JULY 22, 2003: KRISTEEN YOUNG ROCKS LONDON

Kristeen Young and Frank Black.

Kristeen Young played to a sold out crowd at The Underworld in Camden, London on July 8th. The crowd came to see Frank Black, but according to reports Kristeen won over his audience by the time her first song was over. Frank liked her too.

Some Bowienetters attended and I will reprint their comments.

The photo was taken by a Bowienetter of great standing, Mark Northey (alias Fred The Gnome).

Here's a review by Mr. Northey:

"Kristeen Young has that seldom seen trait in an artist to encapsulate and mesmerise you into the deep recessess of her very soulful performance. 500 die hard Frank Black fans were hit by this spell in The Underworld Camden from the very moment that the enigmatically passionate siren of song smashed into the opening bars and lines of Wake The Dead.

From the moment the opening track ended she had taken care of the room and the crowd was her own. It was time to unfreeze.

Cruising through an eight song set she took the crowd on a veritable rollercoaster ride switching between pounding the keyboard and controlling the stage with her unequivocal sexual prowess, soaring us screaming along with the drawn out highs of her voice and dipping us low with the thumping back bass.

The true nature of her genius lies in the fact that half the set were new songs; Commit Adultery, Yesterday's Future Man, Lie and Devil Girl were creatively interlaced with tracks Wake The Dead, Touch Tongues, Breasticles and We Are The World (Why KY), from the recent album release Breasticles.

If the new material is a good judge of what is to come on the next album then I suggest that you head off to see Kristeen at a small venue in London this Autumn, before it's too late.

When the second microphone gave up the ghost towards the end of the incredibly addictive track We Are The World (Why KY) my heart literally stopped. With exceptional composure and professionalism Kristeen faultlessly completed the song and then came the silence. I can't tell you what was going through my mind at that point and for a few seconds the atmosphere was intense. It would have been so easy and the norm for
a support act to get jeered and heckled while the mixing guy
frantically tried to fix the microphone. This however was not to be, as the crowd were so spellbound and enthralled by her performance that she got words of appreciation, applause, whistles and emphatic shouts of "good songs".

I can say no more than she was truly amazing, in fact she shimmered.

REALITY IS MASTERED

Emily Lazar, TV and Sarah Register (assistant to Emily).

Since Emily Lazar did such an excellent job on mastering David Bowie’s Heathen CD last year, she had another go at his new Reality CD. She’s got some of the best ears in the mastering biz because Reality rocks.

As you can see I’m holding a box of analog tape that contains two songs from Reality.

The CD is due out on September 15th on ISO (Columbia records).

THE FINN BROTHERS ARRIVE

They sneaked into America via Los Angeles, but we’re all ensconced safe in the sky life of Shokan, New York.

Recording commences July 14th.