Van Dyke Parks at the London Meltdown Festival
a report by Michael Kemp (e-mail: margaretkemp@lineone.net) on an unusual and thrilling concert held on Friday, 2nd July 1999 in the Royal Festival Hall, London.
Took our places in our own little section of row G (about seven rows from the stage) and what follows is just an extract from the multitude of images that are buzzing around my head in the aftermath of the concert. Hal Willner came on first (just to show us his new t-shirt, he reckoned) and introduced a short film of Harry Smith at 70 smoking one of the cameraman's joints!) Then Syd Straw appeared on stage to sing a morbid little song about a father returning home to find his daughter hanging in the bedroom (lots of the Folkways Anthology songs are concerned with death, murder, madness etc) and on this she was backed by the Mondrian String Quartet conducted by a certain little person in a blue plaid shirt, a frizzy spark of white hair and a most enthusiastic disposition: Van Dyke Parks!
When Syd had done with the tragic tale, Van Dyke took over lead vocals on the second song which I think was "East Virginia" accompanying himself on piano and again backed by the resonant strings of the Mondrian Quartet (flown in from Holland we were told). It was like "Moonlighting at the Ash Grove" come to life, except these were all unfamiliar songs to me which made it all the more exciting. After this song Van Dyke introduced Nick Cave as being "a true Renaissance man...", Cave rose to the challenge magnificently and performed a steely taut version of "John The Revelator" - backed by (another surprise) Kate and Anna McGarrigle! I'm fairly familiar with them, having lived in Montreal; but I've never seen them so contemporary as this, they were obviously thrilled to be back-up singers for the imposing Mr Cave. An apocalyptic reading of this old gospel song, bring on the fire and brimstone!
We had several screenings of Harry Smith's hand-painted animations ("Early Abstractions") during the evening, backed by all kinds of different musics. My recollections will be sketchy this morning (I've only had a few hours sleep) but I shall produce a more in-depth review when my thoughts have settled. Suffice to say we had Beth Orton doing a most macabre version of "Frankie and Johnny (were sweethearts)", an incredible jazz vocalist with the Jimmy Scott Trio (i THINK it was Jimmy Scott, some of the names and artists were new to me) literally bringing the house down with "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child", Bob Neuwirth (a contemporary of Bob Dylan as in "hanging out" circa "Eat The Document" 1966) (also collaborated with John Cale on the album "Last Days On Earth") came on in a sparkly spangly country & western jacket & performed an improbable version of "I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground"on banjo, Jarvis Cocker came out (god i wish i were that shape!) and did 2 songs: the first on a miniature child's piano about cuckoos and the second a melodramatic "performance" number about being invaded by cockroaches ("You may not think much of my civilization, but this is the end of our cockroach conversation" cue to jumping up & down in histrionic manner despatching said cockroach to its doom), Gary Lucas (he was in the final line-up of Captain Beefheart's Magic Band circa "Ice Cream For Crow") playing some astounding slide guitar, June Tabor, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Eliza Carthy and (this you may not believe) a surprise appearance by Bryan Ferry BACKED BY VAN DYKE PARKS!!! ("It's a great privilege to be on the same stage as Bryan Ferry - we both came in through the same corporate door...")
And then Syd Straw came back to duet with Van Dyke on "Fishin' Blues" ("Hey Van Dyke, I saw you goin' fishin' with a cute little girl last Wednesday,did you catch anything?" "I sure hope not" etc) and then Hal Willner brought everybody back on stage together, not to sing a big finale number but just to say goodbye together and i just stared at this disparate bunch on stage and was stunned at the wealth of talent on display, and the sheer breadth of the organizers' vision/ imagination.