Way Up High
Published in Metroland, 12/17/09

Erin picks another request from the top hat
Words and photos
by Jeremy D. Goodwin
BECKET—High-beams engaged, clutching my steering wheel tightly with both hands, I crawled along icy roads up the dark mountainside and found my way to the secluded Dream Away Lodge. There was a chance to see the very talented Erin McKeown play a solo set at this former booze shack in the woods of Becket, Massachusetts, and the harrowing drive was not quite enough to scare me away.
Finally inside, I devoured a generous slab of warm apple crumble by the fireside and encountered a series of resident pets, each named for someone associated with Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue. Rubin “Hurricane” Carter—the dog, not the ex-boxer—licked my plate. (Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Joan Baez and crew famously visited and jammed at the Dream Away in the midst of that epic tour.)
As per tradition at the funky environs, there was no cover charge—just the passing of a tip jar—and the performance space was the end of a living room into which about 40 audience members squeezed, gamely crouched on any available chair, couch, or ottoman in sight.
by Jeremy D. Goodwin
BECKET—High-beams engaged, clutching my steering wheel tightly with both hands, I crawled along icy roads up the dark mountainside and found my way to the secluded Dream Away Lodge. There was a chance to see the very talented Erin McKeown play a solo set at this former booze shack in the woods of Becket, Massachusetts, and the harrowing drive was not quite enough to scare me away.
Finally inside, I devoured a generous slab of warm apple crumble by the fireside and encountered a series of resident pets, each named for someone associated with Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue. Rubin “Hurricane” Carter—the dog, not the ex-boxer—licked my plate. (Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Joan Baez and crew famously visited and jammed at the Dream Away in the midst of that epic tour.)
As per tradition at the funky environs, there was no cover charge—just the passing of a tip jar—and the performance space was the end of a living room into which about 40 audience members squeezed, gamely crouched on any available chair, couch, or ottoman in sight.
Erin plays "28," from Hundreds of Lions
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Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter seems nonplussed
Nodding to the intimacy of the space, McKeown played requests only, bravely pulling them from a top hat. The concept was promising but ready-made to produce a disjointed, no-flow type of show. Turns out, it suited McKeown's wide-ranging catalog just fine.
If anything, this musicology student has been too creative and curious to lodge a foothold in any signature style. She's dabbled in bedroom-songwriter fare, the occasional burst of badass rock and roll, sepia-toned jazz standards ("Honeysuckle Rose," anyone?), and the middlebrow chamber folk of Hundreds of Lions, her latest longplayer.
So the garage rock and conversational Latin of “Aspera” made as much sense next to the delightful, musical theatre-flavored “The Lions” as it ever will. E pluribus unum, indeed.
If anything, this musicology student has been too creative and curious to lodge a foothold in any signature style. She's dabbled in bedroom-songwriter fare, the occasional burst of badass rock and roll, sepia-toned jazz standards ("Honeysuckle Rose," anyone?), and the middlebrow chamber folk of Hundreds of Lions, her latest longplayer.
So the garage rock and conversational Latin of “Aspera” made as much sense next to the delightful, musical theatre-flavored “The Lions” as it ever will. E pluribus unum, indeed.

McKeown was in strong vocal form and tossed precise jazz chords left and right as she alternated between guitars and keyboard. The format led to some unexpected covers (“Somewhere Over the Rainbow”) as well as deep catalog cuts like the lascivious “The Taste of You,” endearingly introduced with a story about McKeown’s affection for strip clubs—quite appropriate for the Dream Away, said to have once been a brothel.
After a double-shot of Fats Waller’s dizzy reefer valentine “If You A Viper” and the near-novelty of Blossom Dearie’s “Rhode Island Is Famous For You,” there was unexpected emotional heft inside “Santa Cruz,” off Lions.
The full-band studio version is the poppiest thing on the record, dominated by a cute but grating rim-drumming pattern. Stripped to just McKeown on keyboard, the song opened up disarmingly as the pained lament of someone utterly powerless to refuse a request from her lover, even as that person walks out the door.
It was one memorable moment in a series of them, not so much blurring together as standing at arms’ length in a sequence. Yes, I might have traded in a little variety for pacing. But sometimes that’s the way the apple crumbles.
After a double-shot of Fats Waller’s dizzy reefer valentine “If You A Viper” and the near-novelty of Blossom Dearie’s “Rhode Island Is Famous For You,” there was unexpected emotional heft inside “Santa Cruz,” off Lions.
The full-band studio version is the poppiest thing on the record, dominated by a cute but grating rim-drumming pattern. Stripped to just McKeown on keyboard, the song opened up disarmingly as the pained lament of someone utterly powerless to refuse a request from her lover, even as that person walks out the door.
It was one memorable moment in a series of them, not so much blurring together as standing at arms’ length in a sequence. Yes, I might have traded in a little variety for pacing. But sometimes that’s the way the apple crumbles.