Ironically you can interpret that headline several different ways in regards to BlackSwanSongs.com.
We had some down time this weekend. The new WordPress 3.1 install didn’t sit pretty with my servers…until today.
Anyways, your favorite writer that spends more time playing music than writing – that would be me for the uninitiated – is back up in it.
Probably the third interpretation of Down for A Day includes the fact that I was so sick during South by Southwest Music Conference, I only purposefully got to see 2 bands play: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Kanye West (and friends).
Looks like this is the first year in a while that I might not be writing reviews for any publication other than the one you are reading, but my editor at the Austin American-Statesman asked me for some showcase picks and the following showcases are what I delivered to her. I’ve provided links for some of the bands that I think you must hear:
Note: showcases in bold hold the highest probability of my attendance.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
8:00 Strange Boys – Emo’s Jr. 9:00 Here We Go Magic – Club de Ville
10:30 Motorhead – Austin Music Hall
12:00 Nas & Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley 1:00 Sixteen Deluxe – Encore
Thursday, March 18, 2010
8:00 Ozomatli – Auditorium Shores (free show; no wristband or badge required) 9:00 Miles Kurosky – Emo’s Main Room 10:00 Rogue Wave – Emo’s Main Room
11:30 Band of Horses – Stubb’s 12:00 Centro-matic – Emo’s Annex 1:00 Evan Dando – The Ale House
Friday, March 19, 2010
8:55 Band of Horses – Central Presbyterian Church 9:30 Cruiserweight – Buffalo Billiards
10:00 Smokey Robinson – Austin Music Hall
11:00 Girl in a Coma – Buffalo Billiards 12:00 Broken Social Scene – The Parish 1:00 Dengue Fever – Encore Patio
Saturday, March 20, 2010
8:00 She & Him – Auditorium Shores(free show; no wristband or badge required)
9:30 Sarah Jarosz – Austin Music Hall 10:00 Margaret Cho – Esther’s Follies
11:20 Xzibit – Club de Ville 12:30 Big Star – Antone’s 1:00 Adam Franklin & The Bolts of Melody – The Tap Room at Six
Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar on fire at the Monterrey Pop Festival: one of the original outliers, he was better than twice as good; he was exponentially better than everyone.
A Dream Deferred: Black Rock was a panel at SXSW this year that I was determined not to miss as its subject matter is determinedly close to my heart and soul. I spoke with all of the panelists after it was over; I felt like they were kindred spirits; African American folks that are bold enough to be different, living out loud, embracing the very rock ‘n’ roll culture that the mainstream media would have you believe we did not create…when we did!
I used to get called “oreo” in high school because I spoke with proper diction and listened to alternative rock as well as hip-hop. Odd that a delicious cookie could become such a powerful, meanicing word. Sometimes I want to just go postal when people even jokingly refer to me as an “oreo,” black on the outside and white on the inside. How dare they question my “blackness”…because of the way I speak, dress and the music I listen to. Anyone that knows anything about black culture will tell you straight up that blackness is a state of mind. (It is not clothes, it is not speaking one way, it is not one type of music.)
I saw that same ignormant BS rear its ugly head when African Americans questioned whether President Obama was “black enough” to be the first black president. Can you believe that?!? I once heard someone coyly retort: “Ask Michelle if he’s black enough.”
Is Barack black enough? Am I black enough considering I listen to rock? People – sometimes our own people – questioning the core, the very soul of our socio-political being. Ironically both Barack and I are revolutionaries. Abolitionists that speak quietly while carrying a big stick. As W.E.B. DuBois would say, living under the “double-consciousness” of being at once an American artist and an African American artist. I mean, even one of my best black friends in middle school called me an “oreo,” then quickly said he was just kidding. (But I basically never spoke with him ever again. I was young, but I felt it was a high insult to have my “blackness” called into question.)
African Americans are not monolithic in our culture! We all dress, talk and act very different. We come in many different shades of black, brown and beige. We might speak in one dialect at work and then we’ll switch to slang when we are at home, speaking with our brothas and sistas, our friends and family. Some of us love hip-hop, some of us are renowned opera singers. Some of us are classically trained violinists. Some of us get down with hip-hop and R&B.
…and many of us like rock ‘n’ roll.
Before the anglo Cleveland DJ Alan Freed started using the term to market R&B, “rock ‘n’ roll” started as an African American slang term for sex. Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, Arthur Lee, Bo Didley, Big Mama Thornton, Little Richard…African Americans made up some of the earliest pioneers of rock ‘n’ roll! It’s almost as if the scribes of popular culture tried to erase our creative history by omission.
I hope that the next generation of black indie rockers never has to feel the pain of someone trying to make them feel less than just because they aren’t playing into a monolithic stereotype of “blackness.” I pray that the young indie rockers in high school and college today never have to explain themselves to anyone for liking rock and hip-hop
The academic discussion on black rock during SXSW was a first step that’s been a long time coming…
The Thursday audience at the SXSW panel “A Dream Deferred: Black Rock” was a small but enthusiastic group of professors, musicians and music industry insiders that attempted to discover the roots of media marginalization of African American rock musicians.
“It’s no accident that this panel is happening this year,” said moderator and Princeton professor Kandia Crazy Horse, later referencing how the African American underground rock scene is beginning to bubble up into the popular culture. Crazy Horse noted the success of Bloc Party, TV On the Radio and a host of other black hipsters – or “Blipsters” as the New York Times cheekily dubbed them.
Princeton University professor Daphne Brooks noted that in the new age of President Barack Obama, where possibility appears limitless, artists like Santogold and TV On the Radio have graced the cover of Spin Magazine while their music reflects “anxious blackness that is alienated – and yet at the center of popular culture.” Brooks pointed to a black and white, independent film (which initially gained traction at SXSW 2008) called “Medicine For Melancholy,” noting that it was one of the first artistic mediums documenting the emerging “Generation Y” African American rockers, their hopes, thoughts dreams and scene.
Boldaslove.us blogger Rob Fields made an eloquent case that African American rock musicians began to lose parity during the 1970s as rock radio marketing executives figured out that there was money to be made in creating genre formats with specific playlists, as opposed to the genre-bending, free flowing AM radio stations of the 1960s.
“We’ve got to help audiences become more sophisticated,” he said after recalling how some of his African American friends will ask “Is that band Living Colour still around?” when “black rock” is mentioned as a genre.
“We’ve got to take our sista friends to rock shows,” Crazy Horse said. “And black folks … we need to take our children to (rock) shows, too” to expose them to the genre of music that African Americans had a heavy hand in creating.
“Context is key,” Duane Harriott said as the panelists almost unanimously agreed that when sample-heavy artists like Girl Talk mash-up everything with the kitchen sink and African American rock, young audiences consume that music without any idea of the original source material, unless they do their research.
Crazy Horse reminded the attendees that African Americans are not monolithic in their art; she noted that Public Enemy is still one of the most rockin’ bands around, and a perfect example of not necessarily being what people think of when the “black rock” genre is discussed.
Unfortunately many of the SXSW musicians that are a part of this emerging scene were likely still asleep during the 11 a.m. under-attended panel.
One of the best shows I witnessed at SXSW 2009 (aside from the revelation that was Janelle Monae) was Kanye West at the Fader Fort…easily. Sometimes hip-hop artists play for an unusally short time, but West played for two hours. He made average album cuts morph into show stopping bangers.
Expectations were really high too – I mean, up until recently Kanye would be the first to tell you that he is the shit! But hommie lived up to his own hype, believe it or not. The guy has skillz. And his eight-piece band was on point. He had a drummer and a precussionist that made the beats extra tribal. The DJ showed restraint and good taste throughout. And the place nearly combusted when Common and Erykah Badu appeared from stage right, proving to be the real surprise guests.
Kanye was supposed to be a surprise, but I actually broke the story (locally, nationally and internationally through Twitter) that Kanye would be playing at SXSW. A friend of mine (who shall remain nameless, like Deep Throat) rather accidentally let me know that Kanye was coming…and then my editor was able to confirm it through a second deep source…allowing me to break the story on the Austin American-Statesman’s music blog.
It felt great breaking the story cause…I’m just a freelancer. You’d think the full-time staff writers would be breaking stories like that…but this time it was all me.
Anywho, of all the stuff I wrote during SXSW, I was most proud of the Kanye review. I felt like I nailed it. I felt like I wouldn’t be embarassed if he read it. I felt like I was golden…like my writen skills on deadline had gone golden once again.
At 9:05 p.m. Saturday, Kanye West and his stable of G.O.O.D. Music artists descended upon the Levi’s/Fader Fort stage at 1101 E. Fifth St. for what would become a highlight of SXSW 2009.
Kanye West toward the end of his set: "Levi's get that check ready!"
If you had ever visited the Graphic Glass Studio on Fifth Street, you wouldn’t recognize it in its incarnation as the Levi’s/Fader Fort. All of the floor-to-ceiling “Sanford and Son”-type items in the warehouse had been removed for its transformation into a Levi’s store, complete with all the ambiance of a store from a high end shopping mall.
Likewise, West’s performance was something of a transformation, too. West was as good as he needed to be (many people had been waiting for him to play based on a rumor since the early afternoon), and it was better than it had to be (he killed for two hours). The show resembled one of those “cavalcade of stars” tours from the late 1950s/early 1960s: West would perform two or three of his hits, then he’d bring up one of his proteges from his G.O.O.D. Music record label imprint and share the stage or feature them outright. Although West (and his ego) are notorious for being his own worst enemy, he really reined himself in Saturday night; he graciously played the role of a generous headliner and an excited mentor and label boss spotlighting his stable of artists in what was a marketing coup (for all parties involved).
“Amazing” from West’s most recent, most experimental work yet, “808s and Heartbreaks” started off his set with a pitch-perfect stomp, pricking up ears with its modern-yet-tribal groove and maxed-out Auto-Tune vocals.
“Gone” – one of the best tracks from his breakout sophomore album “Late Registration” — came in quick succession. The creative DJ then elevated the crowd further with a bit of “Drive Slow” as bodies and booties bounced in unison.
West was clad in a T-shirt and sleeveless jean jacket – and only one gold necklace (and a watch that’s probably more expensive than all our salaries combined). He looked more old school, and had shed the urban-futuristic-Afro-punk accouterments that he’s recently flirted with. Considering he didn’t have a soundcheck, nor any of the enormous stage show props he’s grown accustomed to using, his performance was spot-on evidence that his talent is not based on overblown production.
West’s diction was excellent, cutting through the bombast of his live band and DJ. And it’s worth noting that his band – bassist, drummer, guitarist, percussionist, keyboardist, DJ (with now requisite Apple laptop) and backup singer – were flawless. The percussionist played electronic drums and over-sized congas in time to the DJ, emphasizing the hypnotic snare beats, providing synthetic and organic tones. The live snare and kick drum were pegging the mixing board in the red, and cleaning out earwax, just the way it should be.
Likewise, West’s band used dynamics better than most bands, which tend to play with everything turned to eleven, loud and proud, full of nervous energy, never thinking to bring it down.
The star-packed show was carefully constructed with a song cycle that built in intensity over the course of two hours and reached a crescendo when super-surprise guest Common came on stage to perform his songs “Universal Mind Control” and “The Light.” At the end of “The Light” Erykah Badu appeared out of nowhere, representing Dallas and female power worldwide. Badu then flexed her skills in a freestyle joint with Common and West. Common is one of West’s longtime friends and collaborators, and his and Badu’s arrival sparked West’s biggest, most sincere smiles of the evening.
“I (expletive) forgot the words…I got too excited Austin!” West said during his climatic hit song, “Good Life.” Then as if to help out their mentor, all of the G.O.O.D. artists and Common returned to the stage as West found his footing again. The song’s lyrical reference to West’s grandmother and his recently deceased mother (who was also his manager) seemed to elevate the song in the audience’s consciousness; everyone appeared to appreciate the moment for its realness.
Whether you love him, hate him, or are apathetic, it’s nearly impossible to deny West is something of an anomaly in pop music in that he has critical acclaim, mainstream appeal, indie rock cred, Grammy awards and platinum-selling albums. West’s albums rest alongside Radiohead records in the vinyl collections of critics and tastemakers. From the hipster Pitchfork Media set to top 40/urban radio worshipers, West has both a ghetto pass and a suburbia pass, and his Saturday evening show proved that he can rock both arenas and a small 1,500-capacity boutique micro-festival.
The four-day long Levi’s/Fader Fort event was free for all, and included unlimited free booze and drinks (but alarmingly no food – a horrible planning flaw). The Levi’s/Fader Fort was evidence that the worldwide “economic downtown” apparently has not touched neither Levi’s nor Fader Magazine as the production price-tag of the event would likely be enough to feed a small West African nation for a month (or more); also, toward the end of West’s set, he shouted “Levi’s get that check ready.” Austinites appeared to be in the minority, as New Yorkers, West Coasters and assorted folks from around the world appeared to make up the majority of the audience (I overhead too many conversations about Williamsburg and the Bay area).
Setlist
1. Amazing
2. The Good, the Bad, the Ugly (Consequence featuring Kanye West)
3. Don’t Forget Em (Consequence)
4. Gone (Consequence featuring Kanye West)
5. Drive Slow (featuring GLC)
6. Big Screen (GLC featuring Kanye West)
7. Spaceship (featuring GLC and Consequence)
8. Disperse (Consequence featuring GLC and Really Doe)
9. We Major (featuring Really Doe)
10. Plastic (Really Doe featuring Kanye West)
11. Crack Music (featuring Malik Yusef)
12. spoken word interlude by Malik Yusef
13. Diamonds Are Forever
14. Getcha Some (Big Sean)
15. Way Out (Big Sean & Mr. Hudson)
16. Anyone But Him (Mr. Hudson featuring Kanye West)
17. Stay Up! (Viagra) (88 Keys featuring Kanye West)
18. Everybody (Fonzworth Bentley)
19. Welcome To Heartbreak (featuring Kid Cudi)
20. Sky Might Fall (Kid Cudi)
21. Buggin’ Out (Consequence, Kid Cudi, Kanye West)
22. Day ‘N’ Nite (Kid Cudi)
23. Universal Mind Control (Common)
24. Get Em High (featuring Common)
25. The Light (Common & Erykah Badu)
26. freestyle session (Common, Erykah Badu, Kanye West)
27. Heartless
28. Paranoid (featuring Kid Cudi & Mr. Hudson)
29. Good Life
30. Love Lockdown
Just want to say I thoroughly enjoyed reading this review. I liked that the writer didn’t use the word “cross-over”, the term often used to describe West’s music.
I loved it! He was great. Everyone he brought with him was awesome! It was good to see him out of the spotlight so to speak. I took pics of it there on www.myspace.com/csharrettsphotography
I’m still finding my flow…my blog flow…again, so please bare with me as I figure out how often to post…and how to post my articles in a timely way.
I’m still throwing up some writing I did during SXSW, about 3 weeks ago. It already ran in the Austin newspaper, so I’m posting it here really for no one other than me. Just so I’ll have a copy in the archives…so to speak.
Here is a link to the online version, written by yours truly, Black Swan, a.k.a. V. M. Black, a.k.a. Modlang, a.k.a. Morpha Too Small, a.k.a. V.M.F.
Superdrag, Knoxville’s perennial underdogs of power pop, blasted through a short set of three-and-a-half-minute pop nuggets during their powerful return to the stage at Pangaea.
Don't let the dark suits fool you: Superdrag play infectious power pop that will leave you smiling.
The “ultra lounge” with bottle service appeared to be one of the most unlikely places to catch a band that spent the better part of the last two decades traveling around the country in a van, living out of the lint in each other’s pockets, but there appeared to be fans in the roped-off area that were taking advantage of the club’s exclusive (and expensive) bottle service. The attention to alcohol was quite ironic considering frontman John Davis’ reported battle with alcoholism and his re-born Christian sobriety that suffuses its way into his newly penned lyrics.
Superdrag reformed last year after a 5 year hiatus; their set included a sampling of songs from their lengthy career and several new tracks off their new album “Industry Giants,” which was released on Tuesday. Retooled (and seemingly quite sober), the new Superdrag actually featured the return of the original lineup: vocalist / guitarist Davis, bassist Tom Pappas, guitarist Brandon Fisher and super-steady drummer Don Coffey.
The band opened with “Slow to Anger,” the opening cut from their new album. With Davis repeatedly scream-singing “slow to speak, slow to anger” during the verse, the lifted biblical passage transformed into a mantra, appearing aggressive in tone instead of a plaintive adage.
“Keep It Close to Me” and “Down on the Inside” followed quickly, cracking forth out of a glowing tube-amp distortion squall from their dual guitar attack. Davis diced up buzzsaw leads on his Gibson SG during the bridges and choruses, recalling the elements that allowed Superdrag to put the power in power pop.
The band also made sure to include their 1996 radio/MTV hit “Sucked Out.” The song blasted with fury and contempt of a music industry that is now taking it hard on the chin just as Superdrag is elevating like a fiery-winged phoenix. After a rollercoaster ride of a career that began in 1992, Superdrag is clicking right back up the hill again.
I was fortunate enough to witness three truly amazing shows at SXSW 2009: Kanye West, Big Boi and Janelle Monáe. Monáe was a revelation to me. Her aesthetic was so forward-looking, her voice phenomenal. I’m certain that she will be a household name within the next two or three years. My review below first appeared in the Austin American-Statesman here.
(Thursday night, March 19, 2009 at the Austin Music Hall)
Two words: Janelle Monáe!
Gentle reader, every now and again at SXSW, if you’re exceptionally fortunate, you’ll encounter an artist that’s so singular in vision – so well rehearsed with music that is extraordinarily forward-looking – that you’ll know deep down in your marrow that you’re bearing witness to greatness.
Atlanta experimental-R&B/“afro-punk” musician Janelle Monáe gave a starmaking turn at the Austin Music Hall on Thursday evening, performing a total of four songs in less than 30 minutes while providing what surely were some of the most slammin’, genre-melting moments of the festival.
After a brief voiceover introduction wherein a sentient cyborg reveals its fears of death through disassembly, Monáe emerged looking more like a replicant from “Blade Runner” than a 21st century R&B singer. With unblinking eyes opened wide like a Japanese anime character, Monáe worked the entirety of the enormous stage like a pro, giving a nod to her NYC musical theater training. Her dancing was kinetic and purposefully robotic, electric and propulsive, all locked into the bombastically banging music.
Janelle Monae warps minds with future music at SXSW 2009.
Her ridiculously tight band knocked out her songs with precision and virtuosity: “Many Moons,” “Sincerely Jane,” “Violent Stars, Happy Ending,” seamlessly segued into one another leaving absolutely no time for the audience to process the career defining performance. During the empowering lament “Smile,” Monáe displayed the range of her multi-octave voice, skillfully knocking people out without any overwrought melisma or showy tonal acrobatics. Only a lead guitar accompanied Monáe as she belted out the refrain, recalling the soulful pathos of Billie Holiday combined with the charismatic sass of Liza Minnelli.
The afro-punk, electronica-inspired textures that Kanye West flirted with on his last record were given a more thorough exploration during Monáe’s experimental set. Unlike West, Monáe proved she is not just dabbling in the still emerging afro-punk genre; Thursday night’s set showcased Monáe defining the new musical movement as she transcended the typical genre trappings of R&B, soul, hip-hop, pop and rock as she combined them all into her deconstruction. In this new age of President Barack Obama-inspired hope, Monáe is on the forefront of expanding musical paradigms and possibilities, too.
The Thursday evening Afro-punk showcase was a little underattended considering how good it was.
This was a quick review of a show that really should have been much better than it was. Dallas Austin is an amazing producer. But his talents as a performer…not so much. My original review appeared in the Austin American-Statesman here.
By V.M. Black
(Thursday, March 19, 2009 at 11:50 p.m.)
Pop-hip hop-R&B producer extraordinaire Dallas Austin used a whole lot of sound and fury during his Thursday evening set at the Afro-punk showcase, signifying that he is still finding his voice as a performer.
With five gi-normous-sized flatscreen plasma televisions covering the stage, it almost appeared that Austin was hiding behind the screens, as opposed to using them as an additional visual element. (They featured video footage of his new album’s many guest vocalists: George Clinton, Big Gipp from Goodie Mobb and several other Atlantans.) To further the appearance of identity concealment, he and his drummer emerged at the beginning of the set in Mexican wrestler masks.
Yet as Austin took off his mask, a few banging tunes started vibrating the speaker cones and motivating the audience (which had thinned a bit after Janelle Monáe’s starmaking 11 p.m. set). With a live band and an Apple laptop, Austin’s lyrical exploration of modern day societal ills was one of the more intriguing aspect of his show. Another highlight was his revisionist cover of T-Rex’s “Children of the Revolution.” The band’s original tunes were creative if not memorable, falling somewhere between the pop/hip hop glam of the Neptunes/N.E.R.D. and the rocking eletronica workouts of LCD Soundsystem.
Austin is definitely more of a producer than a frontman. He has a little bit to learn about engaging an audience and working a crowd of several hundred people (let alone several thousand). But he’s talented enough that he’ll probably figure it out eventually.
Big Boi easily put on one of the best shows during SXSW 2009.
Big Boi was one of the other fantastic shows I was lucky enough to witness at SXSW. He sleighed mostly Outkast songs, which made Andre 3000′s absence apparent…even though the show was bangin’. And I mean…super bangin’. The review below was first published in the Austin American-Statesman here.
By V.M. Black
(12:40 a.m. Thursday night, March 19, Austin Music Hall)
Antwan “Big Boi” Patton headlined Thursday evening’s Afro-punk showcase at the Austin Music Hall with the same Dirty South bravura and amped-up vocal acrobatics that catapulted his band Outkast to world-renowned phenomenon.
Aside from that glaringly ominous omission (they say they are still a band), Big Boi carried the show over the goal line on the back of his charismatic vocal style. He’s always been able to rock his verses and choruses in an accelerated double-time tempo, and last night was no different. Big Boi killed “So Fresh, So Clean” before he asked his band to increase the pace. “Ghetto Musick” and “B.O.B.” were euphorically transcendent. The DJ’s beats ignited the audience, joining them and the performers into one nation under a groove.
As Big Boi’s band and DJ vamped on the end of “B.O.B.,” he ever-so-coolly remarked, “Come on Janelle,” wherein Afro-punk firestarter Janelle Monáe returned to the stage after her star-making performance earlier in the evening to bust her signature get-its-freak-on dance, her arms flailing as her legs pounded in lock-step rhythm to the music.
With a respectably sized multi-ethnic, multi-cultural audience halfway filling the Austin Music Hall, it was such a beautiful sight watching all of the SXSW attendees from different backgrounds, from all over the world, move, bump and grind together to the “bom, bom, bomb” of “The Way You Move.” The song was undeniable, yielding writhing bodies from kids with their parents to senior citizen-age attendees.
“We got so many (expletive) hits that I don’t know what to do,” Big Boi said with a laugh. And he was correct. The only thing was that when he referred to “we” – and when he played so many Outkast bangers – he was ultimately drawing attention back to the fact that his very talented Outkast bandmate was missing in action.
So the first review you write at SXSW is always an odd one, at least for me, because you are getting your footing, and you know that you’ve got to crank out about 12 more articles – equally unique.
I enjoyed catching Jessica Lea Mayfield – totally by chance – on the opening Wednesday night. In retrospect, I think I would have emphasized her youth more and her abilities less if I were to rewrite it now. But I think because I had no expectations at all I found her to be extra-talented and intriguing.
Now, four days and 20-30 bands-viewed later, I think she was good…but not great. Hopefully I didn’t over-hype her in the review.
Actually, don’t listen to me, I stand by what I wrote. Jessica Lea Mayfield is definitely worth checking out!
By V.M. Black | Thursday, March 19, 2009, 01:08 AM
A little gremlin from Tuesday’s St. Patrick’s Day festivities must have jumped in my computer because my first SXSW showcase was not at all what I had planned to see. Thinking I was attending a 9 p.m. set at the Parish by a band named Tokyo (that doesn’t appear to exist), I ended up being treated with a performance by Kent, Ohio, folk music wunderkind Jessica Lea Mayfield. Initially I thought the heavens had aligned against me; a few songs into Mayfield’s set, I realized my planning error was entirely a blessing in disguise. Mayfield performed an inspired, deeply soulful set on the opening night of SXSW that belied her 19 years on the planet.
Mayfield quietly walked on stage, picked up her acoustic guitar and proceeded to play the majority of her 2008 Dan Auerbach-produced album “With Blasphemy So Heartfelt.” Little Mayfield was congenial, but never too talky between songs, letting the music speak for itself. The Parish filled during her set, and much of the audience appeared familiar with her music, yelling and yipping during “Words of Love” and “Kiss Me Again.” The former song was the first spark that began to stir the audience’s collective soul as a lone lilting vocal played counterpoint to a strumming waltz on her acoustic guitar. Meanwhile drummer Anne Lillis pounded soulful syncopations underneath some innovative, atmospheric leads by guitarist Richie Kirkpatrick.
Jessica Lea Mayfield has been writing songs and performing in bands longer than you have.
Watching Mayfield’s technical skill and charismatic assuredness, you couldn’t help but think of Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours of practice theory from his recent book “Outliers.” Mayfield appeared awfully darned close to being a master of her instrument and of her voice; she’s been performing since she was 8 years old. And considering she began writing songs at age 11, she’s very close to proving Gladwell’s theory correct.
During the first quarter of her set, I thought that she needed to have her heart broken a few more times to wrench some extra performance pain from the darker recesses of her soul. But then the songs kept coming, and as the set progressed the power of her lyrics became more and more overwhelming. “We Never Lied” and “Bible Days” dark and mournful subject matter began to penetrate flesh, moving hearts and vitals around.
“The One That I Love Best” rolled along like a Palace Brothers song, like the slower water in a Midwestern river bend. Kirkpatrick continued to display his atmospheric skills on the track, taking a solo that was movingly original. But it was the last song – “For Today” – with its echo and reverb-soaked guitar, measured vocal tone and lyrical depth that made me a believer (while convincing me that Mayfield has been around the crumbling city block of heartbreak more than once). Unless she burns out (unlikely), you’ll be hearing from this artist for a long time to come.
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By Nobody
March 22, 2009 2:48 PM | Link to this
One of the most amazing shows I’ve ever seen at southby, maybe ever.
By Isabelle
March 23, 2009 8:09 AM | Link to this
Hello,
Just want to say I thoroughly enjoyed reading this review. I liked that the writer didn’t use the word “cross-over”, the term often used to describe West’s music.
More power to your publication!
Isa
By Christina Sharretts
March 25, 2009 2:26 PM | Link to this
I loved it! He was great. Everyone he brought with him was awesome! It was good to see him out of the spotlight so to speak. I took pics of it there on www.myspace.com/csharrettsphotography