newcritics

I suppose that Ben Lee’s bubblegum pop is something that I should leave for my teenage girls, but honestly I love him as much as they do. We’ve been digging his records in our home since his 1995 record, Grandpaw Would. That record has one of the great odes to making music on it, the Jonathan Richman-esque My Guitar.

Ben’s last two efforts, 2005’s Awake Is The New Sleep, and this year’s Ripe, are both wonderful records.

Our whole family showed up at the Blender Theater on 23rd St and Lex at 10pm last night to catch Ben live. We bumped into my friend Eliot who was there with his son and a friend. When the girls and Eliot’s crew were downstairs checking out the merch, Josh and The Gotham Gal and Eliot went backstage and Josh got to meet Ben. The Gotham Gal will surely have a photo of that up on her blog today.

It was the kind of small initimate show that I like best. It was Ben and one other musician, a guy who played electric guitar and piano. It was light, informal, and a lot of fun. Ben’s got a great sense of humor and was improvising all night.

A particularly funny episode happened when someone in the audience asked Ben where his friend Lars was. He said she was home in Brooklyn sick in bed. Then he whipped out his Blackberry (old style, 8300) and called Lars and talked to her and then put the phone on speakerphone and played a song for her. Great stuff. When the phone came out of his back pocket, Jessica said, “I am going to BBM him”. Too bad she doesn’t have his pin.

Anyway, my favorite tracks of the night, both off his new record, were “What would Jay-Z Do” and “Hungry”. So here are the studio versions in case you haven’t heard Ben before.

What Would Jay-Z Do? - Ben Lee - Ripe

Hungry - Ben Lee - Ripe