Sister Morphine and The Twinks
Posted By: Gerry Visco
New York Press
April 5, 2008
Pics @ end of article.
http://www.nypress.com/blog-3831-sister-morphine-and-the-twinks.html Braving nightlife on Saturday is for amateurs. Going out until 5 a.m. on a Monday—now that’s a party. But my pint of Haagen Dazs and Saturday Night Live would have to wait tonight. Sister Morphine herself was playing in Soho at City Winery.
Sister Morphine is the nickname of and song by Ms. Marianne Faithfull, the legendary singer with the whiskey-soaked voice. Her show was sold out, but there were a couple of standing-room only spots at City Winery, a new, 21,000-square-foot bar/restaurant in Soho.
Faithfull has been performing for 45 years, but I’ve never seen the queen of Swinging London in person. And I’ve always admired her ability to switch gears in her life and music. Oh, what a life! Teenaged flower child pop star in 1964, she was girlfriend to Mick Jagger during the partying hard days. In a 1967 drug bust at Keith Richards mansion, she was arrested stark naked except for a fur rug and supposedly with a Mars bar stuffed in one of her orifices. Married three times to men other than Jagger, she’s been linked romantically to Brian Jones, Keith Richards, Anita Pallenberg, David and Angela Bowie and Jimi Hendrix among other scenesters. During the 1970s she became a junkie living on the street, but Faithfull came back fighting with the release of her powerful album Broken English in 1979. Mickey Rourke ain’t the only champ of comebacks—Faithfull’s been to hell and back and it shows.
City Winery was packed with the well-heeled, many of them gray-haired and balding, and a smattering of few young ‘uns. “It’s an absolutely crack band,” my 20-something friend James enthused. Jazz guitarist genius Marc Ribot was playing lead. Then there’s that gritty voice. Courtney Love, look out! Faithfull just released her 22nd album, a new CD called Easy Come, Easy Go, with 18 songs covering artists like The Decemberists, Neko Case, Billie Holiday, Merle Haggard, Espers, Bessie Smith, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Dolly Parton and the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. The music was certainly solid but another plus at City Winery is the vino. As per usual, I was broke and asked for their cheapest. “We don’t have house wine,” the bartender said without a trace of condescension. Only $7 for a white and $8 for a red, both delicious, and nothing like the usual dive bar acidy piss. The night would have been perfect except when the manager put his hand in front of my lens so I couldn’t take any more photos. The goddess of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll looked damn good, even classy with her smooth blonde hair. “No flash, you can’t use flash!” the dude scolded. How ironic that Faithfull’s management emailed two days later asking permission to use my photo on her official website.
More bouncer than promoter, the hulking manager blocked our way to the after party. I watched helplessly as Lou Reed walked by. “Hello,” I said to him. Grunt. Rufus Wainwright followed—you can barely go out without seeing one of them these days. James and I were like Dickensian street urchins, noses pressed up against the glass as we watched the VIPs sip vintage brew in front of the huge casks in the back room. But the bastards weren’t going to stop me from having fun. Onto something more now.
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There was another monthly party close by in the West Village called, rather whimsically, Less Artists More Condos. This was where 21-year old DIY electro nerd punks swayed in a trance to raucous noise bands. This was where Faithfull would be if she, too, was forever 21. The kid I met at John Cameron Mitchell’s party last week spotted me and I asked him to tag along. “Great show!” he blurted out. He laughed about the yuppie woman up front who was shocked when Faithfull said the “c” word in “Why’d Ya Do It.”
“What is this, 1967? Hasn’t everyone heard of cunts by now?” Louis asked.
We waded through a sea of NYU students on the sidewalk into a nondescript building up a steep set of stairs and entered a room that looked like an Ikea advertisement, with a sectional sofa and orange Formica tabletop in the kitchen. There was even a toaster. This was nothing like the filthy hellholes that were the norm. No ciggie butts on the floor here. The bathroom was immaculate and even had a working shower. What was the world coming to when an underground party was in a clean comfy place? It looked like someone’s condo. Hey, I think it IS someone’s condo. My two hipster pals seated on the floor near the band, The Sightings, whose music was a steady screech of discordant white boy blues.
“Is that your new boy toy?” one friend was annoyed. “Isn’t he a little young?” The room was black with red lighting and the scary-looking drummer was beating the living hell out of those drums. I enjoyed the music but it was a bit rambling and repetitive so we went out to get a drink by the breakfast nook.
My friend thought Sightings was a bit “dated, though its albums are good.” Were the distortion of the speakers and sound levels intentional? “The place is like quarantine for 17-year-olds,” the other said.
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