For our honeymoon, we just went camping up and down the California coast. Along with MF Doom’s Madvillain and the Velvet Teen’s Elysium, Jolie Holland’s Escondida was one of the records we listened to over and over—a perfect Highway 1 accompaniment to the birds of the air and the beasts of the soil and the fishes of the desperate sea. I always wondered why “Goodbye California” wasn’t an immediate hit, just like I wondered why “Wagon Wheel” by Old Crow Medicine Show wasn’t a hit, or why hardly anyone was talking about Joanna Newsom.
It was our anniversary this week, and seven years hasn’t changed us much, we’re still in love. But other things have changed: Everyone loves Joanna Newsom, the buskers on Fourth Street last week were playing “Wagon Wheel,” and Tessa Rissacher covered “Goodbye California” at the Arlene Francis Center last month. (It took Santa Rosa a couple years to catch up to the old-timey thing, but it’s since done so with a venegance.) When it was announced that Jolie Holland was playing a free noontime show at the Russian River Brewing Co., sponsored by the Krush, it was like some cosmic tarot card had spoken.
Holland has a new record coming out, Pint of Blood, and played all songs from it—much to the longing of myself, or anyone, really, who could name a dozen or so favorites from her previous albums. With just a violin and electric guitar backing her and with the din of a brewpub at lunchtime, it was hard to wholly absorb the songs. Same goes for her between-song talking, although she wasn’t saying much; with barely any reaction from the audience, she even resorted to announcing where the amps were rented from, just to see if anyone was paying attention. It was a little bit strange, honestly, and it wasn’t really Holland’s fault.
Afterward, she mingled with fans, someone shoved some weed in her guitar player’s cutoffs pocket, she got directions to Community Market and drove down Fourth Street in her minivan. Her voice invaded my thoughts for the rest of the day, and the next.
.Jolie Holland at the Russian River Brewing Co.
