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Mike iLL

| | | — | | **Interesting last coupla days. Performed with a singer from Atlanta called Cat Power. She’s got a huge following (mostly women) and she does this like, bedside folk/punk thing. Total star quality. She’s up on the stage apologizing left and right, and acts like she can barely tune her guitar, hair all over her face, then she does these 2 chord folk songs that are so beautiful you could die. Next night Oren Bloedow performed at Fez niteclub on Lafayette St. This place is so cool cuz it’s all Jazz-lit/speakeasy small tables, and booths around the perimeter vibe. Oren plays bass and guitar and composes this new jazz/rock music that’s so layed back and smooth, you could shave your legs with it. He had five groups playing that night, and it just kept getting better and better. Probably some of the best musicians on the scene were out there; Medeski, Martin and Wood played, Ben Perowski, Jim Black to name a few. Oren and his woman Jennifer have a group called Elysian Fields, Jennifers voice is f’n amazing. At the end of the night he and her did a duet of ‘Deep Song’ by Billie Holiday that gave me goosebumps like three times. Wow. Sunday played a benefit for a woman with cancer in Bayonne NJ. It was mostly put together by a motorcycle club from the area. These guys cleared out weeds, glass and rocks from a big dirt field on the waterfront, put in tables and chairs and tents, a flatbed truck/stage - man, bikers rock! Dreamed a phone conversation with death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal.

12/06/1999