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The show was at the Derby, a chic, upscale, dimly lit place which feels more like a meet-and-greet bar/restaurant than a live-music venue. It's close to the Greek Theater, but isolated from most of Hollywood's other concert spots. It probably holds about 250 people, I'm guessing?
I was a little disappointed with the show, only because so few of the album's guest stars were in the house. I brought my Hoffman CD and a pen, thinking I'd get a slew of people to sign it, but only ended up with five signatures. Since so many of the guest musicians are L.A.-based, I expected more of them to be there.
I suppose that Ann Magnuson was the biggest star of the night. Since she sings on a tune called "Sex in Heaven," she took her usual performance-art approach and showed up in a white, angel-like tunic. She also had a small, gold harp as a prop, and strummed it as she sang (though it wasn't capable of making any real music). As usual, her charisma compensated for her not-so-strong voice.
Paul Zone was there for "Series of You's," wearing a dapper gray suit. Since the song is so synthetic and "programmed" compared to the album's other songs, Hoffman and Zone just sang together over a CD-R of the backing track. They were the only ones onstage, and played no live instruments. During the exotic instrumental break, Hoffman hopped down to the dance floor and did a bit of spontaneous, swami-like dancing with a woman from the audience.
Michael Quercio (ex-Three O'Clock and Permanent Green Light, now of the Jupiter Affect) hunched over Hoffman's piano, lounge-lizard style, to sing "Just in Time." He and Hoffman actually exchanged a light kiss during the song -- needless to say, Hoffman's flamboyance was in full bloom all night.
Abby Travis also took the torch-song approach to sing "God, If Any, Only Knows." She actually climbed on *top* of the piano, and sang while sitting up there. She had a little trouble getting into position, and gleefully yelled out "Beaver shot!" while she was trying to awkwardly get her legs out from under her. She wearing a roaring-twenties type of beaded headpiece, and a glitzy black dress which can only be described as "va-va-voom." Suffice to say, she knows how to package her assets -- she showed enough cleavage for her and three other women besides. Males throughout the crowd (yes, including me) tried to tactfully hide their bulging eyes.
Otherwise, the guest performers were all stand-ins. Kristi Callan (former co-leader of Wednesday Week) substituted for Rufus Wainwright on "Scarecrow." She obviously doesn't have Wainwright's marquee value, but she did an OK job with the vocal. Her voice is lower than most women's, so it was easy for her to sing in his key.
Greg Dwinnell, who runs Hoffman's label, was particularly ticked off that Stew of the Negro Problem wasn't there. Instead, John Easdale (ex-Dramarama, and a very good friend of Greg's) sang "Any One But You." He also sang one other song, but I'm having trouble recalling which one. I believe it may have been a Mumps oldie called "Crocodile Tears."
Carolyn Edwards, who has been middling around the L.A. pop scene for years, sang "Get It Right This Time" in place of Anna Waronker. Another good vocal match. Similarly, Waronker's hubby Steve McDonald (ex-Redd Kross) was elsewhere, so Hoffman just sang "I Could Die for Cute" by himself. Odd that McDonald wasn't available, since his new band played at the Troubadour just two nights later.
I was especially surprised that the Wondermints' Darian Sahanaja wasn't there, since he's such a fixture of the local retro-pop scene. Dwinnell said Darian had just arrived back in town a day or so ago (still touring with Brian Wilson?), but was sick. "Palace of Corn" is one of my favorite tracks on "&," so I wished he could have been there to help with it.
"Devil May Care" (another of my favorites) was unfortunately skipped, and Russell Mael was nowhere to be found. The same goes for Van Dyke Parks and "Revert to Type," El Vez and "Madison Avenue," Lydia Lunch and "I Can't Remember My Dreams," and Maria McKee and "Tender Even Then." Both song and performer missing. And not surprisingly, Paul "Pee Wee" Reubens didn't bother to attend -- he's probably too famous for such a small event, and his contribution to the album is fairly trivial anyway.
The encore was a speeded-up version of Paul Anka's "Having My Baby." Sort of a puzzling choice -- maybe an in-joke to a pregnant women whom Hoffman knew in the audience? I believe this was also the song on which he pulled out a small toilet plunger, made some suggestive phallic gestures with it and used it to percussively bang/sweep the keyboard near the end. Fun. I'd be pleased if Hoffman could incorporate a little more of this "primal" feel into his music, because his fussy daintiness can be tiring in large doses.
I guess that totals about 11 songs performed. The set seemed somewhat short to me, but maybe that's just because the album itself is so long. I was certainly disappointed not to hear "Devil May Care," though.
There's not much to say about Hoffman himself, beyond that he sang and played with all the required precision and polish. He played an electronic keyboard on a few songs, but mostly he was at the piano. He was dressed to the nines, but I don't recall exactly what he was wearing. I'm going to tentatively guess and say he wore purple velvet trousers, a long-sleeved shirt and a yellowish striped vest. Something close to that. Hair perfectly moussed and curled, of course. He had different musicians playing with him, depending on the song, but the bassist and guitarist stayed constant. The guitarist added a quite nice solo to the final section of "Scarecrow." Two different drummers appeared, and flutist Lisa Jenio played on a song or two. Carolyn Edwards added keyboards on many of the songs. On a couple of tunes (including "I Could Die for Cute"), her boyfriend (whose name I forget) sat next to her at the keyboard and shared backing vocals. If he's in a band somewhere, I'm not familiar with it.
That's about all which is worth telling. Kristian's inscription on my CD booklet: "You are making me blush! XOX Kristian." Heh. I guess he's not used to signing autographs.
~ a music fan
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