As opening reception at Found Gallery of Silver Lake, Fixing the Tent attracted hordes of artists, art lovers, and curious locals who could agree on much more than just free Heineken. Felix Baudenbacher’s thoughtful and sophisticated paintings and drawings are exquisite. For us, well worth the waiting through the two years of first-class psycho-therapy he cites, tongue-in-cheek as part in product. Hailing from Switzerland, Baudenbacher who currently lives in Los Angeles, produces a series of pieces inspired by—paying homage to—Southern California. Baudenbacher cites inspiration from artists such as Bridget Riley and Philip Guston, and it is clear that he has adapted some of their interesting color tone and palette ideas to his own impressive production of color study. His showcased exhibit of large paintings is both intimate in its invitation to see the world through his private filter and universal in the way its color relationships evoke instant emotional reaction in any viewer.

The experience of viewing of each piece in turn is like encountering a sample of sounds and smells from your past. Just as a waft of CK1 might take you back to some particularly poignant adolescent locker room love scene, certain pieces from Baudenbacher’s collection connect the viewer (as the artist suggests they should) to distinctly Southern California flavored encounters. Imagine: sunlight breaking through smoke and fog, prisming through and reflecting off of mirrored high rises producing brilliant displays of gold, red, hot-hot-white. Imagine: a road-trip on the PCH during the first abundant deluge of raindrops after a long dry spell, sparkling light from yellow hills dappled with green undergrowth. Take your most ideal conceptions of Southern California beauty, cut it up into squares of color, and lay them out onto canvas. There you have Felix Baudenbacher’s graceful abstraction.

Mamacita Regula Baudenbacher’s work is presented also—the most recent display of a 40 year career as an internationally recognized artist, the first of her work to be exhibited with her son, Felix. Her exhibit is composed of “memory stones”, sculptures made from paper that entered her house in the course of one week. These are physical records of events worth remembering, events worth forgetting, events not really worth much at all. Regula Baudenbacher’s memory stones—sturdy yet beautiful blocks of boiled and hardened paper—may be sculptural metaphors for the individual journeys that result in accomplishments of the human soul: Wisdom? Inner peace? Self-satisfaction? One moves from age 15 to 31 hardly able to distinguish or even understand the subtle contingencies that resulted in such a difference of personality and poise, yet there you stand—a beautiful compilation of contingency. Regula Baudenbacher presents a clever interpretation of this phenomenon.

The Baudenbachers’ exhibition (up until November 27, 2007) at Found Gallery in Silver Lake marks over a year since the gallery’s birth. Found curators John Schwartz and Jonny Coleman launched the gallery whose location on Hyperion stirs up images of dudes in booty-less chaps as well as car repair shops with Doberman pinschers. With a keen eye for “bold, unique artwork,” Found has pulled in an assorted group of artists, common only in their knack for smart art, and in its young life has also hosted indie rock sensation Devendra Barnhart. Schwarz and Coleman, whose goal is to display artists who have not yet been recognized in L.A., both local and foreign, have in this manner created a space of newness in combination with a distinctly el-aaayyy flavor.

Photography by G.C. Stiehl

Kimono culture lives in Los Angeles. From Torrance to Little Tokyo to the Valley, Japanese, Japanese American, and gaijin (non-Japanese) ladies alike practice the art and lifestyle of kimono. Fumi Akutagawa is among the trail blazers of Japanese lifestyle in L.A., a kimono consultant for 40 years. Trained and certified in Japan, Akutagawa has brought her knowledge stateside, becoming the premiere kimono consultant of Southern California, regularly offering lessons in a peaceful nook by the Buddhist Temple Zenshuji of Little Tokyo. Mme Akutagawa’s expertise is in teaching kimono, ikebana, and tea ceremony. As a consultant, she is best known for her work in the film Memoirs of a Geisha, and she has also worked on many stage productions of Madame Butterfly.

But when Hollywood isn’t hot on her tail, Akutagawa participates in a myriad of cultural activities in LA. A Japanese event in Los Angeles is nothing if Akutagawa is not there. She regularly presents her own fashion shows, as she did at The Japanese Garden in Van Nuys. The headliner for an all-day cultural affair, Akutagawa unpretentiously sustained her command of the spotlight. She single-handedly conceived ensembles for and dressed 18 models, including yours truly, Eva Ruiz, for a stroll on the Japanese Garden’s catwalk.

Akutagawa’s attention to detail and her creativity is most reflected in her obi arrangements. The obi, for those of you who are not kimono savvy, is the silk sash that wraps around a woman’s middle and ties in the back to form a bow. Not all obi bows are created equal, and Akutagawa’s are always the best. Creating bows with four or five folds from a single rectangle is nothing short of remarkable.

From my lessons with Akutagawa, I learned that wearing kimono is unlike any other garment. Details that to westerners are hardly noticeable have great significance to Japanese people. Take for instance the opening of the neckline at the throat. A single woman’s must be closed completely, while a married woman’s is open a couple of inches. The kimono must be wrapped right side first under left side, because otherwise it is very bad luck. A collar on the back of the neck must be pulled down about six inches to show what is to Japanese a highly sensual part of the female form—the nape of the neck. Akutagawa calls this “sexy part.” Backstage at the show one of the models suggested that I shave off some of the hair underneath my hair line on the back of the neck “with Japanese razor.” It makes sense to me, only after some reflecting, why it would be of any consequence for me to get rid of hair on my “sexy part.” It certainly parallels my western ideas about where there should and should not be hair.

Also, it came as a surprise to me that while black kimono are wonderfully striking and elegant, they are to be used only on two occasions. The first is at funerals. The second is at weddings, and if and only if one is related to the bride or groom. And while Akutugawa, a celebrated consultant, is interested in preserving a tradition inherited from her ancestors, she is surprisingly open to challenging those rules. One example of this is that she allows married women in her shows to wear long sleeved kimono called furisode. As the long sleeves on kimono are to mimic the wings of a butterfly and these are to attract men, it is inappropriate for married women to wear these. When women marry, they clip their sleeves in the name of propriety. In spite of this rule for kimono fashion, among Akutagawa’s lineup of six women wearing furisode, only two were unmarried. While tradition dictates that these ladies are acting like hussies, Akutagawa suggests that they’re just enjoying “beautiful kimono.”

Akutagawa’s appreciation for the beauty of kimono coupled with her experimental tastes has set the tone for a kimono community of Los Angeles. It is vibrant, inclusive, and stunning, as is Akutagawa herself. Do not pass up the opportunity to see Akutagawa’s shows or even the possibility of taking kimono classes from an expert of this caliber.

Before visiting Guillemette’s Downtown L.A. studio or his exhibition for Culver City’s Artwalk 2007, I had seen his work primarily on his website, www.pguillemetteart.com, an i-visit inspired when I saw something fab that he’d created mounted on a friend’s wall. The sculpture was a human head shape with a highly-detailed scaled, two-headed snake throughout. On the forehead there was a ceramic sunflower, and I found out later through a dialogue with Paul Guillemette that it actually spins!

The piece was terribly stunning. When I saw more of his work after my extended cyber-viewing, I was shocked. As is usually the case, the photographs could never do justice to the complexity and richness of his creative output. The texture, detail, color, and even lighting, as many of his pieces have light bulbs placed in them, made for both accessible and awe-inspiring artwork.

A versatile sculptor, Guillemette works with paint, resin, and ceramic, and my favorite pieces often include found objects. If there is any manner in which art can convey the current, both blatant and latent themes of our culture, it is through found objects. In fact, a hot hit with a lot of the ladies at the Culver City gallery exhibit was a headlining piece called “Kiss Me You Talk Too Much,” a silhouette of a couple for which one of the bodies was a collection of found objects. Many of the objects were loaded with allusions to courtship, sexuality, and constructions of femininity, the body as a space in which there is health and sickness, and also societal forces in the external and increasingly industrial and technological world. In other words, eye candy, fo’ sho’.

For someone who can’t drop up to twelve-grand on a sculpture, I love Guillemette’s clothing design most. Guillemette fashions prints primarily on basic cotton pieces that Urban Outfitter’s would kill to produce. An intersection between fine art and attire, fashion is Guillemette’s most widely accessible medium. Who wouldn’t love little green men on their undies? If only they’d come to life and move around inside your trousers…

Guillemette’s prints on t-shirts and button-downs alike you may easily spot on people getting in and out of their cars in the cooler confines of our gridlocked city (or hopefully finding them on your floor in the morning), and you can request these fab articles via online contact with my favorite, Los Angeles-based artiste at www.pguillemetteart.co,.

Globetrotting musical sensation Michael Van London has a knack for rock. The Michigan-bred boy is hardly a Midwestern novice. After playing through a series of years in New York, Paris, and Boston, as well as widespread touring within the European and American continents, Van London is rather a worldly and accomplished musician. At his art for an upcoming two year anniversary in L.A., he is currently blossoming amidst the musical community of the ‘Wood and such, doing so while keeping a fresh, updated style, constantly striving to be as professional and prolific a rocker as can be.

With an ongoing schedule at Los Angeles’s best known music venues, I caught him on a cozy evening at Room 5. With a nearly all female lineup, being sandwiched between chicks who rock is nothing new for Van London. With Juliana Hatfield a profound inspiration and The Donnas a favorite of his, it is no surprise Van London dreams of forming a full-fledged estrogen-charged, tittie-bouncing, fishnet-tromping chick band, except him, of course, who happens to be generously endowed with testosterone and other such related things. Say goodbye to cock rock, and bring on the cunt rock.

With three recorded albums—“Roses”, “Je Suis”, and “Fortunes of Misfortunes”—Van London is currently working on a fourth and full-length album tentatively called “Ice Cream & Blood & Guts” while collaborating with Brandon Jordan of Kill Radio on production. The provisional title of said autumn album is totally in the nature of Van London. A serious beauty lies in his ability to craft pop with joint painstaking profundity—blood and guts.

Unquestionably bohemian, Van London not only makes sharp social critiques but also delves into deep wells of personal material among which “Sexxx Themes” is a favorite of mine. A song about artificial romances through sex and drugs is not just awfully compelling, but also really easy on the ear.

www.myspace.com/michaelvanlondonmusic

www.michaelvanlondon.bravehost.com

Photos by Mari & Lily

Following Liquid Meat and The Nightbirds, The Pricks showcased at underground Sully Street in The Tempest—drawing their largest audience to date while putting this spot on the music map. The seven members—Brophy and T-nut (vocals), Yoch (drums), Dre (rhythm guitar), Nisan (lead guitar), Oz (bass), Chris (keyboards)—live by a motto: It’s not just the music, it’s a lifestyle. A hot, up-and-coming band, although not tied up in record deals yet, The Pricks have sponsorship from Atwater Clothing, Hoven Eyewear, and HotBox Vapors, and thus rock their styles. An entire Pricks-attire fascination has ensued, with the crowd decked out in Pricks hats, shirts, hoodies, ladies’ tank tops, you name it. These particular Pricks are moving beyond music into a cultural phenomenon.

How did a bunch of bad boys with rock instrumentation, who spit hip-hop, get under the spotlight? Pounding with a punk edge, a Pricks’ show gathers booty shakers and moshers alike, uniting to overthrow The Man, while Brophy and T-nut spit their rhymes. Exploding on a recent tour through exposure on KROQ, these guys stay loyal to their self-proclaimed status as ‘underground’ with the forthcoming “Don’t Want to Be Used” set to pop on March 5th, with entirely self-produced tracks. They consider their fans members of the group rather than a source of income.

Despite the vocalists’ insistence that the audience enjoy itself non-violently, the show at Sully Street, after only a few songs, ended in outright bloody chaos. The show was cut short, the bar closed down. Inebriated kids were hurled out. Because the Pricks are far from being dicks, they have now promised their committed fans to return to Sully Street and play the set that was cut short, because “…some pussy thought they were tough in the pit.”

It’s hard to imagine that a certain level of violence wouldn’t arise from the Pricks’ shows, despite their Ghandi-like stance; peeps be gettin’ all riled-up on that shit. It is no wonder they attract a multi-racial, multi-economic following; the boys’ deeply personal lyrics are easy to identify with, concentrated on drug use, alcohol, death, and the plight of the working (wo)man. A song titled “Lower Class” expresses frustration with the mundane lifestyle of the working class under the thumb of white-collar overlords—drinking beer out of cans, workin’ five days a week, commuting on skateboards.

Although closely tied with suffering, the Pricks’ attitude is charismatic. Imbued with the spirit of youth, yet having the air of tattooed, weathered philosophers, you might just see them cruisin’ in a 1964 Cadillac contemplating the meaning of strife. I wouldn’t miss The Pricks’ upcoming shows at Blue Cafe in Long Beach on March 31st or at The Whisky on April 5th. Hopefully there won’t be any “tough pussies in the pit” there.

www.myspace.com/thepricks2005

Justin King plays with panache. Pretty, precise and polished; such is the Justin King way. Originating from Eugene, Oregon, Justin King and band consist of the aforementioned front man (guitars, keys and vocals); Ehren Ebbage (guitar and vocals); Drew Dresman (bass); and our very own Los Angeles native, Nadir Jeevanjee (drums). Although under the Epic label, the band independently released an EP—primarily King’s project, with some collaboration from the band—for which they dropped into Los Angeles at Hotel Café, for a national EP release tour.

Justin King as a solo artist is widely known as the acoustic guy that taps. He is celebrated for his simultaneous percussion and guitar pair ups—footage of which is easily and frequently accessed on Youtube. No longer a solo act, Justin King as a group has been causing a stir in hearts and trousers alike. With a Jeff Buckley-esque sound and some Doves and Muse elements, Justin King is rich music for a pop-loving audience.

As it was Minnie Driver’s headlining night at Hotel Café, someone asked “Are you excited about the celeb factor?” and pointed at Minnie greeting eager fans on her way through the house after an insipid set. My response was, and still is, “I don’t give a fuck. I’m here for Justin.” What’s next? A Minnie clothing line? Maybe she and Lindsay Lohan could make a stinky perfume together, saving the rest of us from accidentally running into her at music venues in Hollywood, aside from playing her music.

Although I was unsure whether Justin or Minnie were responsible for the full house, constant whooping and hollering from the uproarious audience about sexy, hot Nadir, peppered with screeching strip requests led me to believe that King’s drummer is either moonlighting with “The Hollywood Men,” or has simply accrued a LaLa-hometown fan base of hot-to-trot rockheads. Either way, I was hoping he would drop his pants.

All in all, the leading lights of the experience are the non-spotlit members of Justin King. As King’s songs are layer-after-layer of musical savvy soaking with sophistication, it is no wonder that each show amasses a collection of wobbly-kneed, speechless, star-struck fans. Justin King engenders music fashioned in rock, Americana style—a jazzy, folky kinda country, with an underlying acoustic dash. When King and Ebbage harmonize, it’s as if perfection has taken the form of decibels spitting through speakers, gobbled up by undeserving eardrums. Because these boys can rock out while juggling powerful melodies, Justin King’s formidable, but catchy, music has gained well-deserved and widespread recognition.

www.justinking.com

The Stone ~ 5221 Hollywood Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90027

In the words of Punk Bunny: “Yes, we’re brother & sister (We were spit out from the same hole).” Back Alley Sally and Luigi Sandoval, the dynamic duo of siblings, burst and boomed on stage to their grand and grubby tracks, commanding a group of aging, overweight, and/or handicapped back-up dancers and band mates. In celebration of their fifth album, Punk Bunny dropped a smashing jizzful of a jamboree for the CD’s release at The Stone, on a Saturday night called “Teabag.” The curtain advertising the merrymaking displayed a glittered, testicle shaped teabag dipping in a golden cup with the following subtext: “a balls out dance party”. It is no surprise that packs of goths, freaks, queens, and queers swarmed in to dance the night away in purple party pumps while wigging out–patrons wearing wigs received a discounted cover charge.

In addition to the canonized descendants of the electronic Big Bang, from Kraftwerk and Abba to Air and ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Radiohead, we are able to thank the bumhole/cunt/cock gods for electroclash in the vein of Punk Bunny. Just when you’d thought you’d heard it all, these two told a little more. Cyber-legend has it that a man was fired from his job for watching the video for “Water Sports” at work, one in which each female Punk Bunny is sprayed with suggested urine. Said fan is honored on the band’s official website. Other songs demonstrate the same brash, outrageous lyricism along a thumping and throbbing set of beats. My personal favorite is ‘976 Slut.’ It proposes that phone sex is the affordable alternative to hiring a hooker.

The Punk Bunny show is nothing short of freakshow-inspired cabaret. I’d go as far as to call Punk Bunny shows performance art. To pick a middle-aged disabled woman to dance front stage as well as Francine the Dancer, an aging fat blonde bitch choreographed to get on all fours. These anti-Rhythm Nation soldiers forcefully challenge our social constructions of normativity. Through the jesting of such a disgusting display, the Punk Bunny crew requires a reconsideration of the grotesque and uncanny that we see in the aged, the disabled, and the “deformed”. Also, by spitting out trashy tunes about whoring, the band demands an examination of the concept of “bad” and “naughty,” through “perverted” language about sexuality. The Punk Bunny way is powerfully subversive, as it not only transcends, but trashes, the precincts of propriety much like an incestual version of Bataille’s Story of the Eye.

Not only is the appeal of Punk Bunny in its insubordinate nature, but also in its hot little lead singer, Sally. Back Alley Sally’s itty bitty rock star-ette body bumped into mine as she made her way onto the stage through the crowd in an 80’s two-toned, teal and hot pink leotard with her signature bum sticking out—a thong tugged against her bodacious backside flesh. In honor of Sally’s back alley, I would say, “Fuck JLo”, but Punk Bunny might say it better: Pork JLo, spin that slut ‘round, jizz on her face then give her a piss shower with your little pecker. I had even greater luck when Sally, accompanied by keyboardist Jizzmin, placed her hand on my shoulder to step down from stage. And still, I’m hoping her slight hand had some pussy juice on it to coagulate on my blouse for keepsake. Punk Bunny, you are all that and a bag full of jizz.

www.myspace.com/punkbunnymusic

www.punkbunnymusic.com

Just three dudes from Philadelphia and one full, orchestral sound. Throw together tambourines and shakers on top of explosive rock pounding from Greg Lyons (drums), gauzy harmonies between Josh Ostrander (lead vocals and guitar) and Vern Zaborowski (bass) and you’ve got the multi-layered celestial sounding Eastern Conference Champions teetering at its pinnacle. Draped in candy-colored luminosity on Safari Sam’s lofty stage, the Champions rocked out (sadly, without Ostrander’s cock out) for their first Los Angeles performance after a series of unfortunate van troubles causing them to miss their peviously scheduled shows in the city of Tacos.

Despite the Mozart-influenced intricacy these East Coast music architects execute, the guys are nothing short of a good f’n rock band. Just when I had attended a series of make-me-wanna-poke-my-fucking-eyeballs-out shows where the performers and listeners alike hardly showed signs of any pulses in between tossing their side-swept tresses, I thought, Thank Gawd for the Eastern Champions. My faith in American indie rock was restored. They manage to summon all of those crucial influences—The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks, and Rufus Wainwright—to create a series of songs, showcased on a brand new sampler scheduled for release in the spring, tinged with a quality of the present, while at times seeming to intertwine a bit of “The Bends” with a soupcon of “Hail to the Thief”.

Ostrander’s voice, with its nasal quality, soars through the vocal gamut, resembling Thom Yorke’s in some instances and falling into moments of Latin-reminiscent molasses. It was something like Caetano Veloso in Pedro Almodóvar’s “Talk With Her” scene in which the internationally renowned Brazilian singer/songwriter serenades a still audience on a sultry Spanish summer night with “Cucurrucucú Paloma”. Only replace Almodóvar’s curly haired bullfighter protagonista with a herd of Hollywood hipsters at Safari Sam’s “Check Yo’ Pony Tail” on a Tuesday night and stick ‘em in a 99 Cents store parking lot for a cigarette—all in the name of the Champions—relishing in the aftermath of Ostrander’s cacophonous belches, also rendered heart wrenchingly remarkable.

The trio appears to be causing a stir locally and now internationally, touring in the UK before returning to the U.S. of A., and relocating from the Philly chill to Los Angeles. Their nascent national name is fueled the most by their song “Nice Clean Shirt” and “To the Wind”, the former in the Champion vein—that is, beautiful with a classically U.S. touch. It’s only a matter of time before an ECC show at Safari Sam’s finds the cool kids camping in the parking lot to merely overhear traces of a most merited ovation for the Eastern Conference Champions. Bravo, ECC! We welcome you to LA.

www.easternconferencechampions.com

Liquid Meat, the very name of this four piece band captures its essence; it is nasty and beguiling. Tormenting Tempest’s miniscule stage in leather pants, industrial boots, and extreme variations of the rock man’s mane, Liquid Meat inspired paradoxical sensations n me—yuck and yum. As defined by Bavarian singer/songwriter Freddie Mack, the Meat’s genre is “rock n’ rolla served with a side of punk and delicious metal sauce.” These beef cakes are certainly provocative, tender, and juicy. If you want some fresh carne, this is where to get it. I am convinced little can be more entertaining than Liquid Meat, and I’m gonna tell you why.

The 20-something year olds of Liquid Meat attract a wide range of loyal listeners. It could be the healthy sausage selection in this group. Sound appetizing already? In addition to the aforementioned German, there is Polish Jack Panther on guitars, Chicano Jonathan Rangel on drums, and also reppin’ the grand nation of Aztlán is Alan the Epic on bass. Kielbasa and chorizo all in one rock n’ roll band? I don’t know about you, but I’m salivating. Due to this rockin’ assortment, brown babes and white, leather-clad heterosexuals alike pour in on a Sunday night in WeHo to catch the instrumental “Evil Intro” rolling the red carpet out to the opening song, “Revolution”. You guessed it—this jam invokes a stand against authority. It is not only a resistance call against the iPod generation’s complacency, but also a political protest to the fear in our populace that the American government has successfully instilled.

Among the musical influences Freddie Mack cites is hip-gyrating, megastar Elvis Presley. Although AC/DC and Motorhead seem to more closely inspire and resemble his music in a conceptual sense, within a relatively contemporary rock genre, Elvis is appropriately invoked as a forefather to the purity of the rock n’ roll basis of Liquid Meat’s dimensions. In other words: power chords, big riffs, n’ thick guitars. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t hop scotch my way into one of their shows in bobby socks; it’s more hell-raising than Hound Dog. There is plenty hypnotic guitar drag alongside booming bass buildups, sprinkled with Rangel’s drum eruptions that make it sensationally metallic.

Let it be said that a Liquid Meat performance is, above anything else, loads of nocturnally induced, ground shifting, titty titillating fun…um, yeah, I wasn’t the only one with erect nipples. “2 4 1”, for instance, seems part rock n’ roll, part striptease jingle. If any dancer at the Seventh Veil were to ask me what song she should choose during her pole dance on an “A” night, I’d recommend this song. Why? Sit back and observe: “…I am hungry, and you’re what I desire. Just one taste will set my soul on fire. Come on, baby, feel my groove. I really love to watch your body move. Watching you I feel like a dog in heat….” If Liquid Meat doesn’t provide the finest intersection between saying “Fuck you” to authority and saying “Fuck me” to the bottom bitch at a Hollywood strip joint, I don’t know what does.

Out with their first full length album, Liquid Meat’s Beat the Meatles is produced by renowned Mack, whose résumé also includes the likes of Queen, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Rolling Stones, and many more canonical rock figures. In line with the philosophy of the meat, this masterfully recorded album is not available through the iTunes enterprise. Instead you can check out at the meatshop at www.liquidmeatlocker.com.

www.myspace.com/liquidmeat

Casey Black, Casey Black, Casey Black…can you tell that’s my new mantra? The experience of seeing Black perform is not just musical, it’s spiritual. I call it Zen-Black’ism. Before going to see him perform—pardon me, if you will—I thought, ‘Don’t we have enough white boys singing about pain n’ shit?’ However, I was drawn to him in the first place, because he is not just another dude on a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic trying to make it in the city of Los Angeles —okay, maybe he is- but he’s a damn good one.

Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, Casey Black incorporates that all-American folk into a set of carefully crafted songs—piece by piece, they blew me away…well, most of them. Black is part poet, part songwriter, part philosopher. And I can’t go on with life without hearing him perform “Sad and Dangerous” live again. The style of the Black’ism lyrical content was partially in the Marshal Mathers fashion, the seemingly strange correlation between Em’ and Casey being a painfully private air about it. He could write a full album about the most personal themes in his life—love, abandonment, loss, death, ya’ know the usual—and I might feel like I could stab myself in the heart, and he’d go on about singing in his smooth, modest manner blowing away at that harmonica.

Room 5 was the right venue to hear him perform for one’s first time. It was quite a romantic setting—a room full of women sipping on red wine and smiling doe-eyed every time Casey would say, “This one’s for the ladies.” There were quite a few of those. I urged him to “Take it off!” from the audience, and he replied “Maybe I should” so calmly and kindly that it seemed a common invitation that he undress to which he RSVP’s tastefully and appropriately. That is how Mr. Black conducts all of his business—like a Southern gentleman, extending his melodies like a good ol’ chap might lend a hand to a damsel in distress nearly hit by a bus on Flower and 3^rd.

Casey’s singing voice surprised me, really. It’s deep, rough, sexy. A slender and mild mannered man he is, I thought his recorded vocals were an illusion, an exaggeration. But no, his voice was—bamn. Excellent tone, and I want to hear him do more with it. I also want to hear more variety from Mr. Black’s songs. As he is a first-rate songwriter, I can already envision his adding sass to those jams.

Come on, Casey, rough it up a little—me too, while you’re at it. We ladies like variety to get our heart rate up from time to time, and it is only partially praising when midway through a set my friend whispers, “I think he listens to nothing but Bruce Springsteen ballads.” But really, I just want to see more Casey…because, bottom line, there’s a profound, almost-mystical well of talent and vibrancy in Mr. Black, and I’m a-comin’ back for more.

www.myspace.com/caseyblackmusic