Cat Power
January 7, 2008
Shepherds Bush, London
Words: Marisa Brickman

Cat Power, aka "Chan" Marshall as most know is her real name after 15 years of making music, first graced the pages of 'SUP 10 years ago in our first issue ever... and like this story, it was a show review. However, things were much differently for Southern-born sweetheart back then. Our little Chan, who was up visiting Chapel Hill from Atlanta, was a teenager singing songs from Moon Pix. Her hair was in her face. She started. She stopped. She started again. She kept her back to the audience and apologized over and over. She was shambolic, but somewhere underneath the shambles was the beautiful meow of Cat Power and this is when we first fell in love with her.

The second time we featured Cat Power was in issue 11 six years ago just after releasing You Are Free (which is still our fave!). She spewed out facts about her life and told us about her oppressed childhood, her rebellious older sister, her coke-snorting dad, her mom who used to try to French kiss her - and as the story's author Catherine pointed out in the introduction, "I wasn't sure whether she was aware that it was rolling. I both wanted to point it out to her and hide it under the table, or maybe even throw it out the window. I was terrified (for her sake) and honored (for my sake) by her disclosures, but re-listening to the tape, I realized I'd had it all wrong. She was just doing what she always does, only without strumming her guitar."

That nervous energy and that constant fidgeting was still there in the performance at London's Shepherd's Bush, but it was channeled into an impeccable performance and some extremely cute dance moves. Backed by the Delta Blues band, Chan was in London to support her latest cover album, Jukebox. Albeit, its not our favorite of her work and we think the cover choices were quite ambitious (James Brown's "Lost Someone" or George Jackson's "Aretha, Sing One for Me"), we feel like we've got to give her massive credit for really pulling her shit together. It was almost like everyone in the crowd was rooting for her - we wanted her to succeed, we wanted to see a great show.

Most of the tunes she played were off Jukebox - all obviously well-rehearsed. She sung her heart out the entire show, belting tunes until she sweat, sashayed across the stage, picked up the flowers that were strewn at her from audience members, mumbled some really weird things that we're not sure we heard quite correctly, but even in tonight's shambles - her unmistakable voice, that irreplaceable croon warmed up the room and had most everyone mesmerized.

Cat Power usually attracts a lot of naysayers, but there's no doubting that she's been a big influence on a lot of the other female indie artists of late - Bat For Lashes, Amy Winehouse, even Becky Stark all came after Cat Power and I'm sure they all love her. Thankfully for us, someone or something has been there for Chan, making sure she didn't fall into a downward drugs spiral or start singing like a 2 year old.

We're not sure what her next move will be, but we reckon once she gets back to writing some of her own tunes, this newfound confidence and maturity could well result in a new favorite.