Cool, elegant and eloquent as always, Suzanne Vega had a cozy chat with a room full of journalists in anticipation of her performance tomorrow night, July 19th, at the Mann Auditorium (Hechal HaTarbut) in Tel Aviv. \u201cThis is my third or fourth time here,\u201d said Vega, \u201cwith ten year gaps in between. I married one Jewish man, then, in the next decade I married another Jewish man, so each time I return I feel more connected.\u201d<\/p>\n
The demand for tickets was so great that Vega will be performing twice in one evening, the first performance at 18:30, followed by the originally scheduled gig at 21:15. This kind of back to back concert was more typical of the early days of her career in 1986 -87, said the singer, but she said she was looking forward to performing and will \u201cthink of ways I can make them different\u201d for those fans who will be attending both.<\/p>\n
Two performances in one night should not pose a problem for the talented Vega who is currently working in several directions at once. In addition to blogging about music for the New York Times, touring and working \u2013 \u201cslowly\u201d she says \u2013 on a new album, she has been re-recording her entire catalogue acoustically all winter long. The songs will be available online to mark the 25th anniversary of the release of her self-titled first album. The songs will be open to remix: \u201cpeople can do that [remix] and upload to the site<\/a>,\u201d opening a new form of dialogue with her audience.<\/p>\n She says that songwriting is \u201cdifferent now\u201d as compared to the past: \u201cwith experience you have more doubt sometimes. When you are young it feels amazing even to have one idea. When you hear more and read more, your standards get higher and it is harder to meet your own standards. It\u2019s a slower process than it used to be. These days I really have to make the time to do it.\u201d She often composes on an acoustic guitar and says \u201csometimes a clean pure melody that comes to my mind\u201d is the beginning of a new song. Sometimes she uses GarageBand on a MAC to \u201cflesh out ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n As much a poet as a songwriter, her songs often take off from the lyrics when she \u201csuddenly hear a voice saying some weird thing, like in \u201cBlood Makes Noise\u201d. Sometimes it\u2019s a title or an image. If I just sit down and wait then there\u2019s usually something else I have to do, like walk the dog\u2026anything. You have to make the time or those little voices go away and sometimes they don\u2019t come back.\u201d<\/p>\n In terms of experimenting with new sounds, she says that her work on the album for the film \u201cDead Man Walking\u201d is \u201cas far as I\u2019ll go with that industrial sound.\u201d But comments that on her most recent album \u2013 Beauty and Crime \u2013 that she \u201cmeant for more crime and less beauty in the sound of it\u2026I didn\u2019t get the crime remix I was hoping for.\u201d<\/p>\n Before her concert she\u2019ll warm up by listening to a playlist of favorite music that includes Radiohead, Juliana Hatfield, The Foo Fighters (their previous album) and Rufus Wainwright among others. Vega recently celebrated her 50th birthday as Leonard Cohen\u2019s special guest \u2013 \u201cit was the dream of a lifetime,\u201d she says, adding, \u201cIt\u2019s hard not to have special thoughts about this birthday. I feel pretty good\u2026I do yoga. It doesn\u2019t really matter what age I am. When I was younger I felt old.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked whether she ever gets tired of singing the same audience favorites time after time, she says she is glad that people like the songs and want to hear them, \u201cit\u2019s not a burden,\u201d she smiles, \u201cI eat breakfast every morning with the same enthusiasm. When they [the audience] light up, cheer and bring out their cell phones \u2013\u00a0 that makes it worth a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked how she feels about being in Israel once more, she says, \u201cI feel very happy, content\u2026I feel in the right place,\u201d and offers a parting gift to the assembled group: a brief a capella taste of Tom\u2019s Diner \u2013 \u201ca story about breakfast.\u201d<\/p>\n Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cool, elegant and eloquent as always, Suzanne Vega had a cozy chat with a room full of journalists in anticipation of her performance tomorrow night, July 19th, at the Mann Auditorium (Hechal HaTarbut) in Tel Aviv. \u201cThis is my third or fourth time here,\u201d said Vega, \u201cwith ten year gaps in between. I married one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}