Jesse Malin at Capitol Theatre
photo by Em Grey

Debbie Harry, Craig Finn, Lucinda Williams & more appearing on Jesse Malin's livestream series

Jesse Malin has been doing a weekly livestream series on Saturdays, “The Fine Art of Self Distancing,” which continues for its second season on Saturday, May 23 at 4 PM ET on YouTube. Previously, Jesse had streamed from home, but now he’ll broadcast from Berlin in the East Village, one of his clubs. He’ll be taking donations to benefit his band, crew, and to help his clubs, which also include Bowery Electric, Niagara and Dream Baby, return after the pandemic. “From the early frontier days of New York hardcore to years with D Generation and touring as a singer-songwriter it’s all been about surviving and reinventing,” he said. “We’re finding a way to overcome this and still stay connected.”

In addition to performing with his keyboard player Rob Clores, Jesse will be speaking with special guests on upcoming episodes of his livestream, both in person and from afar. This week Lucinda Williams, who released her new album, Good Souls Better Angels, last month, is his guest, and coming up he’ll also welcome Debbie Harry, Jim Jarmush, Graham Parker, Mick Rock, Craig Finn, Alejandro Escovedo and others.

Meanwhile, Jesse has shared a cover of Tom Petty‘s “Crawling Back To You,” which you can watch below. He saw Petty perform the song at what would be his final show, at Hollywood Bowl in 2017, and told Rolling Stone, “I’d seen him before, but this was like magic. That night under the stars at the Hollywood Bowl, he went into ‘Crawling Back to You,’ and the last verse — ‘Most things I worry about/Never happen anyway’ — he just leaves that line hanging in the air. It felt really good hearing that. It was so comforting. So I started playing that song a whole bunch.”

Check out pictures of Jesse’s 2017 show at Capitol Theatre in the gallery below.