In some methods, amongst musicians whose catalogs aren’t chock-full of universally recognizable hits, Jill Sobule‘s catalog is exceptionally well-suited for a tribute present. The late singer-songwriter’s songs are intelligent, however not intelligent within the sort of manner you get an hour or a 12 months later; every quantity is vivid, high-concept, direct, often (however not at all times) humorous and immediately relatable. It doesn’t matter whether or not you’re coming to a memorial live performance for her as a Jill mega-fan or a plus-one — the songs hit you equally laborious on the primary hear or the fiftieth, she created such compelling eventualities in every three-minute sampling. She offered, to borrow a time period, the supermodel of methods to hook a listener within the first 30-45 seconds, and to allow you to really feel such as you’d had a full melodic and narrative meal by the top.
Not that she didn’t sometimes bask in a little bit of misdirection with a tune title. “Mexican Wrestler,” considered one of her most emotionally relatable ballads, was not about Mexican wrestlers, because it turned out, however the sort of unrequited love that feels prefer it in some way deserves a full body-slam. However she did have a knack for directness, in her naming of songs, too, most of the time. Take “I Kissed a Lady,” her greatest hit (and a title so irresistible it acquired some, uh, extra pickup). And the ultimate tune she was ever semi-famous for, “JD Vance Is a Cunt”… possibly not the tune whose notoriety she would have chosen to exit on, however someplace up there, she must be smiling that this, of all potential tunes, ended up as sort of a news-media epitaph upon her passing Could 1.
There’s a lot to her 35-year catalog of recorded reveals that any single tribute present goes to really feel too quick. Fortuitously, within the larger scheme of issues, a number of that materials goes to be lined over the approaching months in a collection of “Jillith Honest” tribute live shows occurring nationwide to learn the Jill Sobule Basis, and to carry her communities of followers collectively regionally. (Scroll all the way down to see a full record of the upcoming reveals.) The primary three of those befell over the weekend, together with an L.A.-area present at McCabe’s that was already within the works when the bigger collection of celebrations started to take form. Should you cherished her, you’ll most likely want you could possibly be a Jill-head and journey to a number of them, figuring out that after this wave passes, the chance to listen to undersung classics like “Underdog Victorious” carried out in live performance will likely be few. For now, we will respect the sudden Sobule glut.
On the present at McCabe’s, the temper was mild, however not so mild as to disregard the existential unfairness that noticed Sobule perish in a fireplace precisely one month earlier. “Jill’s passing was an absolute shock as a result of she had survived a lot already,” mentioned Perla Batalla. “You realize, I imply, she had mind surgical procedure and he or she survived. She was within the fucking music enterprise and he or she survived. So I assumed Jill would dwell endlessly, and she’s going to in some ways.”
There was Fabio, who starred in her “I Kissed a Lady” video, making a shock look, watching many of the present from the McCabe’s stairs and stepping up when referred to as upon by Lisa Loeb to supply a candy testimonial. “It’s unbelievable, what occurred, and it breaks my coronary heart,” Fabio mentioned. “She was such a superb individual and such an incredible soul. It’s superb, generally, the great ones who depart early… God bless your soul, Jill. We had a very nice time engaged on that video, and I’ll treasure my reminiscence for the remainder of my life.”
Comedian-turned-singer Margaret Cho, who sang the aforementioned “Mexican Wrestler,” was a bit extra tart in her emotions concerning the loss.
“She can be so excited” concerning the tribute, Cho instructed the viewers. “She’d be, ‘Oh man, did you see fucking Fabio?’,” giving herself credit score for her “nice impression” of Sobule’s talking voice (it was). “She was at all times so enchanted by life. Every thing that occurred, she was like, ‘Oh my God, did you see that?’ — like, essentially the most optimistic, light, variety, however excited-about-life individual. And like, why is she useless? I’m so mad. I simply had a number of anger, as a result of, like, why am I alive? I’m essentially the most unfavourable, shitty, imply, ungrateful, pissed-off, don’t care (individual). And in addition dangerous habits in life — I’m one foot within the grave, the opposite on a semen-filled condom. … It’s simply not truthful when she was so brilliant and shining. I blame Katy Perry,” Cho joked (presumably). “I really feel like that is Katy Perry’s fault.”
The night started a short introduction from McCabe’s live performance booker, Wayne Griffith, who described Sobule’s a number of nights taking part in the intimate venue, remarking on how at “the top of the night time, she’d hand around in the workplace on the market, and we might discuss, and he or she was at all times simply as candy as will be — simply one of many nicest folks I’ve ever met right here, and I needed to do one thing for her.” That one thing entailed enlisting Dan Navarro to behave as host and assemble the invoice, principally stuffed with mutual buddies, though he famous he’d by no means met Cho or Rage In opposition to the Machine’s Tom Morello previous to their gracious signing-on. (Cho can even carry out at a separate L.A. tribute set for Largo July 1.) Navarro mentioned, “31 days in the past we misplaced a valuable soul, and it was sudden and it was painful. In all my actually 50 years within the enterprise, I’ve by no means seen an outpouring reduce throughout communities like this has — pop folks, rock folks, folks folks, LGBTQ folks, it didn’t matter. Whoever encountered Jill so cherished her as a result of she was that open and that heat.”
The present established simply how many individuals it’s potential to get on the tiny McCabe’s stage, which extra typically is inhabited by solo folks singers than a full session-player unit just like the one put collectively by Steve Postell for the event. Postell, a member of the studio-cats band the Fast Household, was joined by the well-known veteran bassist Leland Sklar, together with drummer Michael Jerome and keyboard/accordion participant Phil Parlapiano. Postell took the lead vocal on one early tune, his studying of “San Francisco,” and admitted that he had not been totally immersed in Sobule’s catalog earlier than taking the task (although they’d had the identical supervisor 30 years in the past), so he was open-minded when he dipped into it to choose one tune to sing himself. He settled shortly on considered one of her most lovely melodies, “after which afterwards, I really learn it and realized it’s about human trafficking.” That acquired fun, though the tune itself is, as you could possibly guess, not considered one of her notably humorous ones.
Cindy Lee Berryhill instructed thes tory of how she met Sobule after they have been acting on the NPR present “Mountain Stage” within the mid- or late ’90s. “We noticed one another throughout the room and we have been sizing one another up, as a result of, like, there’s one other lady that acquired signed. I’d been trotted round to the main labels, and he or she really snagged one. So we talked and I’m like, ‘Dang, she is de facto cool.’… She did this tune, and it was concerning the stuff that we have been feeling when seeing one another, like, ‘Oh, one other songwriter lady.’ It’s a tune referred to as ‘Bitter.’ She nailed it. Jill was so cool at that NPR present, and I got here away pondering, what’s this bullshit that we have now, simply because one other girl is doing one thing good?”
(One other very proficient artist on the invoice, Jesse Lynn Madera, talked concerning the adjustment to Sobule’s humorousness that it took for her to get after they have been on tour collectively, when the headliner would really inject Madera’s identify into the “Bitter” lyrics as a possible bitter rival.)
Two artists on the invoice sang non-Sobule songs. Willie Aron, of Balancing Act and Thee Holy Brothers fame, carried out the Warren Zevon tune “Don’t Let Us Get Sick,” which Sobule had lined herself — its faintly prayerful tone coming off as much more poignant within the mild of her sudden passing. Batalla, who used to sing with Leonard Cohen, and fraternized with Sobule as they each participated in Hal Willner tribute reveals, selected “Chicken on a Wire,” as a result of “I at all times considered Jill as a hummingbird transferring from one fabulous factor to the subsequent and making all the pieces far more lovely than earlier than she acquired there.” It stopped the present.
Kay Hanley, of Letters to Cleo, and her songwriting (and SONA) companion Michelle Lewis did the one double-dipping. First, the duo sang “Heroes,” an anthem about being let down by each well-known artist you could possibly ever hope to emulate — current firm certainly excluded — prefaced by Hanley saying, “We picked the tune with essentially the most lyrics,, so that you’d get your cash’s value from us doing Jill.” Then they defined how the beforehand talked about ode to the present vp’s charms got here to be: Lewis really had the controversial title able to go when latest circumstances led them to start out speaking about revived their short-lived supertrio Sugar Tits to provide you with extra politically charged materials. The duo admitted that no less than considered one of them nonetheless harbored some concern about how the JD Vance tune would draw undesirable consideration from a few of the dad and mom of the kids they often wrote for these days, so their answer was to have the viewers shout out the C-word as an alternative of them, as a “Spartacus” sort of factor the place everybody and nobody is responsible.
The tender, much less comical facet of Sobule was additional represented with a pair of heartbreakers — Madera’s “Someplace in New Mexico,” a non-believer’s plea into the darkness for only one seen miracle, and Loeb’s “Tomorrow Is Breaking.” Cho additionally emphasised the pathos over the admitted laughs in “Mexican Wrestler,” the final tune the 2 of them had ever sung collectively — right here at McCabe’s — and which Cho mentioned Sobule had taught her, at her insistence, on each banjo and guitar, whereas critically noting that “it’s painful to sing it with out her.”
Morello had essentially the most rousing anthem-for-a-generation of the night time with “Underdog Victorious,” which he famous was “applicable at the beginning of Pleasure Month,” with its sticking-up-for-the-non-cis-kid narrative of bullying and triumph. “We might typically chuckle about politics and cry about sports activities, and vice versa,” mentioned Morello. “I simply cherished her a lot. One of many final texts I obtained from Jill was a manta tha ti assume we will all take to coronary heart. She mentioned, ‘I simply wish to play reveals, watch the Broncos, and resist.’”
Resistance acquired the final phrase of the night time, as the complete forged appeared first for the inevitable “I Kissed a Lady” after which the much less inevitable “America Again,” by which fingers flew as a full stage group-sang Sobule’s 2017 historic survey that requested the questions: “Earlier than the gays had their agenda, earlier than the slaves have been free / Earlier than that man from Kenya took the presidency… / After they say, ‘We wish our America again’… Nicely, what the fuck do they imply?” At this little folks membership, it was as near a superb Conflict second as we’re prone to get in 2025.
As Hanley defined of Sobule’s anthem, “She was a really socially lively individual, but it surely’s very uncommon that you just hear a songwriter who can sing n total set of political songs and never sound like an asshole.” There was that sardonically rabble-rousing facet, however anybody who had a coronary heart would certainly take this music of their arms and actually love her, too.
Setlist for Jillith Honest tribute live performance at McCabe’s, Santa Monica, Calif., June 1, 2025:
“When My Ship Comes In” — Dan Navarro
“Don’t Let Us Get Sick” (Warren Zevon cowl) — Willie Aron
“Bitter” — Cindy Lee Berryhill
“San Francisco” — Steve Postell
“I’m So Glad” — Amy Engelhardt
“Chicken on the Wire” (Leonard Cohen cowl) — Perla Batalla
“Someplace in New Mexico”” — Jesse Lynn Madera
“Heroes” — Kay Hanley and Michelle Lewis
“JD Vance Is a Cunt” — Kay Hanley and Michelle Lewis
“Tomorrow Is Breaking” — Lisa Loeb
“Mexican Wrestler” — Margaret Cho
“Underdog Victorious” — Tom Morello
“I Kissed a Lady” — forged
“America Again” — forged
The at the moment scheduled remaining “Jillith Honest” live shows:
Saturday, June 7^
Evanston, IL @ SPACE
SPACE presents…
Jillith Honest – Loving Jill Sobule
Hosted/MC’d by:
Paul McComas
That includes:
Gerald Dowd
The Empty Pockets
Heather & Paul McComas
Leslie Nuss
Nikki O’Neill
Ike Reilly
Gabrielle Schafer & Aaron Rester
Anna Vogelzang
Tommi Zender
Saturday, June 14 ^
Oyster Bay, NY @ Planting Fields Pageant (not a Jillith Honest occasion)
A Pleasure Month occasion devoted to the reminiscence of Jill
Saturday, June 21 ^
Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe Lounge
WXPN Welcomes & World Cafe presents…
Jillith Honest – Loving Jill Sobule
Hosted/MC’d by:
Jim Boggia
That includes:
Marissa Levy Lerer
Tara Murtha
Extra TBD
Tuesday, July 1
Los Angeles, CA @ Largo on the Coronet
Largo presents…
Jillith Honest – for the love of Jill – a tribute to our Sunshine Gal
Hosted/MC’d by:
Jim Turner
That includes:
Charlotte Caffey & Jane Wiedlin (The Go Go’s)
Margaret Cho
John Doe
Sara Watkins (I’m With Her/Nickel Creek/Watkins Household Hour)
Extra TBD
Wednesday, July 2
Seattle, WA @ Triple Door
Jillith Honest – Loving Jill Sobule
That includes:
TBD
Sunday, July 20
New York, NY @ Joe’s Pub
Jillith Honest – Loving Jill Sobule
Hosted/MC’d by:
Marykate O’Neil
That includes:
Antigone Rising w/ Julie Wolf
Richard Barone
Tracy Bonham
Julian Hornik
Matt Keating
Marykate O’Neil
Joan Osborne
Martha Redbone & Aaron Whitby
Extra TBD
Friday, August 8
Albany, CA @ Ivy Room
(San Francisco Bay space)
Jillith Honest – Loving Jill Sobule
Hosted/MC’d by:
Julie Wolf
That includes:
TBD
Saturday, September 6
Pittsburgh, PA @ Membership Cafe
Jillith Honest – Loving Jill Sobule
That includes:
TBD