Friday night my friend Ted and I ventured down to the West Village and Le Poisson Rouge to see Jay Brannan, an indie-rock singer-songwriter best known for his song “Soda Shop,” featured in the 2006 flick Shortbus. He was also featured in the film, directed by one of my favorites, John Cameron Mitchell. While I wasn’t familiar with Brannan’s body of work prior to the show, I really enjoyed his songs, and I loved the smoothness of his tenor voice. He’s really easy on the eyes too. “Housewife,” “Rob Me Blind” and “Can’t Have It All” were the standouts in my book. He’s vulnerable, nervous, funny and a little dirty. Just like I like ‘em. “Charleston,” written by Brannan’s friend Amal, was another standout. He’s got the kind of voice you can listen to all day long.
“Betsy bar the door,” is a phrase I learned last weekend thanks to my dear friend Don Seay. This week, I understand what it means. Enter Bess Rogers. Another singer-songwriter from Brooklyn and she’s cute as a button. Check her out on YouTube. I really dig her songs and her sound. Friday’s show was an acoustic set, but I loved the produced versions of “Favorite Day” and her latest single, “Come Home.” My other favorite bit about Bess is that she’s in a band on the side that covers ’80s hairband songs and gives them a country spin. The ridiculousness of the lyrics make it so much fun. Tonight she covered Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me.” It was sort of brilliant. A lot of fun. And extremely memorable.
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