I STOLE THIS PHOTO FROM MYSPACE. SORRY.

I went to see Leah Siegel at the Living Room on Saturday night. I was in a bad, bad mood, brought on by menstrual cramps and an extremely painful muscle in my left leg, which I found out was due to an infected spider bite that swelled to 8 inches across and was hot and purple and made my whole body feel like shee-yit. This is really TMI, but just to say that I was in no mood for sensitive listening music.

In spite of all this, I loved this show. Leah’s voice has been described as “Jeff Buckley channeling Billie Holiday.” I don’t really know how to deconstruct that statement, but somehow it works for me. She has both balls and femininity, and TOTAL CONTROL of the pipes. Really, she’s all over the place with those vocal chords in ways that most people just don’t attempt live. And doing all this vocal gymnastics while playing a mean guitar with interesting chord choices and everything. None of this singer-songwriter downstrokes on the G business that we’re all so familiar with.

Oh, and her band is great…Steve Elliot (who played on my record) is my favorite musician in the whole world and I’m not exaggerating even a little. That man has so many sounds in his guitar vocabulary, and chops that make a lesser guitar player like me want jam picks into my eyes.

After all this talk I’m realizing it’s sounding like Berkley School Wank Music. But, that’s the thing thats so wonderful about Leah Siegel and company. Sure she has an amazing voice and knows how to impress, but it’s the songs that they’re all about. Great songs. Great songs played by great players with a modicum of restraint. Great songs that you end up singing later. Great songs that put you in a particular mood and make you forget there is such a thing as menstrual cramps or infected spider bites.

www.leahsiegel.com

www.myspace.com/leahsiegel

Here’s a belated show review from Wednesday May 22.

We played WE fest in Wilmington NC, which was nice except for a band (who shall remain nameless) who treated us worse than my band’s ever been treated in all my 1000s of shows. We parked our car away from our own motel (which they were staying at too) because we thought they might vandalize it. We also had spit in our beer, my drummer’s cymbals thrown on the ground, and tongue lashings about how inexperienced we are. Yeah, we’re not 50; we’re sorry.

Those old guys just wanted to be Rock Stars, you know? They wanted to be violent jackasses, and they succeeded; it’s important to make attainable goals.

The upside is that we made a pretty good plan of what to do if someone starts throwing punches. We’re not very violent; my guitar player has a peace tattoo on one arm and a love tattoo on the other. I suppose Jake (drummer) could throw a punch, but he’s too nice. Oh and Dan, our bass player for the event, is a Mennonite; they do love their peace and social justice. I think I might be the most anger management member of the band, but I just had major back surgery, not to mention regular anxiety dreams about being beat up by a midget.

Anyway, I digress. What I really wanted to tell you about is a show we saw that night–our favorite out of all the bands at the festival, our almost-homies Terminal Reynaldo (Jersey City).

Austin was having palpitations when they first set up–so many toy keyboards and old-fashioned effects pedals, a Q-chord, and much etc. Gadgets everywhere!

Their show was amazing– lines played unison on various toy instruments, a violin/sax player also sometimes chiming in (which doesn’t necessarily sound pleasant in print, but was wonderful live). They had a winsome, childlike quality in every song, along with a sufficient amount of darkness to anchor everything–a Radiohead thickness with a bright strain of playfulness thrown in–very satisfying. It was fun to hear something completely new–don’t you love that feeling? It happens so rarely.

Please check them out. They are going to be huge.

They are also extremely nice guys and let us play their Fischer Price keyboard in their hotel room after the show. They were a bright spot in our otherwise anxiety-filled day.

Did I mention that Jake also got harassed by a southern cop at the Waffle House that night? Inexplicably, the cop decided to call him “Baby Boy.” That gives me the creep-out shivers every time I think of it. Baby Boy? AAAAAH!

In some ways, I guess I should feel good about the hubbub. We are so mild mannered. It kind of feels like we were bad-asses for once. Trouble was looking for us, finally, thank God. Now we can have our own reality show.