May 23, 2006 - 11:06 AM

Spinning Silver, Fiddling Gold: Hanneke Cassel

My fingers are so feeble. Such wasted ability and talents resting in them, longing to be resurrected. Ah me.

Those are the usual laments after seeing some incredibly talented friends rock the stage this weekend. Hanneke Cassel, with Rushad Eggleston and Chris Lewis in tow, whipped up a fiddling frenzy on Friday in Alta Dena, then got the room abuzzing with two shows in San Juan Capistrano. She's out supporting her brand-spanking new album, Silver, which I'm listening to right now and loving. Remember how Some Melodious Sonnet was my second favorite album of 2004, behind Sarah Slean's Day One and right in front of Adrianne's 10000 Stones? Well, this could once again challenge for the top spot this year.

LDBL and Mer met up with me for pizza before we drove out to Alta Dena on Friday. If you're a fan of N.Y. style pizza, with the big, floppy thin slices that still have a crispy crust to them, you've gotta go to Albano's Brooklyn Pizzeria. There's one down in Hollywood and one in the Valley, and oh my god but that pie is like crack. Doughy, saucy, cheesy crack. Get the plain cheese and you'll see what I mean.

We waddled our stuffed little selves over to the Coffee Gallery, LDBL and Mer not knowing what they were in for, but still game to experience new things. It's just too bad that I couldn't bring more friends along for the ride. Matt and Sharon were at a performance of Stomp that night; Kyler, who had toured with Hanneke a few years back, was disappointed that she had a conflicting gig; Terami had scheduling interference; and I have no idea what Tony and Margaret were up to. But the three of us got to tap and boogie along to Scottish fiddling fusion, and the new songs proved to be just as fabulous as the old tunes. I had a great time, and i hope LDBL and Mer did too, especially since LDBL insisted on paying for everything. Damn him.

I made the drive down to San Juan Capistrano on Saturday, and arrived 20 minutes late (it took me 50 minutes to travel the 15 miles from the Valley to LAX, then another 50 to go the 45 miles to SJC...I hate L.A. traffic sometimes). She did different setlists for both the 7 PM and the 9 PM performances, which meant she could pull from the dusty cobwebs of her oeuvre a gem like "The First Goodbye", a piece she wrote and arranged for the string orchestra at Berklee when we were there. It was such an achingly beautiful song, and it managed to break my heart again hearing the stripped down version with just one fiddle, a cello, and a guitar.

The audience was buzzing about her as they were leaving, which warmed my cold little heart. I told her to go schmooze with her fans after she tackled me with a hug, and they occupied her for quite some time. Unfortunately, this meant I couldn't spend as much time talking with her, catching up on her life, as I wanted to. She insisted that we hang out the next time I make it back to Boston (this after she looked at me as if I'd punched her dog when i told her I had been there over Christmas break and neglected to inform her).

********
Here's how awesome Hanneke is. Among her new compositions are a romp dedicated to the Red Sox called "The Curse Reversed"; a commemoration of the RC and Moonpie Festival in Bell Buckle, Tennessee; and a tribute to Ron Burgundy which consists of two tunes, "The Glass Case of Emotion" and "Sweet Grandmother's Spatula", that, surprisingly, really do convey the insane, manic energy of Will Ferrell. To further illustrate how Hanneke continues to stretch herself and the bounds of fiddling, on the album is an arrangment of a traditional Chinese piece that finds her weaving an arcing violin part with a chinese erhu player. Exquisite.

Now Listening To : Hanneke Cassel- Silver
Random Thought : I thought about seeing the closing performance of Stomp in L.A. on Sunday. Instead, I went to Costco. Hotdogs!

What I Just Wrote Before - What I'm About to Write

The Five Most Recent Entries

Here's a hand-picked playlist of 40-plus songs for you to listen to: