Laurie Anderson performing at Other Voices NYC benefit in October

Laurie Anderson's "O Superman (For Massenet)," recorded in 1981 for her epic United States performance piece and also released on the stunning Big Science LP.

Anderson will perform at the Other Voices NYC music and lit festival taking place October 27-28 and featuring a wonderful group of artists including Glen Hansard (The Swell Season), Bryce & Aaron Dessner (The National), Thomas Bartlett, Sam Amidon, Bell X1, Iarla O' Lionaird, Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, and writers Joseph O'Connor and Colum McCann. The event is curated by Glen Hansard, Thomas Bartlett, and Philip King and benefits Dublin's Fighting Words creative writing center for young people.

Other Voices NYC

• [millie fink]

  Might get to see Lou too. Such a perfect match!

  http://www.sivacracy.net/014%20%20anderson%20and%20reed6533_img.jpg

• [dagfooyo]

  How is it I’ve never seen the video that goes with O Superman before?  Laurie Anderson is amazingly awesome.  Wish I could make it to NYC for this.

• [Brian Fitzgerald]

  Epic. You take this and its prescient “Here come the planes… They’re American planes, made in America” add the fact that she was performing in New York days after September 11, 2001, cross that with the cover of Don DeLillo’s Underworld (with the Twin Towers, a church spire, and a dove doing the holy ghost thing), and you’d have the makings of a very fine conspiracy theory featuring the left liberal avant garde arts community in a decades-long plot. Wait. Come to tink of it, have you  EVER seen Laurie Anderson and Don DeLillo in the same room at the same time?

  • [sam1148]

    One tour she did a bit about Terrorism being the only thing that can really surprise Americans anymore. This was weeks before the OKC bombing. She pulled the bit from the rest of her tour.
    The Airplanes over America is a theme she used as animated backprojection backdrop for her “Home of the Brave” concert from the mid 80′s;
     Which really should be on DVD…but isn’t. I have it on Laserdisk and it’s still fresh each time I view it. I think Youtube some things of that 1985 concert including “Smoke Rings” which features a 911 written in smoke as back drop.
    Kinds spooky coincidences. 
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d9YAz3A4pc&feature=related
    You can also see her using a jumpsuit with midi controls turning her body into a drum machine controler, and a tape violin. Which has samples of music ‘played’ by dragging them at different speeds them over tape head pick-up in a violin of her design.

• [lorq]

  This song just knocks it out of the park.  Mesmerizing and, at the same time, hair-raising.

• [dia sobin]

  Simply the farthest out… Laurie Anderson rules.

• [David Kopelman]

  I bought Big Science on vinyl when it first came out. I’ve always thought O Superman was such a haunting song. I remember playing parts of the album for friends and family and getting blank stares in response. Same reaction I got by subjecting them to Zappa. Laurie is the real deal. I’ve always been in awe of her creativity and originality. It’s an eclectic taste though.

• [CygnusXII]

  I remember buying this on Cassette when it came out. I have a soft spot for voice modulated music, and Performance Art. She always struck me a the forerunner to Blue Man Group. I love the Song she did, Language is a Virus.

  Oddly She makes me think of Robert LLewellyn. Kind of like a female version of Kryten, from Red Dwarf.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Llewellyn

• [anharmyenone]

  “..and she kept arranging and rearranging the rabbit and kind of waving to it: ‘Hi!’

  ‘Hi there!’”

• [ackpht]

  This is the song that got me hooked on Laurie Anderson.

• [Zack Seas]

  alone on an atoll in the central sea, i was given this as a cassette without a label.  I listened to this song and the wolf call one hundreds of times.  wao  

• [headcode]

  Awesome.  In fact, I don’t think there was anything on Big Science that I didn’t like.  However, for me the hook into the album was “let X=X”.  And of course, “Walking and Falling” makes me want to weep every time I listen to it.

• [Brent Kirkham]

  The video remins me of one of Rothko’s Seagram Paintings.  Excellent music, goes without saying. Thank whoever you will that we get people like this in each generation.