Kristeen Young, 11/20/08 NYC

Kristeen Young hits the stage looking like a vintage Hollywood-musical femme fatale, just escaped from a Palm Springs hospital after a New Year's Eve suicide attempt, doing an impromptu show for a few surprised fans in a dark roadside bar, still sporting hospital bracelets, which temporarily distract one from her kick-ass eye make-up and a glam, slinky black number in which she would contort and cavort, albeit with an unnerving, dysfunctional rage. Despite the appearance of such a dramatic persona, Ms. Young was quite calmly chatting with fans in a soft voice immediately before taking over the stage at Pianos; those hospital-esque bracelet-slash-wrist-antennae she rocks are in fact anti-carpal tunnel devices of sorts; CTS being a Dionysian occupational hazard for a passionate keybs-pounder like Young. If you watch carefully, you can learn some of the notes...
In the liner notes to Frankie Goes to Hollywood's stone-cold classic double-album "Welcome To The Pleasure Dome", the band speak about getting a buzz from the fact that Andy Warhol has heard of them, because Warhol gets a buzz out of the fact that Picasso -- or Dali? -- had heard of him. Suffice to say, my initial interest in Kristeen Young was admittedly, similar: the only time I ever saw Kristeen Young was during the last 45 seconds of her support set for Morrissey at the Borgata in Atlantic City last summer, and I thought to myself (paraphrasing here): At least I caught that crazy climax!, not realizing that a Kristeen Young performance is that way not just for the final 45 seconds but for the entire 45 minutes of the set, as you'll see here (at least for seven minutes in hell -- that's meant as a compliment) during these Tetris-falling-violently-into-place modular percussive piano + drum + vocal arrangements, championed by that great Mother of Invention, Kate Bush, which is also a compliment.
Onstage, Young owns her moments big time, practicing what she preaches, as it were...As her muse suffers and indicts, she falls down as if at a Baptist revival, or maybe like Medea, and when she screams the chorus "You don't know who you're dealing with!", then hypnotically wails the half-complete Cartesian meditation: "I am! I am! I am! she delivers what might be heard as either self-assertion or self-destruction, or both, depending on a listener's mood. In any case its gotta be damn hard to manage effects pedals in patent leather platform pumps, whether youre David Johanssen or Kristeen Young, as you'll see here.
Left-field note: When she sang the line "The revolution is fertility!", she briefly reminded me of the poster for the movie of "The Handmaid's Tale", and also, when she started to collapse on the floor, 80's Richard Kern muse, Lung Leg. The dedicated fans who came to Pianos as the temperature dipped to one of its lowest points this year were reminded yet again of why they bother to step out into, and take on, the bitter cold.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Kristeen
• Young
• Michael
• Vazquez
• Pianos
• NYC

[Imogence]

She attempted suicide?

[StephenCollins]

I was at this show :D

[errantcomponent]

THIS is exactly why I love her and Baby Jef: raw, passionate and talented.

[CJKDJW]

oh my god,kristeen is a goddess.

[BmMcGo]

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!