In 1982 I, like Napoleon, was the self proclaimed emperor of the dance floor. The Red Parrot in Northbridge was my Fontainebleau. Indeep’s song Last Night a DJ Saved My Life was my go to song. How little did I know that 40 years later those improbable lyrics would come to pass during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Socially isolated under semi house arrest in the locked-down state of Western Australia things were getting desperate. Australian wineries had started a pyjama club where each week you were sent a bottle of wine and on Friday night you could video into a virtual wine tasting. However there was no live music. That was until I discovered DJ Cheryl Waters and KEXP community radio in Seattle. Cheryl and other DJs Kevin Cole and Troy Nelson hosted touring bands in the KEXP live room and posted the videos on YouTube.
Those DJs and those live recordings really did save my life!
A few weeks ago I was able to go on a pilgrimage to KEXP in Seattle and watch a performance by Cassandra Jenkins and her band in the live room. (Cassandra had played at Barbosa the previous night which like her previous album An Overview on Phenomenal Nature was ….. phenomenal.)
Introduced in the KEXP live room by DJ Troy Nelson, Cassandra and her band immediately hit their straps with songs from the 2024s album My Light, My Destroyer. The sound is amazing.
Clams Casino is an instant country classic. Not in classic Nashville style but full of Cassandra’s exquisite observations and turn of phrase. “I don’t wanna laugh alone anymore. Knew it was time to put this suit away. When I ripped the knees open eating the pavement.”
Song Arora,IL is a modern masterpiece played live with the full band. Observations from a hotel sickbed mixed with the sound of time and space floating down from the universe above.
Off to the side of the studio stands a silent saxophonist like a knife in the water. Until he cuts in on Hard Drive, a spoken word mantra that records and references people Cassandra interacted with in her day-to-day New York city life. Like a de-gruffed Tom Waits on Bone Machine she adds snippets of field recordings. The saxophone transforming an already fantastic song into a genre engulfing beautiful jazz rock poem of modern life.
There was to be one last song but we were ejected from the listening space to allow the recording without an audience present.
It makes for another mysterious but highly anticipated Friday night at home with KEXP and ?Pinot Noir? and Cassandra Jenkins’s ?extra song?. Like Nordic Noir the suspense is palpable.
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