LIVE! … From Their Living Rooms

While waiting for our opportunity to see live performances once again at our borough’s myriad music venues, Brooklyn Roads has been checking out local artists’ sheltering-in-place shows online. Here is just a sampling.

Annie Keating

Among our favorite Facebook Live shows in Jalopy’s Stay the Folk Home series was a great set by folk-rocker Annie Keating. Few artists are as “Brooklyn” as Keating; one only has to look at her album art over the years to see how much she loves her home borough.

Annie Keating / courtesy of the artist

She led off with “Coney Island,” which she dedicated to a couple of friends “and everybody else in Brooklyn.” Over the course of the next hour, she introduced some new songs while also reaching back to 2005 for “Take the Wheel” (the title track of her first album), 2010’s “Water Tower View,” and “In the Valley” from 2016, among others. One of the most intuitive interpreters of the music of John Prine, Keating’s cover of his iconic “Angel from Montgomery” was another highlight.

Following a reprise of “Coney Island” and a plea for donations to Jalopy, she wrapped up her set by telling us in song about her mother, “a brown-haired beauty…82 now and getting younger by the day.” The musical bio also included the refrain, “Mama, can you hear me from my quarantine, I’m singing this one just for you.”

Charming Disaster

Charming Disaster/ photo by Shervin Lainez

Being a duo but not a couple, Charming Disaster (Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris) has had to be a bit more inventive than their solo playing contemporaries when circumstances necessitated their playing from separate locations. Then again, the quirky, gothic-noir twosome are known for their inventiveness.

Theirs is something of a variety show, including special guests, musical and otherwise. Or as Bisker puts it, “We love playing for you and getting to talk about some of our passions.” Their June 19 show, for example, featured a puppet show by Matt McGee in which a possum outwits the grim reaper. This tied into the show’s theme — chosen by the drawing of a tarot card — of death, which they handled with a wry touch. There was also a brief discussion about vampire squids.

Musical numbers included covers of tunes by indie bands The Features and The Magnetic Fields; Charming Disaster’s own “Blacksnake” and Devil May Care” from their current album, Spells + Rituals; and “You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone,” originally recorded by Bisker’s alternative persona, Sweet Soubrette. Note: Bisker and Morris are taking a break from live streaming to work on some new projects, but plan to return in the near future.

Meghan Pulles 

Meghan Pulles’ EP Keep the Light On, released in late 2019, includes songs of light and love that sound very timely in mid-2020. On a recent Facebook Live show, however, Pulles felt compelled to present two new original songs written in response to the ongoing crises: the inspiring “We Need Hope” and the sheltering-themed “Love Came Down.” In the uplifting “Because of God,” she wears her faith on her sleeve without proselytizing. Pulles is also known to take cover requests on her music page.

Mariela Flor Olivo

Mariela Flor Olivo -courtesy of the artist

One of Brooklyn Roads’ recent “Artists On Our Radar,” Mariela Flor Olivo has been performing her “Quarantunes” show on Saturdays at 9 pm over the past few months. A recent edition featured her typical mix of well-crafted original songs (including those from her debut EP, Decide) and thoughtfully chosen covers. Among the latter were Olivo’s takes on Dashboard Confidential’s “Stolen” and fellow Brooklynite Taylor Ashton’s “Straight Back.”

Olivo provides engaging patter between songs, peppered with an infectious laugh, and brings a lot of heart to her performances. This was most notable when she sang “Through the Years,” a song she originally wrote about a dear departed family friend and dedicated this time around to the owner of her favorite restaurant who succumbed to Covid-19. Blinking back tears, her heartbreak was apparent as she struggled to get through what was, in her own words, a performance “full or errors and emotion.”