September 10, 2003 - 12:05 AM

Male Singers Mostly Suck. Mostly.

I don't hate male singers. Really, I don't. I think Chris Isaak is gravy; the Beatles are amazing; John McCrea of Cake and M Doughty of Soul Coughing are too cool. But if you read this diary with any regularity, you will notice that my listening habits are heavily skewed towards thrushes of a particularly feminine persuasion. This past week reaffirmed that preference.

It's been a while since I went on a cd shopping spree, but various reasons (including my wonderful paycheck) led me to purchase five albums off of CDBaby.com before the labor day weekend. My shipment arrived on Tuesday and I've been listening to those cds ever since. Not a dud among them, they include: Anne Heaton's Black Notebook, which I can't complement enough other than to say that it's stellar and has gotten the most playtime so far; Terami Hirsch's To the Bone, a darkly atmospheric, piano-based work (which of course garners the Tori Amos comparisons, although I think her voice carries closer to the careworn yearning of Sam Phillips or Emmylou Harris while the music reminds me of Mimi Goese), with production that resides in a not-so-aggressive electronica setting somewhere in between Moby and Dido; Kyler's A Flower Grows in Stone, her third stunningly produced, exquisite full length which, if it were a major label release, would no doubt be all over the airwaves right now, I kid you not; Victoria's Still which I think I've already urged you to buy before; and Jon Brion's Meaningless, which, if you're familiar with his work on Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann, or the Magnolia soundtrack, is more of the same deliciously quirky Beatles-inspired pop.

*side note - I realize that for the majority of my readers (all 4 of you), most of the names I throw out in these diary pages are unfamiliar. My cousin Tony says it's because I'm a music snob. I'm not! It started from a musical snob place, yes, where I wanted to be "indie", but it's grown from there, and now I'm just barely satiable with my craving for more new music that moves me beyond what is crammed down the public earwaves. And I love to share the music with others. Which is why I drag my friends and family to concerts and make them mix cds and write about it here.

Back to my music week.

Thursday I went to the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood to see New Yorker Rachael Sage perform songs from her new cd Public Record, accompanied by cellist Stephanie Winters. Rachael seems to be following in Ani Difranco's footsteps (one of her acknowledged favorites) by releasing an album a year. Since she doesn't get out to L.A. that often (her shows that I attended summer of last year were her first ones out here), I try to make it out to support her when she does visit. Good, energetic set, but this was the night where I realized how low male vocalists are on my like-o-meter.

Rachael was the third of four acts; the second act was Kim Fox, a charming L.A. native playing in support of her second album Return to Planet Earth(the first one, Moon Hut, came out on Dreamworks back in 1997, a good'n'quirky morsel that worked similar turf as Cindy Lee Berryhill, Shivaree, and Suddenly, Tammy! but never fully grabbed my ears). I was quite taken with her performance and her personality. However, the first act was some guy who inexplicably had the largest audience of the first three acts. To say that I was bored by him would be like saying Godzilla perambulated through Tokyo.

He would strum some slow-tempo, melancholy chords and "sing" his sad song, get a whoop from the audience, then launch into another morose little number. Every single song of his was like thorazine for the ear; Stephanie Winters put it best, saying "he made the Cowboy Junkies sound like happy pop". Now, yeah, if I heard a girl doing the same schtick, every song a mopey little ditty with really boring strum strum strummy guitar parts, I'd get sick of it (and believe me, I've heard that amateurish stuff before and nearly crawled up the walls waiting for sets to end); but usually with a girl, I can withstand a fair amount as long as the voice catches me. But a guy doing it just runs me cold and makes me want to tell him to stick to his day job. Please!

Sunday I returned to the Hotel Cafe to see an old friend from Berklee College perform with his wife who I also knew from school. She, Clare Muldaur, had improved greatly since I saw her at school while he, Olivier Manchon, was even more talented than I remembered (he always kicked ass as a jazz/classical violinist, but he also acquited himself quite well on the guitar, melodica, and vocals). Their set was enjoyable, a little cutesy at times, but overall a wonderful breath of fresh air.

Their opener, however, was not. Yep, it was a guy. Doing the guitar/harmonica thing. He wasn't as bad as the guy from Thursday, as his songs actually had some catchy melodies and chord progressions. But his lyrics were trying too hard to be funny or clever, or else they were severely banal. He had no personality to root for, and he occasionally pulled out a slide (you know, the kind that blues players use) which he used to abuse his poor old guitar. Argh.

Luckily, those were the only sour notes of the week. Monday I worked with Ron Fair (head of A&M Records), Mya, and the Pharcyde at the studio as they prepped Mya's second single. I'm now quite smitten with Mya. She's so nice, uber talented, and pretty solid smart.

Today I saw Vienna Teng return to L.A. for a show in Santa Monica. Dragged Tony and Margaret along and they seemed to like her ok. I bought another copy of her cd since I had given my first copy to my sister.

And it looks like I have several more concerts coming up this month, including Garrison Star tomorrow at Molly Malone's, Leona Naess or Michael Penn on the 16th, Charlotte Martin on the 17th, Daniel Lanois on the 20th, Blue Rodeo with Oh Susanna on the 22nd, and Lisa Germano on the 24th. We'll see how many of those shows I can make it to (much less afford).

Now Listening To : Kim Fox - Moon Hut
Random Thought : Why don't you email me? Or join my notify list? Or sign my guestbook? Are you too good for that? *weep*

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