Album Notes

JANET HAMILL


Poet and performer JANET HAMILL has been called "our Baudelaire" by no less a critic than poet and impresario Bob Holman. She is the author four books of poetry and fiction: Troublante, The Temple, Nostalgia of the Infinite, and Lost Ceilings. Her work has been anthologized in Up Late: American Poetry Since 1970, Deep Down: The New Sensual writing by Women, Living With the Animals, and Will Work for Peace. Among the numerous magazines and journals her work has appeared in are BOMB, City Lights Review, Long Shot, and Exquisite Corpse, Café Review, and Gargoyle. Janet is also a painter and presenter of writing workshops exploring Surrealist techniques.

MOVING STAR, Janet's backing band, named after one of her poems, includes Bob Torsello (bass), Jay LoRubbio (guitar), Evan Teatum (keyboards), and Greg Feller (drums). The music they play is in the spirit of the Doors and the Velvet Underground. Together with Janet they take the listener on a rhythmic and dynamic "spoken word voyage, merging transcendental poetry with an undertone of soft electric textures."

JANET HAMILL and Moving Star's debut CD, Flying Nowhere (Not 2001), was produced by Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith, Suzanne Vega, Soul Asylum and Kristin Hersh), executive produced by Bob Holman (The Bowery Poetry Club), and featured clarinet cameos by Patti Smith (Horses, "Because the Night").

GENIE OF THE ALPHABET (Not 2005), is the second CD by Janet Hamill and Moving Star. It features 13 new poems set to music and cameos by Bob Holman, Lenny Kaye, Patti Smith, and Beat legend David Amram.

Janet Hamill and Moving Star came together in 1997 in New York's Hudson Valley, where Janet relocated after a twenty-year stretch in Manhattan. Since their inception the have appeared at the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, the Knitting Factory, CB's Gallery, the Bowery Poetry Club, the 2001 People's Poetry Gathering, the 2002 Bumbershoot Festival, the 15th & 16th Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Festivals, the Andy Warhol Museum, and the 1st & 2nd HOWL Festivals.

www.janethamill.com
lostceilings@aol.com