Music with Jameson & Lone Star: Sleeping in The Aviary, Dizzy Pilot, Hearts of Animals at Walters 12/13/2009

It wasn’t until I got to Walter’s on Saturday that I realized I’d forgotten to charge my camera’s batteries and to bring my handy dandy notebook so this will be a somewhat brief review and without the usual number of snapshots. Still, it was a nice night of music. Opening was Hearts of Animals who I haven’t seen perform live since the release of her new Cave Lights CD so it was wonderful to hear new songs like the heart melting Sister Stories performed alongside the older songs. Sleeping in The Aviary’s set was driving and solid with singer Elliott Kozel belting the songs out like his life depended on it. The night closed with Dizzy Pilot plowing through its songs with more muscle than I’d ever heard them lay out before (as impossible as that sounds) with the looser more improvisational aspects really shining. The three sets were made all the better by the Terry’s great work behind the sound board; he, along with Joe over at Rudz, are the kind of sound guys bands should thank every time they work with them. Seriously, those guys make the bands that work with them shine.

A few quick asides…

I spoke with Cley (who was backing up HOA on the first song) before the set and he told me the new Young Mammals album is slated for release this spring. So add that to your already heavy schedule of highly anticipated releases for 2009.

I also spoke with Sleeping In The Aviary who were horribly nice people. Celeste and Elliot went on at length about a show they recently played in Little Rock where they found themselves suddenly burdened with a three hour set. Not knowing what else to do, they started taking requests for covers from the audience and the requests eventually evolved into an impromptu 90’s set where someone in the audience would call-out something like Oasis which would be met with like a third of the audience booing the request then that very same third of the audience would be singing along and cheering to Wonderwall. The whole thing sounded pretty hilarious and fun especially since the band was figuring out the songs on the fly. But that’s the impression you got from SITA, that for them it’s just a whole lot of fun. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing them return next summer.

Hearts of Animal’s Mlee Suprean
(with Cley Miller of Young Mammals)