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Don't miss The Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs 25th Anniversary Tour, on May 19-20, 2025, in the Longworth-Anderson Series at historic Memorial Hall! The band will play the album as it was originally performed for the first time in 20 years: the full album in order over two nights.Brevity has often been the soul of Magnetic Fields composer Stephin Merritt’s wit. Though his most celebrated works—the 1999 milestone 69 Love Songs, and the more recent 50 Song Memoir—have been epic in conceptual scope, the individual pieces of each have most often been beautifully crafted, slyly funny miniatures. The Magnetic Fields 2020 album, Quickies, presents his most consistently miniscule miniatures of all, with the longest track, a reimagining of a Shaker hymn called “Come, Life, Shaker Life,” clocking in at 2:35 and the shortest, the no-minced-words “Death Pact (Let’s Make A)”, at seventeen breezy seconds.
The idea for Quickies developed while Merritt was recording 50 Song Memoir—Magnetic Fields’ 2017 five-disc collection of fifty tracks, each one addressing a year of Stephin’s life up to the age of fifty. The 50 Song tracks had been composed prior to Merritt entering the studio, so Merritt had time to work on something new: “I didn’t have anything to do at night, so I doodled essentially and wrote a lot of short things that seemed complete on their own.”
Merritt recorded Quickies in Brooklyn, Boston, and San Francisco with his familiar cast of Magnetic Fields characters. Shirley Simms shares lead vocal duties with him, essaying racy scenarios with squeaky-clean aplomb, as Merritt notes: “I love having Shirley sing sexy lyrics in her Catholic school-girl voice. I never sound innocent no matter how innocent I am. But she does, while being in fact no more innocent than I am.”
The other players include Magnetic Fields stalwarts like Claudia Gonson (on one-hand piano, percussion, lead vocals, and harmonies), Sam Davol (on cello), and John Woo (unamplified electric guitar) plus Chris Ewen (mellotron), Pinky Weitzman (violin), and Merritt’s friend and literary/musical collaborator David Handler (accordion).
Quickies is the twelfth Magnetic Fields album, the fifth recorded for Nonesuch, in a career spanning three decades. In addition to Merritt’s acclaimed work with the band, he has composed original music and lyrics for several music theater pieces, including an off-Broadway adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel Coraline, for which he received an Obie Award. In 2014, Merritt composed songs and background music for the first musical episode of National Public Radio’s This American Life. Merritt also releases albums under the band names the 6ths, the Gothic Archies, and Future Bible Heroes. Upon the release of 50 Song Memoir, New York magazine called the box set “a celebration of Merritt’s sky-high range as a writer and a player, through the exploration of the circumstances that helped cultivate it … a delightful flip through the untold back pages of one of rock’s most singular voices, and, all in all, the best damned Magnetic Fields album in the last ten years.”
In 2024, the Magnetic Fields embarked on a series of exclusive two-night concerts in celebration of the 25th anniversary of their epic 69 Love Songs, a celebrated 1999 release which garnered widespread critical acclaim for the band, including "top ten" lists in most major national publications. The touring band reunited with the original musicians for the first half of the tour in March-May 2024, then regrouped with the current five-piece band for continued sold-out concerts throughout Europe and America. The touring band consists of singer Shirley Simms, Stephin Merritt, guitarist Anthony Kaczynski, keyboardist Chris Ewen, and cellist Sam Davol.
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Be part of another Longworth-Anderson Series evening of great music, food, and drink! Complimentary pre-concert receptions feature live music (Tweens on 5/19 and artist TBD on 5/20), light bites from Ollie's Trolley and N.Y.P.D. Pizza, and craft beer tastings from HighGrain Brewing Co.
Receptions run from 6:30-8 p.m. Concerts begin at 8 p.m.
Tickets ($49.00 to $89.00 per night) on sale Friday, November 1, at 10 a.m. at www.memorialhallotr.com. Or call the Memorial Hall box office at 513-977-8838.
Masks are optional for this concert. Confirmation of vaccination status is not required.
www.houseoftomorrow.com
https://tweens.bandcamp.com/
www.longworth-andersonseries.com
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Memorial Hall OTR, 1223 Elm St, Cincinnati, OH 45202-7531, United States,Cincinnati
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