Jill Sobule
Ticket(s)
Event Details
2 pm Jill Sobule’s recording career began in 1990 with the album Things Here Are Different (MCA), produced by Todd Rundgren. Radio took notice thanks to the single’s “Too Cool To Fall In Love.” Her 1995 self-titled album (Atlantic) brought her mainstream commercial and critical success with two hit singles: the satirical gem “Supermodel” from the movie Clueless and “I Kissed A Girl” (the original), the first ever openly queer-themed Billboard Top 20 record.
For her most recent album, the Ben Lee-produced Nostalgia Kills, Sobule turned her warm wit and laser-focused poet’s eye on herself more than ever before. For all its graceful, funny, and heartbreaking explorations of awkward youth and grown-up regrets, Nostalgia Kills is as of-the-moment as anything in Jill Sobule’s catalog. Through her own experiences, she explores issues our society still collectively struggles with (LGBTQ rights, teen mental health, our unhealthy obsession with staying forever young) and gently skewers our tendency to dwell on the past at the expense of addressing the present.
Sobule has performed with Neil Young, Billy Bragg, Steve Earle, Cyndi Lauper, Tom Morello, Warren Zevon, and John Doe. She inducted Neil Diamond into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. She has shared billing with Don Henley, Joe Jackson, Warren Zevon, the influential LA punk band X, and Lloyd Cole & The Negatives. She regularly co-stars with comedian/actress/author/SNL alumni Julia Sweeney in their Jill & Julia Show, an unusual and mesmerizing combination of song and storytelling. A road warrior, she plays more than 100 shows a year.
The Old Roslyn address 19 Bryant Avenue resonates with musical legend and history. Originally a dilapidated country-western bar owned by Jay Lenihan, the place was bought by partners Michael “Eppy” Epstein and his cousin Richie Hersh in 1971. After teaming up with local radio station WLIR-FM, My Father’s Place—affectionately known as MFP—quickly became a hotbed for concerts and concert broadcasts. MFP presented Billy Joel’s first show after the release of his debut solo LP Cold Spring Harbor and Bruce Springsteen’s first show out of New Jersey, along with seminal radio concerts (including a classic by Lowell George and Little Feat in 1974). The venue kept live performance vital when the rest of Long Island—and perhaps the country—was discoing the night away. Besides reggae, punk music found a place to grow. Unlike most other clubs that highlighted one genre or one particular era of music, the variety of My Father's Place was possibly its most important trait. The club debuted in America most of reggae's biggest stars, helping to make the genre mainstream. Along with CBGB and Max's Kansas City, My Father's Place was a nurturing ground for young punk and new wave acts like The Runaways, The Ramones, Blondie, The Police, and Talking Heads. Country, bluegrass, and blues artists like Charlie Daniels, Linda Ronstadt, and Stevie Ray Vaughan performed early in their careers, while artists like James Brown, B.B. King, Johnny Winter and Bo Diddley played in the twilight of theirs.. My Father’s Place closed on May 3, 1987, with a blowout performance by the funk rock band Tower of Power, and an era came to an end. Today, the club lives on in the works of the many artists—now legends—who first performed on its stage and in the memories of those fortunate to have been a part of it all.