Friday links + Q&A

Today we're talking to the peerless singer/songwriter/author Amy Rigby, and over in the links we've got the Met gala for nannies and lots more

Before we get to this week’s Q&A, a quick word. As I always say this time of year, if the holidays are your jam, I hope you have an awesome time. And if they are just something to get through for you, I hope they pass easily and without incident. This is an awfully lonely time of year for a lot of people, so don’t forget to reach out to those who might be feeling vulnerable.

I usually take the days between Christmas and New Year’s off, but I think I’ll be posting at least semi-regularly this time around, so do check your inbox.

On to Amy Rigby! I met her way back in the 90s, at South by Southwest, where she was performing with her band The Shams, and I was appearing on a panel. A few years later, after she went solo with the excellent album, Diary of a Mod Housewife, I profiled her for Spin. She is one of my favorite songwriters (check out this tune, which has been known to make me cry), a longtime GOACA reader, the author of this fantastic memoir and an all-around cool cat.

You were in New York City in the 70s, in the early days of punk, and even worked at the seminal club Tier 3. What are your fondest memories of New York in those days?

NYC in the seventies (or to be honest Manhattan, because except for a few trips to Coney Island, I never left that borough until the late 80s!) along with being dirty and dangerous—vacant lots, abandoned cars and empty buildings everywhere —also felt kind of deserted at night which made it feel like a big playground. Leaving a club like CBGB or Max's or a little later Mudd Club or Tier 3 at two or three in the morning and walking back to wherever I happened to be living downtown, it just felt like we owned the streets. I was still a teenager, so never worried about what bad might happen, and thankfully nothing ever did! 

But along with the kind of seamy side of seeing music up close for the first time because I grew up in Pittsburgh and had only ever attended massive arena rock shows there, it was a thrill to take in the classic New York stuff I'd seen only in movies: I talked my mom into taking me to the Palm Court at the Plaza Hotel and Russian Tea Room when she came to visit; Serendipity for frozen hot chocolate;  Saks Fifth Avenue; the bar at the Gramercy Park Hotel where all the bands stayed. Except for visits to MOMA and the Met because I was in art school at Parsons, I rarely went above 14th Street except when my parents visited. Although there was that time I stood in the crowd outside Vidal Sassoon on Fifth Avenue hoping to be chosen for a free haircut or color. I got picked and had my first Crazy Color experience. 1977, the stuff had just been invented. They colored my hair "aubergine" which I learned was another word for eggplant. I was always always chasing the right hairstyle.