28 Jul 11

Hey, blogspot readers, SouthSide's closing out her busy July calendar with a couple of hot shows. It's another exciting weekend around town at The Abbey Pub and Elbo Room for this reviewer. Friday, she's hanging out at The Abbey for to see The Dead Superheroes Orchestra featuring Russian folk choir, Golosa while on Saturday she's at Elbo Room for the I AM Fest Battle of the Bands Finals. However, tonight she's at The Abbey to see Jesse W. Johnson and his band featuring The Single Helix.

There's a rockin' air of haunting mystery surrounding this local band's unique mix of melodic Latin-flavored guitar rock. The Single Helix impressed SouthSide with a performance featuring an eclectic sound and music that truly didn't need to be defined or catagorized into a single genre. No, blogspot readers, it wouldn't be fair since this band combined genres creating an ambient groove to its rock sound besides combining English and Spanish within the lyrics. For example, one might hear a melodic echoing fade out effect within a trippy/meditative feel inside a song like igo (off new album, Odd Czar) meanwhile in another, you might hear that saxophone rhythms livening up a Latin-flavored alternative/rock which also featured electrifying Stax guitar groove during the instrumental piece title dia de nacimiento (roughly translated Day of Nativity off their Diario de un Robot Emocional [Journal of an Emotional Robot]). SouthSide also enjoyed Helix's take on the neo-jazz/rock fusion during the muneca (track 3 off Odd Cza) and the tiny tribute to Amy Winehouse in their cover of I'm No Good teaser (Armando's vocals adding a bit of sadness within his falsetto tone) before moving into another instrumetal jam not as lively as nacimiento but more of a steady rhythmic flow in quinto dia la vida (translated from Portuguese - fifth day of life off Un Diario de un Robot Emocional). This reviewer highly suggests experiencing the eclectic yet calming melodic feel and sound of The Single Helix and its rock music. For more information and music, visit http://www.thesinglehelix.com or http://www.myspace.com/thesinglehelix.

Moving from the haunting mysteries of sound to the haunting realities of life, this artist rocked the stage with his headlining performance, blogspot readers. Jesse W Johnson and his band showed the audience the dark realistic world of life through his stories (songs) like Strawman (track 1) and Coyote Scream (track 2) - both off his new album, Home to Roast. However, this performance also featured more new songs that highlighted his ability lyrically and musically as a storytelling singer/songwriter. Jesse performed a chilling moment where he questioned his role in the world while singing "..who am I suppose to be..." meanwhile in another song, he wonderfully expressed the emotion of having an nervous breakdown from the way his voice sung the lyrics. Besides harsh and scary, life can also be teneder as well as shown in his acoustic song, Night Begins To Fade (beautiful floetry of words and vivid images) and Miles In Your Eyes (downtempo ballad of a private love letter to someone near and dear to Jesse's heart). Between his acoustic/folk rock and alternative/rock with some harmonica notes in between, Jesse and this band were a dark contrast to his other incarnation, Jet W Lee however there were moments (especially when there was intensely fierce guitar riffs) when both bands almost sound alike during With All Your Might. This particular song, though in a downtempo rhythm, featured a harder rock sound and some intense dirty chords throughout. This reviewer highly suggests experiencing life - the good, bad and scary through Jesse W Johnson band's eyes ...you'll definitely like what you see and hear. For more information, visit http://www.jessewjohnson.com or http://www.reverbnation.com/jessewjohnson.


Until next time, support your local scene,
SouthSide