A Reve(y)rie, A Matchless Team, A Hot Iron to Swallow And the Best Slice in Town

No sleep till Brooklyn, this time with a little help from the Swiss Consulate. Starting out early with a show by Swiss vocalist Laurence Revey, who uses live samples to enhance the etheral beauty of her voice. A strangely intimate moment, when she carried her voice without amplification throughout Bar On A, grabbing the attention of every single patron. One thing said for the 'french Swiss': the Romands are a faithful following and come out in drones, when the Consulate calls! Too bad for the priest at the Actor's Chapel, who refused that the attractive lady sings in his church - he'd had have a full house, for a change.



We left before the Bachlorette party at BOA got out of hand and stopped at that pizza place on A and 9th that Fa ten years ago proclaimed to have the best Pizza in town - it is officially a no go zone now for every connaisseur (We still recommend good ole Sal's at Orchard and Stanton). Anyway, we made it over to Greenpoint with the worst cabbie ever, but still in time to hear a few songs by Here Lies Pa who's residency at Matchless is shaping them into a tight outfit, making them rapidly into a secret sensation you should see before they blow up. Seems there is new wave of unpretentious intelligent pop growing out here. Call it Bob Dylan with a sense of humor or Ray Davies with an American accent, Wakey!Wakey! is a prime example, as you can see here:



After losing horribly against Vince and his buddy at the Foosball table, we decided to join Leane at Trash to check out Hot Iron Swallows who surprised with an excellent guitar sound, think Pixies crossed with Coldplay. Great songs, quality playing. A few tentative dance steps later, we were off to bed, since Sunday promised to be an excellent spring day for a soccer tournament and a kid's birthday party - go Leon!

The Fortified Winter Antifolk Fest 2007

We went to the Fortified Antifolk Fest 2007 on February 10, because these two performers were up, that I had heard before and had made me addicted to hearing them: Chelsea Lynn Labate and the band 'Here lies Pa'.



Chelsea writes poetic lyrics which are serious and funny at the same time. She performs them singing and playing the guitar, sometimes accompanied by the pianist Steve Waitt. She makes people laugh and dream; she makes you feel happy listening to her music. She's just wonderful! Check out her myspace page.



'Here lies Pa' front man Paul Basil just has this amazing voice. I am officially in love with his voice! Now I have admitted to it... He also writes beautiful lyrics and even tough the songs are more intense when he performs them alone, the band adds a full new level to it. Especially the slide guitar used in some of the songs is heartbreaking. I am just waiting for the song 'Beverly Road' to come out and it will be in my most played tracks in my last.fm charts within a few days, promised guys!

You can watch them perform 'Falls' here (Sorry, a bit shaky again):



There was also the performance of 'Wakey! Wakey'. He is obviously very talented and original. I loved his piano piece called 'Falling Apart', great lyrics too!

More pictures in my photodiary for February, also of 'Wakey! Wakey!'
who turns out to be a very handsome guy, too! (I'm sorry, but I just
can't stop commenting on peoples looks, well, especially guys' looks,
but then we have Roman for comments on female artists, right?)

The Fortified Winter Antifolk Fest 2007 will still be running this week, so go to the Sidewalk Cafe if you want to witness some new interesting performances. Oh, and Adam Green is performing on Sunday February 18!