Jill Sobule seems like a character who just escaped from a screwball comedy. You know, Carole Lombard, in "My Man Godfrey," or Irene Dunne in "My Favorite Wife." The daffy blonde who seems a little cracked, if endearing, but as the plot unfolds, often turns out to be the smartest person in the film.
The impression first hits me when the singer/songwriter calls and I see her area code is 646.
"So, you live in Manhattan?" I wonder.
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"No, I've lived in California for, I don't know, three or four years now. I've just never really accepted it. Having my old area code makes me feel like I'm not really here."
It's this kind of off-kilter comedy that fuels Sobule's best songs. She will be unwrapping them for your inspection at the Fairfield Theatre Company on July 15. But wait, as with any good screen comedy, there's a terrific plot twist. Sobule will be sharing the stage with another hilariously funny gal, Julia Sweeney. Yep, the actress and monologist, once known to Saturday Night Live viewers as the ambisexual "Pat."
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The duo call their gig, the "Jill And Julia Show."
First, the Jill portion.
You probably know her best as the woman, who, in the '90s, had hits with "Supermodel" and a little number called "I Kissed A Girl." Which had everyone from the kids on the street to Beavis And Butthead in a tizzy, way before a recent poseur stole the title for an entirely different tune. Still, as much as those songs radiate fizzy fun, they don't accurately represent Sobule's body of work. When you hear songs like "Claire" (about an aging lesbian aviator dying of cancer), or "Lucy At The Gym" (concerning a teenage exercise addict), it's clear that this is no novelty songwriter. She's much more in the mode of Randy Newman and Loudon Wainwright - someone who writes carefully-etched character studies, that, often, can't help but be funny.
"Cinnamon Park," a witty song that samples Chicago's, "Saturday In The Park," is a good example of Sobule's superbly strange songcraft.
"My parents use to play lots of middle-of-the-road rock when I was growing up," she says. "When I was little I couldn't stand it, or I thought I was too cool for it. Then, one day, I was thinking about 'Saturday' and it started to mingle in my mind with this great outdoor gig I went to as a teenager. So, I sampled the track and wrote a different melody and lyrics over it. It came out great."
Wacky, but practical, Sobule says she "contacted the guy in Chicago who wrote it. What's his name? Oh, Robert Lamm! And gave him half the publishing upfront," so there'd be no copyright troubles down the line.
Although she has played solo for years, Sobule will be sharing the stage in Fairfield with actress/writer/comedienne Sweeney, alternating songs and stories.
How did this alliance come about? In a scene that might also fit in a crazy Howard Hawks-style comedy. It took place at a meeting for geniuses.
"A couple of years ago, I was attending a conference in Monterey called TED, which is where people with great ideas and inventions get together," says Sobule. "You're sitting there, listening to, say, Steve Jobs and you ask the person next to you, 'What do you do?' And he'll casually say, 'Oh, I invented the World Wide Web.' Or, 'I came up with something to wipe out small pox.' Just a great place. Julia and I met at TED. Which is funny, because we actually live four blocks from each other in L.A. But in L.A. nobody walks, so we never knew how close we were."
Mutual fans, Sweeney of Sobule's poignant, funny, story songs, Sobule of Sweeney's bittersweet monologues (the latest is "Letting Go Of God"), they decided to join forces.
Sweeney, who does the story portion of the "Jill And Julia Show" picks up the narrative.
"I have been a fan of Jill's for so long," she writes in an e-mail. "My good friend, Wendy Goldman, turned me onto Jill back in the 90s. I loved 'I Kissed A Girl," and all her other songs, especially 'Heroes.' When I finally got to meet her (at TED), it felt like kismet. Later, when Jill was doing some shows at Largo in L.A. (an uber-hip L.A. nightclub), she invited me to come onstage and tell a few stories, so I did. The audience really liked it. The Jill And Julia Show was born."
Sobule concurs that she's a huge friend of Sweeney's, too. That the two will be doing shows, mostly on the East Coast, throughout the summer. And how much fun it is, not just playing with her friend, but driving around the country together, doing their gigs. Then, dependably, her kooky, screwball persona rises to the fore one last time.
"And you know what is one of the coolest things about us working together?" she asks, setting up her joke. "We know each other so well and can often anticipate what the other is going to do onstage, that we don't have to rehearse too much. Which is great. Because we're both lazy."
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