Since I am going to a wedding this afternoon, this seemed the appropriate mix. Hooray for Christopher Rubino and Megan McGowan! Yes, I am a closet romantic. Stole My Heart is on the Amazon Kindle commercial. Sister Hazel actually has some good stuff beyond their most popular late 90s period. Carissa’s Wierd was a Seattle “chamber pop” band, one of the members went on to Band of Horses. They apparently didn’t know how to spell. Good to see Jennifer Knapp coming back with some good stuff. Ima see Katie Herzig live pretty soon, so am looking forward to that. The Lily Allen song has weird grammar but maybe that’s a Brit thing… “get a Chinese” rather than “get Chinese”? I assume she’s talking about Chinese food and not adopting a Chinese baby. The song has a nice cover by some UK kids choir, was listening to that the other day and it was utterly charming… possibly even a little better than the original.

Stole My Heart – Little & Ashley
Dead Hearts – Stars
You’re Not The Only One – Paul Thorn
What Kind Of Living – Sister Hazel
Raining In Me – The Benjy Davis Project
Lions – Samantha Crain
Chinese – Lily Allen
Princess – Lee Dewyze
Die – Carissa’s Wierd
Things I Used to Know – Riley Etheridge Jr.
Blue Sunshine – Blue Giant
Check Your Pocket – The Benjy Davis Project
Dive In – Jennifer Knapp
Wasted Daylight – Stars
Static Waves – Andrew Belle & Katie Herzig
Queen of the Lot – The Spring Standards
Heart To Tell – The Love Language
Smile with Candy Hearts – Clara C

1) Imelda May, April Mae and the Junebugs. April Mae has an okay blues voice EXCEPT when she does those stupid slide notes. Which she does way too often. It’s especially prevalent on her CD. I like her band a lot though. The Elvis looking dude who played a box guitar had some really amazing solos, and her bassman did a great job of keeping everything moving. I hadn’t actually been to the Johnny Brenda’s upstairs space before – I’ve always just had drinks downstairs. I like their stage! Imelda May had a great LONG set. Lots of rockabilly, enough to whet my appetite for… a week. I wanna see another rockabilly show. She has an amazing voice but also has a killer band with her. Her vocals are way more polished blues than Kitty, Daisy and Lewis; on their side, they’re doing more of a 50s rock thing instead. Her band is more Mississippi delta and theirs is more “at the sock hop.” I can’t say any one of them provides a BETTER experience than the other, but my gut feeling is that Imelda May is more talented.

Mayhem.

2) Samantha Crain, Frontier Ruckus. Frontier Ruckus has a very fun sound: banjo, trumpet, zither, guitar, bass, very folksy vocals. Though listening to more than an hour of the guy’s voice and it starts to sound a little whiny. Best in smaller doses. They are very tight. They’re countryish folk rock with moments of blues, bluegrass and jazz thrown in. There was this one song where they had a nice intense jam session in the middle -the banjo guy is REALLY good though I don’t think they’re completely at ease with jazz improvisation. Which IS different from blues improvisation.

What You Are.

I definitely love seeing shows at WCL. It’s so intimate and I’ve been able to meet the performers every time. Some of them are more friendly than others, but they’ve all been pretty companionable. They’ll order drinks at the bar and have a chat, etc. Anyways. I love Sam’s songs but her set wasn’t as vibrant as Frontier Ruckus. She had a bunch of technical issues, which are fine, but her set definitely felt shorter if you took out all the pauses for dealing with said issues. She did reach out to the audience for a second with one of her stories: her electric guitar was apparently not hers, as she had to sell her own electric guitar to pay debts associated with hitting the road for this tour (which she told me was going to last the rest of this year… ouch) and so had to borrow an electric guitar. That proceeded to feedback a lot – though maybe that was the speakers. Her voice is powerful but she had SO many under the breath asides that it felt more like a practice session than an actual performance. Still, when she stepped off the stage to sing (and strum quietly) in the darkness without the aid of a mic – everybody listened. It was pretty powerful. Not many artists can pull that off. She has this real folk pop sound (especially on songs like Lions) but she also does rock out. I like those songs of hers a little less. I love Devils in Boston, which counts as rock, but is not a rock out song. BTW… Ann the drummer is a hottie. She had on a white-blonde hairdo with the bangs squared in front and she looked so 50s vamp. And she played drums like she was on speed (after, I swear, like 5 glasses of chablis before the set… I’m pretty sure I got the number right, sitting right by her during Frontier Ruckus’ set).

Lions… at the Kennedy Center!

Devils in Boston.

3) After briefly thinking about it, I don’t have enough estrogen to deal with an Idina Menzel concert, especially if it’s showboating her new pop CD. Not a fan. Though I do love her voice otherwise! Though some people are going to go and have a fabulous time…