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04/03 Friday
7:00 PM Keppie Coutts
"...Coutts's songs marry soul and folk so gorgeously, you'll cheer when they get stuck on endless repeat on the jukebox in your brain..."
Boston Globe, September 2008
The Boston Globe (August 2008) -
"Coutts...may remind you Feist and Ingrid Michaelson."
Keppie is the Australian-born soul-folkstress, submerged and reveling in the new wave of 'folk fusion' – an eclectic melding of acoustic-based song that steps inside jazz and soul.
Since arriving in Boston in 2005, Keppie has recorded with musicians who regularly tour with the likes of Paula Cole and Mary Chapin Carpenter, as well as studying with teachers and mentors of Gillian Welch and John Mayer. She has won the praise of peers, audiences and mentors.
Keppie started out spreading her words as poetry at local Sydney arts haunts and indie spaces. Very quickly the words found a canvas of music, and almost as quickly she was thrust into the recording studio. Chris Dubrow, former front-man of Australian political-industri-rock group Insurge (Sydney Big Day Out, 1997) instantly recognized the strength of Keppie’s writing and brought her into his recording studio, producing her first album, “On the Edge of a Dream”.
The immediate connection that she forms with an audience saw Keppie performing at some of Sydney’s best-known venues for live music, including the Excelsior, the Gaelic Club, the Seymour Centre, and international jazz-hub, The Basement as part of a selection of the city’s best songwriters. Keppie’s collaboration with sound engineer, Jason Mannell (who has produced Oz mega-rock group Jet), and separately with Sean Carey (currently in Oz super band Thirsty Merc), saw the release of “Tears De Picardie” to a sell-out launch show held at the Goldfish Bowl in Sydney’s Kings Cross.
10:00 PM Tim Eriksen: an evening of northern roots music!
“Northern roots is New England songs about life and death, not bed and breakfast.”
The former frontman of the prophetic folk-noise band Cordelia’s Dad, Tim Eriksen has one of the most hair-raising voices in American music. Accompanying himself on fiddle, banjo, guitar and bajo sexto, Tim redefines American tradition with a "northern roots" sound that encompasses old Massachusetts murder ballads, chilling shape-note harmonies and haunted originals alongside southern Appalachian and Irish tunes.
Tim’s singing is solidly rooted in traditional American folksong, and nobody does it better, but to call him a “folksinger” would miss the incredible range of his experience: 25 years playing South Indian veena, screaming hardcore punk in the old days at CBGB, 6 years with an Oromo (Ethiopian) gospel choir, 18 years singing Bosnian folk and pop, studio work with producers like Joe Boyd, T-Bone Burnett and Steve Albini, appearing as a soloist with a symphony orchestra at Carnegie Hall, decades of avant-garde sonic experimentation, most recently in composer Michael Theodore’s multi-media extravaganza “What I Saw at the Apocalypse”…that’s for starters. Known to many for his extensive contributions to the Oscar-winning film “Cold Mountain,” he is also the only musician to have shared the stage with both Kurt Cobain and Doc Watson, and recently collaborated with world-jazz innovator Omar Sosa’s on the new album “Across the Divide” released March 24 on Half Note Records. Tim stops at the Lily Pad on his way to a six-night run with Sosa at New York’s Blue Note Jazz Club.
This is a rare local opportunity to experience the intensity of this one-of-a-kind musician up close and personal. (Eriksen’s last Boston area solo appearance was at the Fleet Center with Ralph Stanley and Alison Krauss on the Great High Mountain Tour in 2004). The evening’s program is a hypnotic combination of ancient New England ballads, old-time Appalachian favorites and originals, including selections from an upcoming CD of solo unaccompanied songs and Tim’s unique, virtuosic arrangements for bajo sexto (twelve string acoustic bass). Seats are limited, so come early – and stay late to hang out after the show!
Tickets: $10 at door
Tim will be featured on Radio Boston on Friday, March 27th and Saturday, March 28th at 1 p.m. Listen on the radio at WBUR 90.9FM or online at www.wbur.org/listen
Visit Tim’s website: www.timeriksenmusic.com
Listen to Tim’s northern roots music on YouTube:
www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=723448AE2AA101C2