While at the fundraiser for Imaginary Mothers (which you clearly missed), I seriously contemplated by 31-year rule against speaking to strangers while in public venues. Seriously… hot chick, sitting behind me, seemingly alone…
It was a good thing I didn’t, because it turned out she has a boy. How did I figure this out? Because it turns out she was the frontwoman for the headline act of the evening: Jessica of She Keeps Bees. When she made her way onstage, and began chattering to the audience about the cockroaches that have recently taken up residence in her bed, it became clear that she and her drummer, Andy, were more than just a duet.
But what a duet they were. I’ve previously mentioned how watching Alison Mossheart at the world premier of the Dead Weather nearly sent me scrounging for a heroin overdose. Jessica, on the other hand, made me want to mainline some sort of locally-sourced, hand-made-in-Billyburg granola.
Surely that makes more sense in my head than it does to you. If I were still in Berkeley, it would just be granola… the way she talked about yoga and essential oils and sweating all over her silk shirt… but there was a distinctively Brooklyn edge to the whole thing that made this Janis Joplin-evolution (with a Fiona Apple rasp) something worth keeping an eye on.
Moreover, this Andy character was no slouch either. As became clear on the number entitled New Seed, he has some serious chops on the drums. I admit, when a pretty girl rocks out on the guitar, it’s easy for me to get distracted. But this number finally made me pay attention to him, and he did not disappoint; in fact, once his talent was identified, it was hard to decide who to pay attention to. That said, the level of precision they displayed on New Seed in particular fills my head with romantic notions of their devotion to their music and each other.
In short, the pair make some serious music together. Given the opportunity to see them live, I would say take it… the tracks on their website do not capture their raw power. The ones on iTunes do a better job, but it’s still not the same (even that New Seed track, one of their most recent recordings, is much better live).
They were selling CDs for $5 at the door, but I had foolishly spent the last of my cash on a beer. I definitely got the raw end of that deal.
