When I was 17 I was given a taped recording of some album or other. Now for those of us old enough to remember making tapes for people, there would inevitably be that moment where you would have to decide whether to fill the space at the end of a side with random tracks, or to leave it blank.This tape was filled but without a track listing. So after the main act came some carefully chosen songs (presumably intended to impress) which I had mostly never heard before, but liked very much. I took this to university with me, still unclear of many of the artists, and whilst playing it in my room was able to ask a boy who knew more about music than me who the very haunting vocalist singing a duet with Michael Stipe was. I was confidently told it was Kristin Hersh, lead singer of Throwing Muses, half sister of Tanya Donnelly, and suddenly it all made sense. I went out and purchased the album which featured the duet – 1994’s Hips and Makers – and was smitten.
I have since seen Kristin Hersh in many guises, from melancholic and petulant solo artist, to full on rocker, and have loved every mask. Her ability to write confessionalist, often heart-rending songs which ache with the turbulence of her memories is one of her most appealing facets, and it was therefore with a keen sense of anticipation that I walked up to the imposing St Andrews in the Square to see her latest event, Paradoxical Undressing. The title, she tells us, refers to the moments before someone inflicted with hypothermia dies: they feel overcome by an unbearable heat as the body desperately tries to survive the cold, and begin to take off their clothes in a frenzy, thus unfortunately speeding them towards their impending death. The sense of confusion and panic that this conjures is particularly apt as a title for tonight’s show, as Kristin reads from sections of teen diaries, whilst playing notes on a guitar and showing segments from paintings by Molly Cliff Hilts. She tells us that these impressionistic, often quite gaudy images of trees and landscapes were painted whilst the artist listened to Throwing Muses, and so reflect yet another level of the music. Kristin intersperses the memoirs with shortened versions of songs spanning her solo career, her silhouetted form swaying and undulating as she sings.
As with any spoken word event there is always the concern that it may feel conceited or pretentious, that it may not please us to listen to someone reading from their youth, that it may feel just a little too angst – a little too teen. Yet that certainly is not how Hersh comes across tonight. She is 41 now, and there is a sense that what she is doing is cathartic, is a chance to review from a newly gained objectivity the events of her life that formed such a successful musical career. She begins by talking of the Fish Jesus found in an artists’ squat she is staying in. Her accent drawls, the trademark huskiness of her voice adding a darkness to the strange tales she reads. The locations and the happenings of her teenage years sound equally terrifying and appealing, to be living in a squat with artists and musicians, junkies and drunks seems inspiring yet miserable. It is the paradox of her title.
She fills the Glasgow night with a collection of miscreant characters, a motley crew of people who shared her life at this time. There is The Animal, a creature living in the darkness and only revealing itself at night, scratching in the dark; there is the artist Geoff, stoned and broke, with an obsession for keeping pets, but no perception of how to feed them; there is the Silver Bullet, 17 year old Kristin’s car which barely holds itself together, but which serves to drive Throwing Muses all over the city – and doubles as Kristin’s home for a while. She speaks of Tanya, her “step twin” and their bonds; and she speaks of her earlier childhood, the hippy commune she grew up in, the ‘adults’ who surrounded her and filled her head with the trickling nonsense of their drug addled brains. She speaks fondly of these times, but one feels for the ten year old child convinced ostriches live here because an adult tells her so.
Her memoirs stretch on, through the Dog House – the apartment she rented, where a growing sensation of being trapped and of being slowly consumed by a dreadful desire for music made her ill – and finally to her mental illness, her time in hospital and her pregnancy. The words she uses are simple, but poetic, the words of a teenage girl with a great talent for expression.
And the songs are beautiful, her playing as crafted as ever, and though her voice sounds a little hoarse, this adds to the feeling of experience she is trying to convey. She speaks frankly about her own sense of self-doubt, with her throughout her life, and about her obsession with music. There is a snake she visualises wrapping itself around her feet, her shoulders, her throat. This clearly isn’t there, but for Kristin it seems to represent everything she dislikes about herself, every moment of creeping, snaking uncertainty and hesitation. Tonight, though, I feel the snake isn’t with us and she shines.