Deb Pasternak, Club Helsinki, March 15, 2001
By Seth Rogovoy

(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass., March 16, 2001) - “The air is hot and electric” went a lyric at one point during Deb Pasternak’s torrid, fiery performance at Club Helsinki on Thursday night. Pasternak’s voice itself crackled with electricity when she delivered the line, an apt metaphor or description of the atmosphere she evoked throughout her intimate, emotional show.

Backed by her three-piece band, led by producer/guitarist Chris Rival, Pasternak was more moody, acoustic rocker than sensitive singer-songwriter, although she is more often grouped in with the latter than the former. But when she stretches out, lets loose with her voice and indulges her passions as she often did on Thursday night, she is unbeatable.

Pasternak was the missing link between Neil Young-by-way-of-Nirvana grunge and Bonnie Raitt-like blues mama. Toss in a bit of moody Velvet Underground and the jazzy, Jimi Hendrix-like riff-rock of her song, “Jack,” about a bad hair day, and you get a broader picture of the territory Pasternak mines.

In other hands, Pasternak’s songs, many of which deal with emotional and romantic trouble, might seem suffocatingly self-referential and self-pitying. But Pasternak brings enough punk attitude, tough-girl cynicism and self-deprecating humor that she avoids all of the pitfalls and potholes that are strewn in this well-worn path.

Pasternak wasn’t without her pop pleasures, either. On “Sweet Addiction,” she tossed in some genuine jazz scat-singing, and not the ersatz, “shoo-be-do” kind of stuff that too often passes for the real thing. And “Closer to You” was a bit of Sting-like jazz-pop which avoided being cloying by embracing dissonance and spitting it out.

Pasternak is a seductive performer, alternately purring like a hurt kitten and ranting at personal injustice with trumpet-like blasts of soprano vocals. Upbeat, mainstream rock songs bumped up against jazzy ballads, and darkness clashed with light, leading to those electric sparks alluded to earlier.

Pasternak’s band, including electric bass and drums, was tight enough to kick things into gear but loose enough to keep them swinging and close to the garage where her heart seems to want to go. Indeed, she even sang a number called “The Garage Song,” in which judging from her sly tone and body language automobiles and the spaces they occupied weren’t always what they seemed to be.

Club Helsinki is a place of surprises. The venue’s intimacy and warmth elicits both from its performers. It’s also the kind of place you can go to expecting to see one performer and getting two others for the same price. Ruth Unger warmed up the crowd for Pasternak. The daughter of folk royalty Jay Ungar and Molly Mason was joined on a few numbers by that other spawn of folk royalty, Tao Rodriguez-Seeger. Ungar delivered a particularly moving a capella version of the classic, death-haunted folk ballad, “Railroad Boy.” She and Rodriguez-Seeger will be returning to Helsinki in June with their four-piece string band, the Mammals.

[This review originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on March 17, 2001. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 2001. All rights reserved.]