Sunday, July 20, 2008

7/18/08 - Lifters, Telegraph Canyon, AM Ramblers, Kristina Morland

started out friday night at BJ's in plano. great happy hour to start the evening. yep, i can say this with all honesty - i really love BJs. i can't emphasize enough how much i love BJs. really.

headed down to the pegasusnews showcase at dada. batman and wifey showed up, too. met them at zini's, where i was delighted to see my alternative-universe girlfriend working once again, even coming out from behind the counter to run up the stairs in her short-shorts, i'm sure just for me. praise jeebus.

back at dada, kristina morland was up first, and i loved her. you know solo acoustic singer/songwriters don't usually hold my attention, but she had me hooked from the first song. absolutely loved her voice - beautiful yet powerful, effortlessly flowing out, pitch perfect. and wonderful songwriting to boot. the comparisons to sarah jaffe are inevitable, but that's pretty high praise, i think. great set.
AM Ramblers, who seem to keep showing up on a lot of the line-ups i've seen lately, were up next. again - very very good bluegrass, great harmonies, hot girlfriends drinkin lonestar, one of the leads separated at birth from thom yorke. batman's wife said they were a cross between the old 97's and robert earl keen. i don't know the genre very well, so i'll have to take her word for it. they both fell in love, bot both cd's.
next up was Telegraph Canyon, and i have run out of superlatives for this band (read my prior reviews here and here). such a unique blend of musical styles (Mike Orren of pegasusnews described them as a cross between Wilco and Arcade Fire - not bad). love the "tension" between the folky acoustic guitar and the almost-psychedelic electric guitar, love the amazing vocals of Chris and Sherilyn, love the patented chris johnson scowl. talked to chris afterwards - he said they're working on new stuff (cd comin in March, i think?), but stuff'll start leaking pretty soon. can't wait.
up last was (were?) Lifters, (previous review here). lead separated at birth from paul simon. great voice. some very polished, very nice alt-countryish pop.

'twas a really solid line-up. nice job, PegNews.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

nice writeup!