Last month, Jill Sobule, the singer-songwriter and activist best-known for her minor 1995 hit "I Kissed A Girl," passed away suddenly in a house fire while staying with friends in Woodbury, Minnesota. Sobule was 66. This past weekend, a number of Sobule's peers and admirers played at a series of tribute shows in Northampton and Cambridge, Massachusetts, as well as Santa Monica. Performers included Amanda Palmer, Margaret Cho, Kay Hanley, Lisa Loeb, Tom Morello, and Madeleine Peyroux, among others. In the months ahead, there will be more Sobule tribute shows, or Jilith Fairs, in Evanston, Philadelphia, Seattle, New York, and Pittsburgh.
The great power-pop veteran Marshall Crenshaw, a friend of Sobule, played at the Northampton tribute show. He told a funny story about a time that Sobule covered for him. He was late to his own show, and she got up out of the audience and played an impromptu acoustic set. Crenshaw then went into a cover of "Jetpack," a track from Sobule's 2004 album Underdog Victorious. Below, watch Chenshaw's performance and listen to Sobule's original song.
Meanwhile at McCabe’s McCabe's Guitar Shop, Lisa Loeb and David Poe covered Sobule’s “Tomorrow Is Breaking,” and Fabio (who starred in the “I Kissed A Girl” video) came to pay his respects too.
