THE EAST HAMPTON STAR
January 18, 2007
Arts & Living Section
Singing Stories of Love and Loss
Juliana Nash charms at Goat on a Boat
by Elizabeth Fasolino
At the Goat on a Boat Puppet Theater in Sag Harbor Saturday night, the singer-songwriter Juliana Nash told a crowd of friends and assorted not-quite-middle-aged hipsters the true story behind her contrite ballad "Don't Promise Me Christmas."
She was dating the man who would become her husband, she recalled, and he had asked her to spend the holidays with him at his parents' house. "Then, one night, I got drunk, and the next day we were walking in Central Park and he said, 'Uh, maybe we should wait on you coming to meet my parents.'"
Ms. Nash, an Amagansett resident, owned Pete's Candy Store, an indy music venue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. "I want to get more New York performers out to the Hamptons to perform," she said. To kick things off she brought Rachel Loshak, a singer, songwriter, and bass player, and her husband, Morgan Taylor, a guitarist, out this way.
Liz Joyce, the founder and artistic director of Goat on a Boat, lent her imaginatively transformed former church hall for the performance. Ms. Joyce hosts children's puppets workshops in the space throughout the year. The walls are festooned with handmade puppets, tissue-paper decorations, and colored lights, and the "back room" is a kitchen from the 1970s, complete with Formica countertops and an old refrigerator. The real attraction, though, was Ms. Nash's performance of narrative ballads.
Ms. Loshak and Mr. Taylor opened with a set of original songs evocative of Janis Ian's classic laments. Ms. Nash, a more upbeat performer, took the stage solo - not an easy feat for any performer, but a brave and successful endeavor on her part, as she is just returning after taking a break to have a baby.
"I should have married a good guitar player," she said, ruing the fact that her husband, Andy Stenerson, a glassblower, didn't fill the bill as an accompanist. Mr. Stenerson was home babysitting.
Ms. Nash thoughtfully introduced her music, a mixture of folk, jazz and pop, with personal anecdotes. The down-home delivery worked well for an audience full of friends, but also brought the lyrics to life for those new to her music.
Her introductions featured snapshots of Ms. Nash's first Christmas with her husband, a walk on the beach as a new mother, and a sad recounting of her brother's battle with brain cancer: "I've never seen anyone tackle such difficulty with such grace. You're one of a kind, I love you."
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