Susan Hwang

One of my favorite songs is Sparks’ “Sherlock Holmes.”  Back when Debutante Hour first started, Maria and I used to do a cover of it as a duo.  She humored me..  I’m sad that a recording of it never made it onto the Follow Me covers EP, but I was thrilled to work it up to any performable level with her.

I’d never actually read any Sherlock Holmes before.  It seemed so old and so British and so something I wouldn’t like.  There didn’t seem to be any women in the stories.  When I was a kid, I liked fantasy novels.  These stories didn’t have a single dragon or magic back door into another realm.  What was going to keep my interest?

Turns out that I love Sherlock Holmes.  And Dr. Watson.  I love them.  Maybe it took me being in my thirties to appreciate Sherlock’s obsessiveness and Dr. Watson’s loving observation of Sherlock’s obsessiveness.   They are both hyper-vigilant observers.  Sherlock of the clues, and Watson of Sherlock.  And artists are all hyper-vigilant observers, so when Sherlock falls into a depression and shoots cocaine (a 7% solution) because he’s in between cases and there’s nothing to occupy his mind, nowhere to direct his obsessiveness… well, I can relate.  And Dr. Watson thinks it’s a crime that Sherlock never gets the credit for his genius.  Others get the glory for the mysteries he’s solved.  Musicians are the same way — “That guy was doing Beck before Beck was Beck!”  Or “everyone knows that Keith Richards was the glue in The Rolling Stones.”  Singer songwriters are often unsung heroes.

Sherlock was an artist.  He didn’t solve mysteries for acknowledgement or money.  He was a purist who solved problems because he was rigged that way.  He couldn’t not solve problems.  He needed people to do bad things and try and hide them so that he would have something to figure out.  He lived for problems.

I love a guy who lives for problems, because I usually just get irritated by them–irritated or doomed.  I love a guy who doesn’t feel doomed by things going wrong, because I already know how to do that.  It’s such a novelty to be around someone who gets excited over difficulties.  I think that is the way to be, but I have a feeling I’ll never be that way.

In conclusion, I’m enjoying Sherlock Holmes more than a century after he was created, because he’s someone who knows what’s going on when no one knows what the hell is going on, and it makes me feel safe.  I know safety is an illusion, especially here in 2013, but it’s still a great illusion.

THURSDAY, March 28th, 8pm
Culturefix
9 Clinton St. (just south of Houston St.)
New York, NY
ph: (646) 863-7171
Door: by donation (suggested $5)

March 28th, 8pm at Culturefix in the Lower East Side.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic detective stories are the inspiration for new music tomorrow night!  A Study in Scarlet, A Scandal in Bohemia and any of the 56 much loved short stories featuring Sherlock (and Dr. Watson of course) are fair game for intrepid local songwriters:

Aron Blue:  Aron is a singer songwriter, sound engineer and producer. She created SuperMeow Records and also curates shows in Brooklyn.   She ain’t afraid to get things started.
The Adventures of Kaila and The Kid – Kid Lucky and Kaila Mullady are the beat-rhyming duo of the decade.  They are a beat-rhyming force of nature, soon to be touring with their new recording.  Watch the TRAILER.
Casey Holford - is an Antifolk-based musician, songwriter, recording engineer and photographer.  He has a way with melodies, and his songs are harder to drum to than you think.  Did you hear his Game of Thrones song?
Chris Andersen – When he’s not working on his daily online comic, The Ego and The Squid, he’s redefining your notion of hip hop with TheHappy Rappies.  He’s performing solo for Book Club this month!
Dan & Rachel - This rock and roll duo is usually zig-zagging the U.S. in their Mazda, hypnotizing the country city by city with their cross-genre, harmonizings and brazen lyrical variety.  They will also seduce you with Kale – KALE RECORDS, that is.
Jason Perlman – is a local songwriter who made THIS for the first book club of the year.  Happy to have him back for our March show!
Natti Vogel – can break your heart in any musical genre and at least 2 languages.  One of them i being Chinese.
Phoebe Kreutz – is an award-winning songwriter and exceptional conversationalist.  She is known for her remarkable ability to turn a Sumerian epic into a musical.  You must see her GILGAMESH the Musical.
Susan Hwang – is the founder of Bushwick Book Club.  She bends literature to her own musical whims and makes a mission of encouraging others to do so because she thinks it’s funny.

The smell of roasting Chex Mix is what greets you at the gates of heaven.  The trick is that there’s no eating in heaven.   You can’t eat unless you’re alive, so you have to be on earth to actually indulge in the addictive invention of Ralston Purina and American housewives.  I love the idea that American housewives would bake this version of middleclass crack in their own homes.  I did last night, because it’s the Bushwick Book Club snack for the A Clash of Kings show!

I’m excited for this one, because I’m a sucker for new songs about books, and because I get to sing with Adam Amram and Julie Delano tonight!  I wrote the song on bass, but I can’t play bass.  Julie Delano can play a bass.  Adam Amram kills drums for a living.  It’s a nice combination.  We’re going on first, so get there early and settle in with the Mix of Kings and a Green Dream cocktail (absinthe-based).  8:30pm at Goodbye Blue Monday (1087 Broadway, Brooklyn).  The song I wrote is about Arya Stark and hate.  To prepare for the performance, I’ve been PMS-ing all week.

Look, Bushwick Book Club got a photo in “The New Yorker!”  Page 4 of this week’s issue.  I opened it and showed it to the guy at the newstand, and I said, “See!  Look, that’s me.  I’m right there.”  He looked at the page and looked at me.  Still cost me $7.

Pineapple Ice for tonight’s Bushwick Book Club show co-hosted by Chris Gethard, the author of A Bad Idea I’m About To Do: True Tales of Seriously Poor Judgement and StunninglyAwkward Adventure.  It really is an adventure.  The stories include pro-wrestling misshaps, Mr. Gadget, the police, mistaken virginity, uncontrollable rage and much, much more.  I’ve felt a little bit like a Jehovah’s Witness about this book.  But I kind of feel that way a lot when it comes to The Bushwick Book Club.  My mother became a JW around 1986, because the religion has a lot of rules and requires diligent study (my mother loves research and homework).  I could never relate to this, because as far as I could see, this religion was one of the surest ways not to have any fun at all. 

But now, I see that the apple does not fall far from the tree.  I do this monthly nerdy thing that requires study.  I carry this book with me everywhere I go all month; I underline passages of it, dog-ear favorite pages, talk about it with others who are  also reading the book.  I have extra copies that I pass onto others.    Sometimes I meet them on the street.  Sometimes they come to my house.  I fall asleep on the train thinking about it.  I wake up in the middle of the night hearing song ideas.  I consider myself lucky if I hear inspiration from the book after a few glasses of wine, but this cannot be counted on.  And I speak in tongues.  Okay, that’s just my usual gibberish.  And when I meet other people who don’t know about the Book Club, I get really excited talking to them about it.  I can’t help it.  Sometimes they get it, but sometimes they don’t, and I can see them slowly stepping away, wondering how to get out of this conversation.  I, of course, can’t understand why they wouldn’t be delighted by the prospect of monthly brand new original songs about a book.  I mean, come on… brand new songs.. about books.  AAAahahahahaahaaa…

The show is TONIGHT at Goodbye Blue Monday, 8:30pm.  Chris said he’d be there to co-host!  You can ask him questions about White Magic and Koozo and eat a coconut milk-based pineapple ice that I made last night.  Sweetened with agave… and Jehovah.  Just kidding.

TONIGHT, March 22nd, 8:30pm
Goodbye Blue Monday
1087 Broadway (JMZ to Myrtle or J to Kosciusko)
ph: 718 453 6343

Songwriters: Buffie Roseanne, Jonathan Mann, Kristin Sedivec, Maria Sonevytsky, Memo Salazar, Nicole Tourtelot, Sarah Pappalardo, Susan Hwang, Sweet Soubrette and Zane Van Dusen!  Emily Einhorn special guest!

I wrote this song for The Bushwick Book Club show inspired by volume Q of the encyclopedia.   Tom Bayne made the video and posted it this weekend.  Dany Naierman plays Quetzalcoatl!  The song was recorded at Casey Holford’s Good One Studio, and features Karen Leblanc on saw.

So, can I blame it on planetary alignment when I look down after the first song in our CD release set, and I see some of my areola peeking out from my dress?  We can’t control these things, but it was the second time I’d ever flashed an audience.   This was the first time with my breasts, but once I was sitting down at a keyboard in Tompkins Square Park, and I flashed the East Village from under my American Apparel jersey knit dress.  Another time, I was on the train and noticed the buttons on my shirt dress were unbuttoned to expose just my navel.  Another time, I walked a European guest across the trading floor while my skirt was tucked into my tights the whole time.  So my unintended exhibitionism was all very fitting for the release of a CD titled “An Awkward Time with The Debutante Hour.”  We really lived up to the name of our CD last night.  There were uke and cello tuning competitions like 6 times and many lyric flubs, a call to sublimate (inspired thinking from Mia Pixley) and an amazingly awkward intro from Franz Nicolay highlighting all the the things that are neither here nor there over a yamaha keyboard rendition of “A Whole New World.”  It was just like what Nan Turner said during the beautiful Schwervon set–”Let It All Hang Out.”  So.. we had a good time (I got to groove on Eva’s transporting vocals with Choban Elektrik.  If anyone’s voice could teleport you, it’s Eva’s.  She should be harnessed as a green mobility option).  I heard there was a fight during our set and a girl stormed out after throwing a glass at some guy, but otherwise, most other folks had a good time.  Good and awkward.

I am still the Chris Gethard book fairy, in case you’re wondering.  I hear melodies and lyrics when I’m half asleep on the train… “If she won’t come to you… show her you’re Framsky…”  I know, it doesn’t make any sense to me either.  There are songs being written right now–brand new, A Bad Idea I’m About To Do songs being thought up, felt up, dreamed up right now.  How does anything happen???  I don’t know, but it does.  And things will happen at Goodbye Blue Monday on March 22nd at the Bushwick Book Club show.

Here’s a photo from last night taken by Amy Pearl who should have everything she wants:

His book is A Bad Idea I’m About To Do, and we’re about to do it for the next Bushwick Book Club.  I walk around this city with a couple paperback copies on me at all times.  If you’re looking to have one, you can just tackle me and pull them out of my blue canvas bag.  I’m leaving them at bars for songwriters, under their pillows, meeting them in back alleys or in front of office buildings to do the literary hand-off.  I’ve missed 2 train stops reading it, and I’ve had 2 dreams about it.  The show is March 22nd at Goodbye Blue Monday.  I have no idea what will happen, but it’s exciting to know something will happen.  If you’re curious, you should come out for the show.  Chris Gethard said he’d co-host with me and Sweet Soubrette.  See… anything can happen.

What else is happening is that The Debutante Hour is birthing a new CD!  The labor was intense for this one.  Each one is different, as you know.  This time around, we had Peter Hess producing, and we all had cravings for hot wings and chocolate (wait, we always have cravings for hot wings and chocolate).  The doulas were all our friends and supporters who donated so generously through our Kickstarter campaign.  The release show is THIS THURSDAY, the 15th at Littlefield in Brooklyn!

We’re going to be joined by amazing friends — Franz Nicolay (keys), Cecil Scheib (trombone), Jared (guitar), Butch and Nan (percussion), Karen Leblanc (saw), Jonathan Vincent (accordion/keys), Natalie Hung (big voice), Julie Delano and Leslie Graves (mesmerizing movements).  And the amazing Choban Elektrik (7:30pm) and big love Schwervon (8:30pm) will be opening!