Information Is Your Friend

Since July I've known where I was going to be at 4 p.m. Saturday, September 14, which for those not keeping score is today: a mile south of my Manhattan apartment at Rockwood Music Hall at 196 Allen Street. Only then my dear friends Perry and Jill suddenly decided to “do the paperwork” and celebrate the legal marriage that ensued at precisely the same time and 100 miles to the east. No way would I miss this happy event. But I invite and indeed urge any New Yorker reading this to take my place and go hear San Francisco’s Dawn Oberg.

Since Oberg’s format is lounge piano, it may surprise you that the “Fans Also Like” list alongside her pitiful Spotify stats comprises Wussy, the Paranoid Style, Angaleena Presley, and Carsie Blanton. Or maybe it shouldn’t, know what I mean? Oberg tells me her setlist will begin with “Old Hussies Never Die” and end with “Nothing Rhymes With Orange,” the most scabrous anti-Trump song on record not just because musicians are chickenshit but because Oberg is madder than Tim Heidecker. It will also include a bunch of as yet unrecordeds, including one called “Mitch McConnell.” So please—go request an “Information Is Your Friend” encore for me.