THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER

Friday, June 28, 2002

BRAVE MEN BRING ACT TO CHESTER
NEW YORK CITY ARTIST, COUNTRY BLUESMAN TEAM UP IN MULTIMEDIA SHOW

Andy Friedman and Paul Curreri are not a duo they have completely different acts but they’re travelling together this summer and performing on the same stage.

Friedman is an illustrator/poet/photographer. Curreri is a country blues singer from Charlottesville, Va, described as a "ruffled, gypsy-gutter cowboy whose songs paint images that wake the brain."

They’re also pals from art school, and they decided last spring, "Hey, let’s hit the road and perform for the people."

Friedman had a new book coming out, "Drawing & Other Failures," and Curreri had a CD, "From Long Gones To Hawkmoth." Friedman quit his job at The New Yorker (though he still free-lances for it) so they could hit the road.

On Saturday, they will be at Campbell’s Music Hall & Truck Stop in Chester.

"There’s a common thread with our workÑcountry bluesÑand we decided, why not combine my art and his music and take it on the road and see what happens?" Friedman asked rhetorically in a recent phone interview from his Brooklyn-based business, City Salvage Records, which published his book and Curreri’s CD.

You don’t think of a two-performer tour (no roadies, mangers, or drivers) as being a courageous expidition. But the Make A Living Tour is, for these artists, venturing into the unknown and frought with technical challenges, if not death-defying antics.

They alternate coming onstage. Friedman uses a slide projector to throw images on a screen, a sheet, or any other close facsimile, of his "pictures of good women, easy diners, and bad sunsets."

Last week, at Van Gogh’s Ear CafŽ in Union, N.J., they were getting ready to start the show and Friedman asked for the slide projector and was handed a movie camera. "Paul can just plug into the amps and start playing because clubs are set up for that, but setting up for a visual artist sometimes throws them off," Friedman said. "I think their plan was to film my slides or something. I ended up holding up my book, which nobody in the audience could see, and talking about the pictures. . .That’s the thing on the road: It doesn’t matter if it’s working or not, you just gotta do it. But then, on other nights, it’s magic; the crowd really gets into our show."

Friedman quit his job at The New Yorker but still freelances contributing cartoons to the magazine under the pseudonym Larry Hat.

Campbell’s equally eclectic impresario, Tom Hall, said he never hesitated about booking Friedman and Curreri.

"Hey, man, that’s what we do every Saturday night, bring artists up on the stage," he said. "I said, ÔBring it on.’ We’re not afraid of bringing the avant garde of New York City to little old Chester County."

Friedman, a native New Yorker, said he couldn’t wait to make on of his forays into the South:

"Tom said it’s a different kind of venue down there. He said I could maybe catch a greased pig or two. Yeah, I could do that."