The Swedes - Julie Walker
[audio http://www.greenlightgopublicity.com/clients/content/theswedes/audio_download/theSwedes_01_JulieWalker.mp3]

The Downfalls - Empty Sky
[audio http://www.thedownfalls.com/music/Last_Night/MP3/03_Empty_Sky.mp3]

The Boy Bathing - The Beaches Meet The Sea
[audio http://teamclermont.com/mp3/theboybathing_thebeachesmeetthesea.mp3]

MC Chris - Stop Time
[audio http://spin.com/audio/download/26884/mcc01_stop_time_hi.mp3]

Bobby & Blumm - In Future Present
[audio http://www.thetripwire.com/assets/audio/bobbyblumm_infuturepresent.mp3]

The Portland Cello Project - Toxic
[audio http://www.greenlightgopublicity.com/clients/content/portlandcelloproject/audio_download/Toxic.mp3]

The Kooks - Tick Of Time
[audio http://spin.com/audio/download/27345/kooks_tick_of_time.mp3]

Hinweis: Alle Titel der siebenSONGS-Reihe sind auch regelmäßig bei radioDUNKELBLAU zu hören.

Three scruffy dudes and a tall, blonde indie girl unload amps, speakers, guitars and drums from a van ...

They set it all up in a raised window nook at the front end of a small art gallery ...

They make pleasant chatter with the audience as they plug in, check sound and finalize the set list ...

For the moment, nobody's startstruck and nobody's getting any of the so-called “rock-star treatment.” This is live music at its purest.

The band I went to see tonight at NOIR (http://hangatnoir.com) is neither the current big thing nor the next big thing. But, it's something. At this moment, I know so little about The Boy Bathing (http://theboybathing.com) that I'm probably ill-equipped to be writing about them. Except ... I like them, and if an entry in my piddly little blog can help them along, why not?

There were only 10 of us in the room when the show started, but The Boy Bathing gave us a performance worthy of an audience at least 10 times that number. You almost had to be grateful for it. Even so, vocalist/guitarist David Hurwitz took advantage of the intimacy. He began the show with an accoustic number, leaving the stage to stroll out among the chairs and sofas where we sat watching. A gutsy decision, I think, but a creative one too. It warmed the place up.

First impression: Hurwitz sings in an articulate, emo-folk gush that immediately recalls Bright Eyes' Connor Oberst. I don't want to say Hurwitz is inviting the inevitable comparisons to Omaha's Dylanesque whiner, but he'd sure better get used to them. Fortunately, I happen to like most of Oberst's work, so I fell right in line. I didn't mind the similarity a bit.

It will take me a few spins of the band's debut CD, “A Fire To Make Preparations,” to determine exactly what song Hurwitz was singing (“The Leaves”, I think) as he walked around, strumming his guitar and singing without a mic. After he finished it he joined his three bandmates on stage, and they launched into the show proper. I want to mention highlights, but again, I hadn't heard any of the songs enough times before the show to have the necessary backround.

Still, I'm pretty sure album-opener “The Question's Simple,” as well as LP-closer “The Fire” came out halfway through the show, with Hurwitz urging the audience (we'd swollen to 15 by then) to sing along with the refrain. A couple of songs that aren't on the CD, “Wedding Song,” and a new one, called “House,” also made the setlist. The former is about being in love with a girl who's marrying another man, the latter is about returning to one's childhood home after another family has moved in, and trying to reconcile the experience with the person one has grown up to be.

On the three-year anniversary of the exact day my mother died, I found “House” welcome and poignant.

When the show wrapped, the band came off the stage and mingled with the small audience for at least a half hour, maybe longer. At a small art emporium like NOIR, there is no backstage, and that's one of the nice things about the experience. The access. I shook hands with all four of them, even fooled myself into telling them about my music blog. The loved the name: Bluebird Street. I wish I'd gotten this entry in before they forgot about it.

I talked longest with the drummer, Matt Bogdanow, an affable, hairy-faced fellow. The band's from New York City, and was working its way back East after playing the SxSW Festival in Austin, TX. They've made the entire round trip in a plain, ordinary-looking van. I asked Bogdanow, “What are your favorite places to stop and eat when you're on the road?” His answer kind of surprised me: “We hit a lot of grocery stores. It's cheaper that way. We're getting really good at preparing meals inside the van.”

The long hours on the road, the constant, cramped proximity to each other; the out-of-way towns and small audiences, grocery stores and cold cuts, cheap motels, flat tires, the generosity of strangers ... It's not glamorous. But why should it be? You've got to chase the dream if you want to live the dream. I don't know if The Boy Bathing will catch it, but I have nothing but admiration for them, for giving chase.

The Boy Bathing, working up a lather in Jacksonville:

March 20, 2008