Bowery Ballroom

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Nicole Atkins & The Sea

Salt & Samovar / Nouvellas

Fri 11/14

Tickets

18+

Doors 8pm

$16 adv / $18 day of

Nicole Atkins

http://www.nicoleatkins.com/
http://www.myspace.com/nicoleatkins
The shores of New Jersey are littered, quite literally, with small towns whose better days are far in the past. They’re towns that have been written about, and sung over; towns that have been mythologized and idealized; and they are the towns that 28-year-old musician Nicole Atkins—a native of Neptune City, located a stones throw from fabled Asbury Park—was born and raised in.

They can be places steeped in their own history, buried under the sense of their own pasts. Places of hey-days and what-once-was. And it’s that sense of something lost, and of what perhaps should have been, and what might be, that permeates Atkins’s debut, Neptune City.

“Neptune City is just this old place,” Nicole says. “There was this glory time, way back when, that I never experienced, but that you cannot escape if you live there. Everyone talks about. They almost yearn for it, but I never experienced it. So maybe this album is my attempt to build something new on top of all that.”

It’s these environs that brought her to where she is today. Nicole was that kid slightly out of touch. When her friends were collecting the latest New Kids on the Block album, she was raving about Traffic or Cream. At the age of 13 she found an old beat up guitar in the attic of her house. It had belonged to an uncle who died when he was young, and she taught herself to play a Grateful Dead song. Her father turned her on to blues artists like Jimmy Reed, and allowed Nicole to sit in on sessions with local musician friends. And then she left that town, that place, behind, attending art school in North Carolina, where she played for three years with the North Carolina alt-country band Los Parasols before making a name for herself as a solo performer on New York City’s anti-folk scene. She slept in an old Dodge Ram Charger on Avenue A, finally, with a little help from her friends, among them David Muller (occasionally a member of Yoko Ono’s band, Fiery Furnaces and Fischer Spooner) finally discovered her own sound.

And it’s that sound that washes over Neptune City, produced by Tore Johansson (Cardigans, Franz Ferdinand, OK Go, Saint Etienne, New Order), an album that sounds like it came from anywhere but the New Jersey Americana rock tradition made famous by Bruce Springsteen. Her music ranges far afield: at some times vaudevillian, at others psychedelic, a little bit country, a dash from early musicals, all under a cloud of pop-noir, often all coming in the very same song. Atkins writes songs that could have come from an episode of Six Feet Under, or an updating of Grease, as directed by David Lynch.

The characters in her tunes seem to live in an idealized past. “This record is the history of my town; it’s the history of my family and friend in this town,” she explains. “From the time I was a kid I started collecting these sad little tragically beautiful personal stories from the people in my life, and my own as well. That sense of history really appeals to me as an artist.” These tales became her blue prints, her inspiration, that would become songs like “Maybe Tonight,” a Ronnettes sounding traipse about a possible chance meeting, or “The Way It Is,” a dark and haunting defense, an insistence by someone hell bent on finding out for herself that something might be wrong. But it might be right, too.

The record calls to mind Roy Orbison if he were a woman; the bleak visions of Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen; the darkly mysterious girl group-on-acid musings of Julee Cruise and Lynch composer Angelo Badalamenti; the sorrow of Patsy Cline, the ‘60s experimentation of Love and Nuggets; all with a redeeming sense of hope amidst the emotional wreckage that is all Nicole. A sense that’s perfectly captured on “Cool Enough,” on which she sings, “I don’t care where you’re going/You’re taking me with you/This place got nothing that I could want/But I think that someday, I might feel different/But still, that’s someday/Still that’s someday/So take me with you.”

“War Torn” is about the frustration of a long-distance relationship that inevitably must end for your own good, while “Neptune City,” with its double-tracked harmonies providing its ghostly atmosphere, is an elegy, an homage, to her home.

Over everything, Atkins brings a painterly quality to her music, fitting for a woman who studied illustration while at UNC Charlotte, and still has her own mural business. Her songs are aural paintings, mixing and matching colors and sounds.

“That’s why I have such a hard time playing solo these days,” says Nicole, who plied her trade in hundreds of bars North Carolina, New York, and New Jersey before attracting the attention of a major entertainment attorney, who helped her get signed. “When I write a song, I think about all the different layers that will go on top of it.”

In the end, Neptune City comes across as a restoration project in a way, an attempt to build something new on something old. There’s an acute subtlety to the art of restoration. Do it wrong and you’re simply cribbing the past. Do it right and you’re actually, in a profound way, carrying it forward into today. And that’s what Neptune City accomplishes. It brings its past with it, carries its heart on its sleeve, and strides hopefully into a better day it can hardly imagine, but hopes will be there nonetheless.

Salt & Samovar

http://www.myspace.com/saltandsamovar
http://saltandsamovar.com
Salt & Samovar is intent on writing the next great American songbook. Uniting classic rhythm & blues, “foot-stomping psyche-garage” intensity (fiddlewhileyouburn.com) and a talent for enduring, archetypal melodies, their repertoire gathers together the musical heirlooms of a cherished American past. The band’s revival-like performances gain their momentum from the legacy of 19th century spirituals. Onstage this energy resonates clearly across historical timelines to the forefront of the 21st century.

Salt & Samovar’s first shows were on a tour of France in September of '06, supporting singer D.S.’s album, ‘Salt & Samovar’. They spent the cold winter of '06-'07 recording their debut, ‘Old Joy, New Joy’ (2007). That September the band launched its first US tour, delivering the sounds of ‘Old Joy, New Joy’ and their 15-foot American flag to 19 cities from coast to coast. On November 8 S&S had its live radio debut when they appeared on KCRW’s “Morning Becomes Eclectic”, a performance that solidified the band’s place at 3 on Music Director & host Nic Harcourt’s Top 10 Albums of 2007. In March '08 the band played for the first time at Austin’s SXSW festival, featured at KCRW's showcase. On May 16 they had their 2nd appearance on "Morning Becomes Eclectic". S&S is made up of past & present members of Moonraker, FEAST & The Shivers.

Nouvellas

http://www.myspace.com/nouvellas
http://www.nouvellas.com/
When the Nouvellas played their first show in late 2007, those in attendance remarked in disbelief about how tight and talented the band was. For a first show, the members all played in perfect synch with each other, as if they'd been playing together for years. Truth be told, they had been. They were all former members of the New York soul girl-group The Dansettes. When the Dansettes called it quits, the five of them decided that they were far from quitting the music scene, though all ready for a slight change. Vocalists Leah Fishman and Jaime Kozyra, along with the Pierce brothers -- Dennis on guitar and Andy on drums - as well as Justin Angelo Morey (also of the Black Hollies) had a new vision: build on the solid soul foundation that was their reputation, but also blend in all of their other favorites. From the sounds of Lyn Collins and Bobbie Gentry to Steve Cropper and Black Sabbath; the group delivers something fun, something toe-tapping, something that will stick in your head for weeks to come!

The band hit the ground running, playing their first shows to packed houses with the likes of Mary Weiss of the Shangri-Las, the Reigning Sound and the Mooney Suzuki. It wasn't a huge surprise, as The Dansettes spent the last few years building a name for themselves while sharing the stage with bands including The Dirtbombs, Vampire Weekend, and The Electric Six, while also serving as a backing band for seasoned soul legends Archie Bell, The Mighty Hannibal, Roscoe Robinson, and Young Jesse. When the incomparable Sharon Jones makes an appearance in New York, Jaime and Leah can be seen on stage with her adding backing vocals to the arrangement -- just as they did on Jones' most recent LP (so it comes as no surprise that Jones' Daptone label-mates,The Budos Band, can be heard lending a hand on the Nouvellas upcoming debut 45).

They may have some hefty credits and appearances, but the Nouvellas are nobody's backing band. All five members share a hand in the songwriting and arranging. They record live in Dennis' basement studio to a 1969 Ampex tape machine, with all hands on the mixing board. On stage, the chemistry is even more apparent -- the dynamic dual lead vocals and harmonies of the two ladies are delivered with a punch and passion that puts their hearts on their sleeves. Combined with biting guitar lines, in-the-pocket bass, and heavy drum grooves, the band creates a raw, stripped-down sound that cuts deep and brings rock'n'soul back to the basics in a refreshing new way.

On their first single, "Satisfied" b/w "Right Kind of Woman," their collaborative formula creates an energy that's hard to argue and guaranteed to make a splash while they get to work on their upcoming full-length.

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Mercury Lounge

217 E. Houston St. (corner Ave A & Houston)

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