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eustaciavye77This starts with a brief self-indulgent rant but I swear I move on.
When I first moved to the Boston area I got sucked in a bit to the local folk scene. I was already a big Indigo Girls and Dar Williams fan and I thought a whole bunch more great female folk artists would be awesome. But there's a problem... most of them aren't great. I have heard any number of female folk singers (I won't name names because I'm not mean) who are completely interchangeable. Its as if someone decided a long time ago that it was okay for women to sing half assed in wispy scratchy voices about their pain through lyrics consisting entirely of cliches and generic mournful commentary while strumming the same 3 chords on an acoustic guitar and that was good enough, given them a record deal. I am largely disillusioned with the folk scene but there are a few gems to be found among the masses of mediocrity out there, even if you take Dar and the Indigo Girls out of the equation.
Antje Duvekot was born in Germany, moved to the US as a teenager, and when I listen to her talk I get the distinct impression that she learned how to speak English listening to folk singers talking, because her onstage folkie patter is without fault :) She also writes great songs. Her singing voice isn't the strongest in the world and as guitarist she's okay but not brilliant, but she does write great songs, she's a good performer (I've seen her live) and she manages to get beyond the typical girl folk angst into some broader philosophical issues without seeming overly heavy handed or political. Sadly there's not a lot of good clips out there and none of my favorite songs but here is one clip I found of her song "Judas" (audio and video are not exactly in synch but whatever).
And of course no discussion of women playing acoustic would be complete without the lovely![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
s00j!
Yes I am pimping a personal friend here and no I don't feel like a hypocrite because I knew of SJ Tucker as a musician before I knew her as a friend. SJ has an amazing voice, great stage presence, and can comfortably shift from filk to tribal to "trip hop Tam Lin" and back again. Her songs are admittedly far more optimistic about the universe than I could ever be and that's part of why I like her. I only own one of her CDs and a few tracks from Itunes, but when she was in the Boston area I saw her play 4 times in 2 weeks. Why? Because SJ on CD is nice but SJ live is, IMNSHO, the real SJ Tucker experience. I can't choose just one so here are two clips. The first is "City Of Marrow" which is part of a series of songs inspired by The Orphan's Tales.
SJ shows her less serious side, or her inner child, or her outer child with "Alligator in the House." Note the lovely hat!
When I first moved to the Boston area I got sucked in a bit to the local folk scene. I was already a big Indigo Girls and Dar Williams fan and I thought a whole bunch more great female folk artists would be awesome. But there's a problem... most of them aren't great. I have heard any number of female folk singers (I won't name names because I'm not mean) who are completely interchangeable. Its as if someone decided a long time ago that it was okay for women to sing half assed in wispy scratchy voices about their pain through lyrics consisting entirely of cliches and generic mournful commentary while strumming the same 3 chords on an acoustic guitar and that was good enough, given them a record deal. I am largely disillusioned with the folk scene but there are a few gems to be found among the masses of mediocrity out there, even if you take Dar and the Indigo Girls out of the equation.
Antje Duvekot was born in Germany, moved to the US as a teenager, and when I listen to her talk I get the distinct impression that she learned how to speak English listening to folk singers talking, because her onstage folkie patter is without fault :) She also writes great songs. Her singing voice isn't the strongest in the world and as guitarist she's okay but not brilliant, but she does write great songs, she's a good performer (I've seen her live) and she manages to get beyond the typical girl folk angst into some broader philosophical issues without seeming overly heavy handed or political. Sadly there's not a lot of good clips out there and none of my favorite songs but here is one clip I found of her song "Judas" (audio and video are not exactly in synch but whatever).
And of course no discussion of women playing acoustic would be complete without the lovely
s00j!Yes I am pimping a personal friend here and no I don't feel like a hypocrite because I knew of SJ Tucker as a musician before I knew her as a friend. SJ has an amazing voice, great stage presence, and can comfortably shift from filk to tribal to "trip hop Tam Lin" and back again. Her songs are admittedly far more optimistic about the universe than I could ever be and that's part of why I like her. I only own one of her CDs and a few tracks from Itunes, but when she was in the Boston area I saw her play 4 times in 2 weeks. Why? Because SJ on CD is nice but SJ live is, IMNSHO, the real SJ Tucker experience. I can't choose just one so here are two clips. The first is "City Of Marrow" which is part of a series of songs inspired by The Orphan's Tales.
SJ shows her less serious side, or her inner child, or her outer child with "Alligator in the House." Note the lovely hat!
