Aug 23 2008
Jana Hunter Opens Her Palms
On Wednesday night at Le Divan Orange, Dog Day opened the set with their own brand of punk-rock that was catchy and hooky despite the somewhat muffled sound and indistinguishable keyboards.Nancy Ulrich’s sweetly melodic vocals were a pleasant surprise and a nice contrast to the feverish urgency of the music, while keyboardist Crystal Thili’s random shots of the audience with her point-and-shoot camera made me feel like an exploited rockstar who gets blinded onstage nightly by shockingly bright flashes from the audience below. Thili must’ve taken half a dozen pictures of innocent audience members while playing one chord progression after another with her left hand. Now that’s what I call multi-tasking.
Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez came next and sang a set of intimate folk songs about love, bears, owls, and the spaces between children’s fingers. Sitting comfortably with acoustic guitar in his lap, Alvarez poured out his heart and strummed mellow pastoral melodies that remind you of sitting in a forest by a burbling brook among animals who unceremoniously stroll over to eat berries right out of your hands. (I was completely sober throughout the entire show.) Before playing his last song, Alvarez asked the audience to clap along “if you guys are up to it” and demonstrated the rhythm. His genuine lyrics and heartwarming melodies glued all eyes and ears to the stage. This singer/songwriter was Lesser than none. (Pardon the sorry excuse for a pun.) I was among those who kept the rhythm going for the entire song and ushered in the headliner in anticipation.
Jana Hunter strolled on stage and thanked everyone for their tireless applause. She then proceeded to sing The Earth Has No Skin a cappella while the band finished setting up on stage. Pouring out favorites like Babies, Vultures, and Palms, Hunter was casually clad in brown shirts and white t-shirt with light brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and glasses supported by her upturned nose. Despite her small stature, Hunter commanded the stage (the entire venue, actually) with her unassuming but powerful presence. Her liquidly androgynous voice pulled you into her world, and had it not been for a few drunken floozies rattling their lips at five hundred miles an hour, (and annoying the hell out of the rest of us), the few dozen people who came to hear her sing would have gladly lost touch with reality (if only for a while) to be mesmerized by Hunter’s revealing songs.
I caught up with Jana after the show and chatted about this, that, and the other while she was approached every few minutes by people complementing her performance and offering free hugs (and weed).
AnnA: Your last album was called There’s No Home. On your song Babies, the lyrics are: “For many reasons, I left my home. Most of those reasons, I still don’t know.” Did you really feel that way?
Jana: If there’s anything thematic about that record, it’s about the idea of family. Right before I wrote that record the patriarch of my family passed away and it kind of threw my idea of family into oblivion. I had identified my family as home and when the patriarch passed away that idea kind of dissipated, to put it mildly. I didn’t really feel fully developed as an adult, and the song Babies in particular is trying to balance the desire at that age in my life to start a family with the notion that starting a family and settling down is a trap that you fall into.
AnnA: At this point have you changed your idea of what it’s like to start a family?
Jana: I think I just feel more comfortable now, not relying on blood ties for a feeling of family. Allowing family and community to be wherever it is, to come from wherever it comes from.
AnnA: Where is the place where you feel the most comfortable or happiest?
Jana: A physical place?
AnnA: For example, when you’re doing something, like songwriting or drinking beer with friends, or…
Jana: I feel most at home working with my friends.
AnnA: On music?
Jana: On whatever we’re working on. Doing something actively with friends. Probably not drinking. Drinking doesn’t feel like home. (laughs)
AnnA: What are your worst fears?
Jana: A complete loss of connection to anything. Feeling completely out of place without any sort of tie to any person.
AnnA: Do you notice a pattern if you play a European show, or a Canadian show, or an American show with how the audience responds? Are some audiences more chitter-chatter and they’re just there to drink and are some more involved and just there to listen?
Jana: There are definitely places you can say will almost always be a certain way, but it’s very rarely consistent in a single country. One of the few things you can say is that Italian audiences are always gonna talk. They have a lot to say. (chuckles)
AnnA: What about Montreal? I’ve heard bands say that Montreal is usually a really good show.
Jana: Yeah, Montreal has almost always been a really fantastic show and experience all the way around.
Photos by: Erik Naumann
