Michelle Shocked Review of 1/1/2000 Bottom Line Show

Published Monday, January 3, 2000, in The New York Times
Reprinted without permission.

Eclecticism In a Family Affair
By Jon Pareles

Michelle Shocked decided to write 30 new songs, enough music for 
two full sets, when she was booked in late November for three
nights at the Bottom Line. Working with the guitarist Fiachna 
O'Braonain (of the Hothouse Flowers), she made her deadline for 
her first set on Thursday night, when she introduced more than 
a dozen songs in nearly as many styles.

Ms. Shocked, who still calls herself a folk singer, used to make 
a defiant show of eclecticism. Now, she and her fans jovially
assume it.

She sang blues, reggae, norteno, punk, gospel and folk-rock songs 
with her new band, the Philosopher Kings; she even rapped a few 
verses. In a voice that could be wry, genial or fervent, she sang 
reminiscences and observations, biblical homilies and a promise 
to "get your ya-ya's off." For her they were all musical kin at a 
big family reunion.

The set let fans hear a songwriter at work, trying out material 
to be culled and refined later. Ms. Shocked's month of songwriting
yielded a handful of songs that are already worth saving. In 
"Scared Little Rabbit on the Flat-Tire Road," she narrated a 
droll,magical tall tale (fit for illustration as a children's 
book) over a chugging Memphis soul riff. "If Not Here Then Where" 
was a wanderer's love song, quiet and folksy, while "Moaning 
Dove," about perching on a bar stool looking for love, harked back 
to Appalachian dulcimer tunes.

She also had hybrids, like an instrumental set of Celtic 
pennywhistle tunes (played by Mr. O'Braonain) atop a John Lee
Hooker-style boogie. And "Picoesque" reached for Los Angeles local 
color by mixing the folk-rock of the Byrds with the East Los 
Angeles bounce of a Mexican-style accordion. Other songs, like a 
punky high school chronicle, "Survival of the Prettiest," called 
for some editing.

But Ms. Shocked, who fought a bitter legal battle in the mid-1990's 
to end a recording contract with Mercury Records, doesn't fret over 
whether a song is suitable for recorded permanence. Like an old 
fashioned troubadour, she writes for the moment with the audience, 
not for the ages.

Many of the songs in her early set were amiable genre pieces, like 
a funk tune about the pleasure of running to a parked car to find 
"Time on the Meter," with few goals beyond making feet tap.

Ms. Shocked was most ebullient when the songs moved toward gospel. 
Singing words from the 23rd Psalm, her voice rose over churchy 
chords from her keyboardist, Sean Dancy.

And in a song with the refrain "That's so amazing," she merged 
folk-rock and gospel, seeing the orbits of Moon and Sun as a 
perpetual revolution that "transforms all creation for all time." 
As both her arms and her voice moved skyward, Ms. Shocked was at 
her best: creating a joyful moment with a durable song.