Results tagged “sarabareilles”

Tony Lucca (MySpace) has been plying his trade—blues and soul-infused singer-songwriter rock—largely unrecognized for over ten years now. His sound is not exactly what you'd expect from a former Mouseketeer who at one point opened for the likes of Marc Anthony and N Sync. But with his latest album, , Lucca shows that all that kiddie stuff is long behind him. He's an earnest, talented songwriter whose sound is inescapably heartland-inspired Southern California, a la Jackson Browne and The Eagles. It's little wonder that he's lately been selling out places like Joe's Pub in New York and The Hotel Café in L.A.

          

How about this unseasonably cool weather? Saturday night was pretty much a perfect night for a concert. So our only concern heading into the Maroon 5/Counting Crows show was whether the performers would measure up to the ideal setting.

Singer/Songwriter David Ford

David Ford CD Giveaway
4/21/08-4/23/08

We confess, we have a bit of a thing for young women with pianos. You already know about the torrid affair we'd like to have with Alison Sudol, aka A Fine Frenzy, and we're also quite enamored with Sara Bareilles. Not to be forgotten in the mix of kick-ass piano women right now is Kate Nash (MySpace), whose debut album, , is regularly playing on our iPod. When describing Nash's music, it's tough not to make a Lily Allen comparison, but that's not entirely accurate. Even though Nash's lyrics contain a certain degree of bitterness, and while she sings with a Cockney accent similar to Allen's, Nash's music isn't as consumed with the need to be "cool" by focusing entirely on getting laid and getting drunk. Don't get us wrong, we're all for getting drunk and getting laid, but when it's all the music is about, you're trying just a bit too hard. Nash's music doesn't have that problem. So we're hoping Nash won't have the additional problem of sucking in her live performance.

No, this is not a rerun of our recent post of the same title. It's just that we had a chance to see him again so soon and we jumped on it. As you should too, next time he comes to town.

Entering the empty stage, David Ford began to shake his maracas into the microphone. He stepped away and lowered the maracas, but, as if it was somehow coming from behind the scenes, the sound continued to echo. He then briefly vocalized into the mic and -- same as the maracas -- after the vocalization was over, it eerily continued. At this point, hushed murmurs throughout the crowd could be heard: "What is he doing?" "How is that happening?" What it took the audience a few minutes to understand was that he was looping each sound individually to create a rich texture of music to fill out the entire room with his first song of the night, "Go To Hell." It was truly a mark of high showmanship, but David Ford did it with such grace and understatedness that not only was it entertaining, it was also endearing. Throughout his entire performance, he commanded the stage while also performing with an air of self-consciousness and an honest-to-goodness "Gee shucks I'm so glad to be here" attitude. With his album already having been released in the UK to great success and recently having been released for digital download here in the States (available physically in April), this is a man who is headed swiftly up that daunting hill to stardom. His enthusiasm for performing shined through as he told the crowd that he was glad to be in Philadelphia: "the birthplace of the Constitution and Will Smith."

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we'll be posting events that are going on sale during the current week. This Thursday post only collects the latest announcements, so definitely check the Tuesday post for any you may have missed.

Singer/songwriter Sara Bareilles

With the upcoming release of Memory Man on March 13th, Aqualung is touring the Eastern U.S., stopping at the World Cafe Live on March 10th at 7:30pm. You might think that Aqualung is a band of some sort but it's really just one Englishman - Matt Hales - making beautiful music. Hales calls his music, "truthful, articulate, candid, poetic, sometimes beautiful and occasionally a bit strange." Just what we like. He writes, performs, sings...