Ball of Wax 71 Songs: Crystal Beth – “Answer the Damn Phone”

Beth Fleenor – aka Crystal Beth – has long been one of my favorite performers to witness creating spontaneous musical magic with the assistance of looping pedals. Whether conjuring worlds with her clarinets or vocally opening a door to another dimension, it seems like she’s able to transport audiences to other realms – or at least transmit messages from those realms – at the drop of a hat. “Answer the Damn Phone,” created with just her voice and two loopers, is a perfectly pithy example of Beth’s improvisatory genius at work. Even better, it tells you her secret right up front. As she writes in the BoW 71 liner notes, “when something comes rushing through” – call it inspiration, the muse, a message, or a gift – you have to Answer the Damn Phone. I’m so glad she did, and that she’s shared her end of that call with us.