I don’t know my co-worker who arranged for this, but hats off to him. Pretty sweet to have someone of his stature come play at work. Must be a little awkward for a performer due to the space not being much of a performance space at all, but I’m sure he’ll be great. I’ll post some photos if I get any decent ones.
A couple of nice Magnetic Fields tracks:
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One Comment
Follow-up: The show was a bit awkward for the performer and the audience, although I think everyone was stoked he was there. The space is a large, open, high-ceilinged stone hall with a modern metal staircase in the middle leading to an open mezzanine of the next floor. He performed below this on a tall chair with his legs dangling off. Behind the stairs are cubes and offices. The acoustics are a little odd due to the hard surfaces / it’s not designed for performance. He was a good sport though and played 3 three songs, just voice and uke. Some short quips thrown in. He did well, but it was obvious he wasn’t too excited to be there.
Then he moved to the couch a few feet behind him and there was a Q&A moderated by the woman that set this up—the owner of a music management/licensing agency–and Stephin’s musical partner, Claudia Gonson, came out to answer, comment or expound upon what Stephin said/didn’t say. She seemed to be the most comfortable. The music licensing lady was a little nervous and, it seemed, tried to ask questions about Stephin/music/music-making in the context of advertising and film which made it a little forced and more awkward than it needed to be. Claudia kept the dialogue going, but they were clearly ready to go after 15 minutes or so. I think they should’ve just kept it a little more natural and not tried to pitch(if that’s what she was doing) and left the advertising aspect out of it unless someone brought it up.
Pretty cool to have these kinds of talents at one’s work on a Monday afternoon though, so I’m not complaining. I do need to really see them live.