History by Katie Coriander
Even in a coffeehouse full of adoring fans, all three acoustic acts would have an outsider aura to their performances. But that outsiderness was tangible in front of a dinner crowd that wouldn’t shut up at the Middle East Corner Room on Monday Night.
Guitarist and singer Jessica Jarvaof Jarva Land put on her sunglasses midway through their first song. The lenses were American flags with inverted colors. These were appropriate as she was singing as either John F. Kennedy or someone who thinks they’re him. The chorus: “Hey! I’m JFK! I was the president and now I’m wasting away.” It’s a JFK at rock-bottom, rolling around the floor of a grocery store. In their last song, she sweetly sang, “I’m going to get murdered tonight and I’m going to be laughing.” She was accompanied by blanketed drums, sleigh bells and trumpet.
Jamie McLaughland followed, strumming a quiet but intense martial rhythm. She sang in a foreboding coo and suggested that if anyone in the crowd was bothered by her second song they could talk to her about it after the show. I leaned in but couldn’t catch the words from my table, so I can only imagine what might make it offensive. She then set down the guitar and picked up a synthesizer pad. I think the free-form piece that followed was planned, but in the moment I thought it might be a reaction to the crowd’s noisiness. Either way, she made some very cool sounds––some sounding like moving water and others like explosions.
Katie Coriander (Earth Heart) closed the night with friendly, unhinged confidence. Katie seems to be one of the rare performers who really seek out eye contact while singing. Toward the end of her set, she broke two guitar strings and resorted to improvisation. This move made more sense afterward when she told me the whole set was meant to push her into uncomfortable territory: “Had I played with my drummer that would’ve been a more commanding performance, but tonight was about doing something uncomfortable––something I didn’t want to do. I knew I was throwing myself a curveball and then the universe threw me another curveball [when the strings broke].”
This was a showcase for Katie’s paintings, which hung all around the venue. She paints thick-lined and colorful pop art. Sailboats, a Pegasus, and corporate logos are reoccurring themes. At the end of her performance she said, “On the right you’ll see my skin-care routine” and gestured to some paintings of acne medication containers. Brand names included. She told me, “I steal from stores all the time––I rip off labels and take them…. Because I’ve paid probably hundreds of dollars over my acne career, I feel ownership over those labels, so I take them.”
Katie walked me through her painting, “History” (pictured above). Its title refers to both world history and her personal history. She pointed to the spoons and told me she included them for a young teenager named Spoons. She had briefly squatted in the same building as he.Then, as though noticing it for the first time, she said, “And that’s a tree horse. It’s a horse and a treehouse that’s got nothing to do with history… just a touch of absurdism. Actually something absurd is behind most of what I do.” Therein lies the charm.