Amanda Jo Williams at the Unknown Theater

“Country girl from outer space” Amanda Jo Williams has been winning over Angelinos with her uncanny ability to project an unfiltered open heart through her cartoonishly vulnerable voice and her spare elemental compositions. She also comes across as disarmingly endearing in many of the bizarre videos on her myspace page. You can see her for free tonight, Thursday Aug 26th at the Mountain Bar. Live shows feature her freaky tribal hilbilly folk band careening through her simple rollicking  country grooves with wild unfettered abandon while Amanda sits centerstage with her tiny guitar and big drum unselfconciously doing her thing. Paper Magazine describes a show saying,”Williams strummed A-minor for fifteen minutes straight while her band stomped rhythmically around her backwoods muppet ballideering.”

It’s the emotional whallop her music delivers that makes her more than just another freak in the freak kingdom.”Listening to Amanda Jo Williams’ rough-shod country-folk is like eating a squirrel stew supper before falling into bed,  her primal music is an open maw to the mysteries and fears of the world. With a twang-heavy voice that sometimes breaks into manic gibberish, she sounds like an unruly, sometimes lonely little girl left to her own devices.”says the L.A. Times

“My music is basic and simple”, Williams says in her interview with  Daiana Feuer on Tumblr, “I do stuff that’s more from space, channeling how aliens would tell us to be when we’re more evolved. Anything is possible. You can see what you want to see when you want to see it, when you are ready to see. When your will is aligned with the universe and what you are born to do, when those things are aligned, you can find the place where you belong.”

"People need music where the artist is honest and themselves."- Amanda Jo Williams

Jeffertitti’s Nile will also bring their “hypnotic river of sound” to Chinatown on the same bill, providing some riffy Beatlesque melodicism and heavily effected sonic extrapolations.

also a live set by Latin Meds (josh charney of le switch is in latin meds)

and DJ  Hey Okay!

The Mountain Bar

it’s a DRAMATURGY production

Jeffertitti's Nile

The LA FOLDAWAYS are finally entering intense rehearsals in May. A side project from the Mister Nervous band, Wes and a dedicated crew of misfits will be pulling together a repertoire of “classic” rockNroll including numbers from The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, The Kinks, Van Morrison, Shocking Blue (!), The Who… and more stuff including some interesting takes on old blues and RnB songs. A core trio is working as the lynchpin – and a large pool of  singers and players will rotate as the “front” or songleaders in many performances.

Not quite a tribute, “Classic Rock” or jam band – more a combination of all three. Shows will often feature completely different band line-ups, as available players will work in different combinations making each show completely unique. The LA Foldaways mission: to treat many of our favorite vintage songs as vibrant living things to be joyously jammed (as opposed to reverently copied).

We’ll let you know more soon.

My Imaginary Friends are playing a rare midnight set at the DRAMA release party Thursday

The record company suits might call My Imaginary Friends alternative country rock, but you’ll call ‘em irresistible. Erin Armstrong writes songs that sound like your best friend is just plain talkin’ to ya… except you’re surrounded by a soundscape as real and familiar as your favorite streach of sun-dappled country road. The band’s music folds pop, indie, country, jazz and rock elements into a completely original mix that  always feels like the real deal. If these songs don’t immediately get under your skin and into your heart then you and I got nothin’ to talk about.

Erin and Ben Fordham (fiddle, mandolin, guitar)  left Charleston, SC, and joined up in LA with Grant and Yohei. Their newest  cd Blue Carolina is startin’ to cause a bit of a stir in Nashville as well. And why not? The record opens with Sue Thrasher an exhilarating rockabilly rush of blues harp and slide guitar. It’s a near mission-statement with Erin in full Carolina Firecracker mode (“Even Carolina is turnin’ blue; Darlin’ you don’t know nothin’ ’bout where I’m from”). Blue Carolina is an excellent representation of the band’s live energy, where even the most bittersweet songs in the set are delivered with such infectious bonhomie it often feels like half the audience is floatin a foot above the floor.

These days the band has stepped back from the constant gigging they were doing for a while, so chances to catch this excellent band are not so frequent… but we’re very happy to say they’ll be with us on Thursday to help us launch the new Mister Nervous cd! Erin and Ben contributed vocals and violin to some tunes on DRAMA and they’ll be sittin’ in with us during the Mister Nervous set so come early and see 3 fantastic bands.

THURSDAY MARCH 18th

THE UNKNOWN THEATER
1110 Seward St.
Los Angeles CA 90038

(with THE SUNDOWNERS and MISTER NERVOUS)

Doors open at 10pm
$10 at the door (however: drinks are very reasonable!)