'Sweet Home Quarantine' online show on StageIt.com

Review by Adrienne Meddock from Zub Records
Steve called me yesterday that he’d be missing this week’s session and making sure I’d guest again, so I will see if I can juggle banter and song description a little more adeptly this week. This week’s Sweet Home Quarantined has been billed as an acknowledgement of Valentine’s Day (you noticed I didn’t say “celebration”), that will no doubt feature Groovers’ requests for Robyn’s dismalian view of love and relationships setting the tone for the night. So on to “Valentine’s and Anti-Valentine’s” songs.

Robyn opens the show playing Yolanda’s request, a song he claims he has not played in “29 years,” ‘Ultra Unbelievable Love.’ He plays an insistent, chugging accompaniment on acoustic. He segues to Keith’s request, repeating the line from the prior tune, “there are no jokes in the Bible, Keith,” and it’s the brilliant “My Wife and My Dead Wife,” an ebullient take on Blithe Spirit. This is a fun and confident version, with subtle and limber passages alongside louder peaks. The word “chiaroscuro” flashes across my lips, but I think that might sound pretentious; however, there are shades from dark to light, love to menace.

‘Fly Me To The Moon,’ a request from a few weeks back has now been worked up, Robyn giving it an almost classical guitar feel. He remarks, “it’s beautiful, but very watery, liquid, there are no barbs…” He calls it a song from his parents’ time.

Then it’s time for a “Groover’s” interpretation of love, courtesy of Bob, one of Robyn’s musical saints, and “Spanish Harlem Incident.” Both Robyn and Emma inhabit these Dylan songs, finding elbow room for their own expression. (See tinyurl.com/zubblonde on Emma’s lovely album of Dylan covers).

Then it’s an “on brand” RH song, with its hallmark “dismalia,” ‘Comme Toujours,’ the French splattered song from The Man Upstairs. It is damned perfect, of course. Robyn shows his higher register is still very much in play.

Emma enters with Scottish Fold “Ringy,” the more easily bribed of their feline cohort. Emma jokes about a Robyn Sinatra covers album. “Will it be Fly Me to The Moon’ and 12 others or twelve versions of ‘Fly Me to the Moon’? Robyn scoffs, saying he much prefers “Anarchy in the UK'' and knocks out a lovely, slinky coffeehouse version worthy of Jacques Brel. Yes please, we all say.

The pair play RH’s ‘Death & Love’ and then retell the story of being fined on a ferry in Venice on the way to the train station, a recurring staple tale for SHQ. 122 Euro fine, I believe. Emma then tells us Perry & The Edge are a couple and Bowie wrote ‘Heroes’ for them.

Emma introduces a song from Tapestry by request, “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.” I saw Emma earlier responding to the tweet request, lauding the mature 70s version on Carole King’s Tapestry (today is the landmark album’s 50th birthday). She compared it to the 60s girl group version of the Goffin/King composition by The Shirelles. Emma gives it a third spin, and treats it almost as a torch song.

Robyn says YES in answer to the title question. They are so lovely together. There is banter about sparrows who don’t do their homework being stared down by professors with bad breath. The magical realism of the Swiftcock home.

This introduced RH’s solo ‘All I Wanna Do Is Fall in Love.’ RH then played “One of my 3 cheerful songs” by request for “Mr and Mrs Velvis,” who had it played at their wedding. ‘I’m in Love with A Beautiful Girl.’

Emma returned with “the great Valentine story no one wanted to hear,” that of the Edge and Perry. They riffed on movie remakes the duo might be right for, and evidently Robyn thought Billy Joel was the star of “When Harry Met Sally.” Emma changed gears,“going from the inane to the dismal’ they played the Roland S. Howard song, ‘Shivers,” one sung by Nick Cave in their band, The Birthday Party. This is the work of “a late, great” fellow Aussie songwriter whom Emma feels was a kindred spirit.

Next up was ‘Glass Hotel,’ which I don’t think we’ve heard recently but was a frequent feature in early SHQ shows. Robyn is really thrashing, then intricately picking in an always-right acoustic version of a song that feels like home for us now because of the SHQ-created connection.

Emma waxes about a hotel on the French beach, where Robyn plays ‘Comme Toujours’ and hands her an eclair. Robyn says he’d prefer to bring her an accordion. Then it is a musing on instruments they like and don’t like and then Robyn invents a scene with Tim, the Aussie middle school crush that Emma wistfully recalls played the sax. Robyn states curtly that he remembers very well about Tim. Our Quarantine parents playfully spar.

Then it is on to the pros and cons of ‘Careless Whisper.’ Emma loves it, and sings a little. Robyn admits his commercial instincts are nothing compared to George Michael and that even Andrew Ridgely at HIS side would not have made ‘Brenda’s Iron Sledge’ crack the public consciousness. For me, “guilty feet have got no rhythm” is one of the goofiest lines in pop culture, whether you love or hate ‘Careless Whisper.’

Then it is on to their lovely version of ‘The Ghost In You.’ Emma’s inventive harmonies along with Robyn’s Hitchcockian interpretation make this version quite lovely. I had to cut out early, so tonight's wrap up is a mystery!

--Adrienne Meddock, Grooving for two, grooving for you