Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter are just so good going down, like single-malt scotch on a fall afternoon. She stretches every syllable for maximum impact, and her band sounds like the best of Allman Brothers and Crazy Horse and Built to Spill rolled into one. An odd thing about Jesse's voice -- when she talks she has perfect diction, but when she sings it's a strange husky chant where her 's's almost sound slurred. But the effect works well on her best songs, like "Cold Raindrops Fall" and "Thin Air." Great fun.
4 comments:
gosh, you get around in the music scene! and i like the comparison to scotch, which my husband loves too.
I'll always be fascinated by why some bands get popular while others don't because I'll never understand it. Jesse Sykes being the perfect example, but lucky you!
Yeah, there's this weird algorithm of X/Skill - 2xPopular Taste + Dumb Luck and special airings on The OC or Gillmore Girls or whatever. (Radio certainly counts for nothing any more, it's all TV show background music determining popularity.) I always found it sad when someone like Bob Pollard was always trying to get that magic hit, since hit radio died decades ago, except for hip-hop and boy-band/girl-band cutesy pootsy crap. But someone out there must listen to Jesse, because she mentioned playing Red Rocks the last time she was in Colorado.
Frankly, I just wait for your list of the previous year's best music.
It's all about social networking now...
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