Lisa Loeb
The musician gets a decaf fix on her way to sing camp songs on Boston Common
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The musician Lisa Loeb is famous for eclectic reasons: her pretty, angst-ridden 1994 hit single "Stay (I Missed You)" from the soundtrack of the movie "Reality Bites," her signature cat-eye glasses; her guest appearance on "Gossip Girl"; and her romance with Dweezil Zappa, with whom she briefly hosted a show on the Food Network.
Loeb and Zappa broke up a few years ago, but Loeb is still very much a foodie, and as we stride down Tremont Street on a recent sultry Saturday afternoon, she's singing the praises of Boston pastry chef John McKeigue, who is a friend of hers.
"He made a miniature s'more parfait once," she says. "It was soooo good."
Loeb knows from s'mores; as a kid, she spent several happy summers at Camp Champions in Marble Falls, Texas, where she learned to play guitar. Now, at 40 (she looks 25 in her ponytail), Loeb returns to her roots with her new CD, "Camp Lisa," a compilation of classic campfire songs and original songs about summer camp. A bicoastal resident of New York and LA, she's in Boston to perform camp songs at the annual Children's Book Festival on Boston Common.
As we walk, Loeb fishes in her purse for a Band-Aid; she made the mistake of touching a sea urchin while vacationing in Hawaii a couple of weeks ago. "My finger turned into a baby porcupine," she says.
She admits that she urinated on the sting to mitigate the pain initially, and she has been soaking her finger in vinegar ever since, but it still hurts a little when she plays the guitar.
We make a pit stop at the busy
"Some people have trouble singing if they drink milk before they play," she says. "For me it's sugar."
On our way out the door, one of the customers cocks his head and squints at Loeb, as if he knows he knows her but can't quite place her. It's possible he's just thinking that she looks like a young Sarah Palin. Bloggers have been making the comparison this week, along with Tina Fey/Palin and Megan Mullally/Palin comparisons. Loeb takes that in stride. It's the eyeglasses, she nods, noting that if she and Palin have anything other than their looks in common, it's the fact that a lot of reporters focus more on their glasses than on their substance. That said, Loeb confides that she's planning to launch a line of eyeglasses next year, although she's not ready to share details.
We head toward the hospitality tent behind the main stage, stopping once so that Loeb can tell a couple of little kids that she likes the masks they're carrying, which they made out of paper plates. As a patron of kid art, she commissioned a 14-year-old girl named Esme to draw the cover art for the "Camp Lisa" CD. Coincidentally, she says, Esme is the name of a key character in J.D. Salinger's book "Nine Stories," which is the name of her old band.
A few minutes before she's due to perform, Loeb sits down to create a set list, which will include Neil Young's "Love Is a Rose" (which she used to sing at camp) and an original getting-ready-for-camp song called "Going Away." The latter, she says, is inspired by the scene in "The Jerk" in which a downtrodden Steve Martin has trouble packing lightly. ("The ashtray, this paddle game, the remote control, and the lamp, and that's all I need . . .") As it happens, Martin himself plays banjo on another "Camp Lisa" track, "The Disappointing Pancake," which tells the tale of a dense flapjack that wasn't edible but that found purpose nonetheless as a substitute baseball glove and bicycle wheel. (It's kind of like "On Top of Spaghetti," but with a moral.)
DJ Lance Rock from the funky Nick Jr. show "Yo Gabba Gabba" is hanging out backstage, too, as are Genevieve Goings and D.C., the ebullient stars of a Disney Channel show called "Choo Choo Soul," who are the book festival's MCs. While introducing Loeb to the crowd, D.C. announces that Loeb is best known for a song on the "soundtrack of 'Reality Bite' "
"Bites," Loeb says to herself, softly, and she takes the stage.
