Stella Mozgawa: Warpaint -

"Let England Shake by P J Harvey is simply a masterpiece. She oscillates between intimate and extroverted levels of protest, and I don't think I've ever heard an album that's quite so sure of itself. It's powerful without being preachy and I love the way it sucks you in and continues to unravel with every listen. My favourite album of the last five years, let alone 2011."

Try this live version, I promise you will love it, it is supernaturally good:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qloqUbdh8s4

How could you not love her and the band after this.

St Vincent(Facebook):

"You asked, I tell! My favourite record of 2011: PJ Harvey's Let England Shake. Her best since Is This Desire?

Tue
Jan
24th

playing the violent femmes & meeting PJ
[...]i also have to tell you about meeting PJ harvey, it’s the most embarrassing and beautiful story ever….

she was watching our violent femmes show from side of stage.
i’d asked her band (my band, for the violent time being) beforehand if she’d maybe want to guest. they gave me that OH BOY look …and told me she never does that sort of thing unless she’s dragged out on the spot. they said supposedly nick cave used to do that….just spit “AND NOW LADIES AND GENTLEMEN PJ HARVEY” into the mic and she’d be like….um. ok. sheesh.
i’ve done that to neil a couple of times. i think. actually, maybe i haven’t. maybe he just says i have. he usually enjoys me “dragging onstage”, but more to the point, i can usually tell the difference between “dragging” and “encouraging”…it’s usually the latter. when it’s the former, i can sense it, and i back off. i don’t like dragging. it’s a drag.

so at the encore of “blister in the sun” - we played it twice, once at start and once at encore - i caught her eye and ran over to her while brian ritchie explained to the crowd what an ACTUAL encore is (in old school days: a repetition of a favorite song…not a whole new batch, PREACH).

i asked her if she’d come on stage and sing with me. she was so sweet and said “no, no, no, you’re doing wonderfully….go ahead without me, i couldn’t possibly, etc etc”. and in the fever of the moment, i literally threw myself on my knees, looked up and said I’LL GIVE YOU MY FIRSTBORN CHILD! PLEASE?? and brian vilgione, who was watching this whole thing from the stage and laughing his ass off, says she looked wonderfully terrified. ultimately, she (so politely, so humbly, so kindly) refused. i don’t think she wanted my firstborn child. i don’t blame her, i don’t think i would either.

but once the show was over, i felt like a grade-A asshole. why’d i pressure her? eesh. when I ran into her the next day at the mona museum, I begged her a second time: this time for her forgiveness. she granted it. golly, she was so nice. Queen Peeg. THE PEEG. how i love her. how very, very, very different we are.

me in my sloppy unrehearsed bra-and-underwear, get-everybody-on-stage-and-see-what-happens attitude and her in her tightly choreographed, ultra-controlled, laser-like intensity.

it takes a village.

her show was great - she and the band performed much tighter and bolder than in perth and the festival wrapped with a bang.
i took this shot of her from side of stage…in a particularly animated moment.

She Is Class.

onwards to auckland and wellington.


LOVE
afp

I love AFP!

http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/16451 ... meeting-pj

p.s. all my support to New Zeland, Love You!