, one of the few songs I was familiar with. Like Victoria his lyrics are conversational and rambling (in a good way). “Florida” was a request from the crowd, and what a great song. In fact his set was pretty well made up of audience requests. We were only denied a few times, usually because the song was so far back in his repertoire that he didn’t feel confident doing it justice.
Celebrity, Entertainment | Skinny | 
December 27, 2009 4:27 pm | 
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