Quiet Countries, Garland Ray Project, and lunch

Just saw a nice pair of solo artists downstairs before having to grab some lunch. Unfortunately I'm missing The Whips and Whales right now, but it's going to be a long night and I needed to dig in (I can kind of hear them from where I'm sitting (they're definitely blues rock), but not well enough to pass any judgements or make a run at a description.

Anyway, earlier we had Quiet Countries, which is Leb Borgerson's guitar and electronics one man band. Leb, who as guitarist in Pants Machine is doing double duty today, does something that's refreshing for this kind of act: actually plays in all the loops and does all the effects processing himself in real time. Once he gets a big swell of guitar and synth going, he sings soaringly over it in a voice that, I just realized, sounds spookily like Bright Eyes, but without the teenybopper crybaby-ness.

After Leb, Garland Ray took the stage. She played dark caberet numbers (apparently she performs in a full-on cabaret "revue" occasionally) and sung in a kind of PJ Harvey meets Jessica Rabbit style. Her multi-octave range and bag of vocal tricks, pops, and squeaks kept the stylistically unifrom songs interesting. Also, she closed with a cabaret-style cover of Born in the USA, which was cool.

Treva Jackson just got started upstairs and the noises coming through the ceiling sound cool, so I'm going to run. . .