Something more than conversation...Several years ago, I attended a Phil Ochs Tribute night in Greenwich Village, and was treated to an eclectic group of folk legends(including Dave Van Ronk and John Wesley Harding) and unknown (to me, anyway) acts performing some of my all-time favorite songs. One singer, however, stole the stage that night: a young woman named SONiA of disappear fear (that's how she capitalizes her name and group, and no I don't know why), who performed Phil's "Is There Anybody Here?" and had the audience actually holding our collective breath in awe of her rendition. It was one of the most electric live performances I'd ever seen, and when the concert ended I marched right down the street to Tower Records and bought every disappear fear CD I could find. I'm a child of the '70s; growing up my musical idols were three stars who were certainly timeless, but whose stars had shone brightest in earlier decades: Phil, Buddy Holly, John Lennon. In SONiA, I found a contemporary artist with Lennon's way with a phrase, Phil's dedication to social justice, and Holly's sense of fun. From that night until this, she's been my favorite singer/songwriter, and I've enjoyed each new album from her the way a soldier enjoys a letter from home. SONiA Rutstein is from Baltimore, where she formed disappear fear with her sister Cindy in the late 1980s. A decade later, Cindy retired from the road to raise a family and SONiA pushed on a solo act. She currently tours with a new disappear fear, a self-styled "power trio". SONiA's website (soniadf.com) accurately describes their sound as "part intelligent folk singer-songwriter, part sweaty rock-and-roll and part whimsical pop." They tour incessantly, have a great new CD called DF05 Live (more on that later) and... since, after all, this is a website devoted to films and DVDs... SONiA was nice enough to release a DVD called Happy Birthday, SONiA so that we have something to review. Subtitled "a film of a musical journey", Happy Birthday SONiA includes several live performances, a few brief interviews, and early music videos from a rookie rocker, including the amazing "By Saying Nothing", a Ramones-type power number that shows SONiA in her poser days with a band called Exibit A (that's how they spelled it, alrighty; you definitely have to turn off your grammar check when you write about her. And I haven't even mentioned yet that she signs her name backwards!) in 1986. There are a couple of other vintage numbers, the rollickin' "Hey" (a stadium anthem, from our little SONiA!?) and "Unfinished Song", which places SONiA at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington in 1989. The rest of the tracks were recorded in the past 2 or 3 years, including two versions of "Is There Anybody Here?", a song that is as heartbreakingly poignant today as it was during another wasted war 40 years ago: "Is there anybody here Who'd like to change his clothes into a uniform Is there anybody here who thinks they're only serving in a raging storm Is there anybody here with glory in their eyes, Loyal to the end, whose duty is to die I want to see him, I want to wish him luck I wanna shake his hand, wanna call his name, Pin a medal on the man." The rest of the songs are SONiA originals, including "Who's So Scared", adapted from a poem by Countee Cullen: "Once, riding in old Baltimore, head filled Heart filled with glee I saw a Baltimorean keep looking straight at me Now I was eight and very small And he was no whit bigger And so I smiled but he poked out his tongue and called me nigger I saw the whole of Baltimore from May until December Of all the things that happened there That's all that I remember "When I was fourteen I took a bus to San Francisco I was full of hope and joy 'til this girl called me a boy But I was already on my way, so frightened to be gay Just like 1942 the world screaming There's something wrong with you, Jew "But what I discover, lover after lover There's nothing wrong with me That's just a lie by society" Other numbers are just good ol' fashioned boogie tunes, including "Shake It" and "Dance All Night" ("I gotta go go go to the right / I gotta go go go to the left / I gotta go go go everywhere my baby tells me to"), and some romantic ballads that call for a bottle of wine and a box of chocolate-covered cherries ("You could tell me it's day / But I don't want the night to end / Watch the sun come up on our guilty-smellin' skin"). Interspersed between the songs are home-movie footage with baby SON and snippets of a recent interview, and let's just say that she's not kidding when she admits, "I'm a terrible talker." The highlight for me is when she describes the epiphany she had while watching a Spray 'n' Wash commercial on TV. You don't hear stories like that every day. (To be fair, I had the opportunity to chat with her for a few minutes when she appeared in Winters, California, and she's quite glib when the cameras aren't rolling, folks.) As mentioned, the new disappear fear have a brand new CD out, DF05 LiVE, and it's an absolutely sterling collection of most of her best songs, including the down-home rip-snorter "Ride This Ride" ("Remember three years ago... I was buckin' to be free, and as I recall you were happy just to be buckin' me"), "No Bomb is Smart", "Bring Your Own God", and "Sexual Telepathy". (If it included "Box of Tissues", a song that gives me the impression that it breaks SONiA's heart every time she sings it, and her most beautiful love song, "Seed in the Sahara", the album would be perfect.) It also includes the title track from her 2004 Grammy and Out nominated album, Me, Too. Whereas the DVD Happy Birthday, SONiA is probably aimed at her fans (who will enjoy it), the new CD is a gem that carries our Highest Recommendation. It can be ordered from Amazon.com (listed as DF 05 LiVE) and at www.soniadf.com |