Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Jolie Holland
Jolie Holland didn’t come from out of nowhere, she just sounded that way. The Texas-raised singer-songwriter had already been a founding member of the Vancouver, B.C., old-timey band the Be Good Tanyas before she moved to San Francisco and started making some lovely, low-budget recordings that would eventually be released in 2003 as the album Catalpa. The songs were recorded largely in her apartment, probably around the kitchen table, with just her simple guitar accompaniment and maybe a friend playing banjo here and there as Holland’s voice swoops up to and down from and in between notes, playing with syllables like Play-Doh.
Catalpa came across as a folk artifact — something wonderful that accidentally got recorded and released. Of course, it wasn’t accidental; Holland knew just what she was doing. And her ambitions, both artistic and commercial, have grown steadily since then. Holland’s new single, “Mexico City,” sounds like a play for a bigger audience: It’s almost like one of those Americana songs they fawn over on NPR.
Don’t get me wrong: It may not be a bad idea to tighten up Holland’s arrangements and rein in some of her more self-indulgent tendencies, but she’s never going to be a conventional artist — and I don’t think anyone should try to make her one. That fact may be best illustrated by Holland’s cover of “Pure Imagination,” the syrupy theme from the old Willy Wonka movie, which she recorded for a children’s album. Her version sounds less like chocolate than bourbon and cough syrup. In fact, it’s more appropriate to the weirdness of the movie than Gene Wilder’s original version was. It’s perfect.
JOLIE HOLLAND, Belly Up, Sunday, October 12, 9 p.m. 858-481-8140. $15.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Jolie Holland
Jolie Holland
Jolie Holland didn’t come from out of nowhere, she just sounded that way. The Texas-raised singer-songwriter had already been a founding member of the Vancouver, B.C., old-timey band the Be Good Tanyas before she moved to San Francisco and started making some lovely, low-budget recordings that would eventually be released in 2003 as the album Catalpa. The songs were recorded largely in her apartment, probably around the kitchen table, with just her simple guitar accompaniment and maybe a friend playing banjo here and there as Holland’s voice swoops up to and down from and in between notes, playing with syllables like Play-Doh.
Catalpa came across as a folk artifact — something wonderful that accidentally got recorded and released. Of course, it wasn’t accidental; Holland knew just what she was doing. And her ambitions, both artistic and commercial, have grown steadily since then. Holland’s new single, “Mexico City,” sounds like a play for a bigger audience: It’s almost like one of those Americana songs they fawn over on NPR.
Don’t get me wrong: It may not be a bad idea to tighten up Holland’s arrangements and rein in some of her more self-indulgent tendencies, but she’s never going to be a conventional artist — and I don’t think anyone should try to make her one. That fact may be best illustrated by Holland’s cover of “Pure Imagination,” the syrupy theme from the old Willy Wonka movie, which she recorded for a children’s album. Her version sounds less like chocolate than bourbon and cough syrup. In fact, it’s more appropriate to the weirdness of the movie than Gene Wilder’s original version was. It’s perfect.
JOLIE HOLLAND, Belly Up, Sunday, October 12, 9 p.m. 858-481-8140. $15.
Comments