Cloaca Melodia

Byham Theater, Pittsburgh, PA....     sorry, I haven't yet written about this show... add your own comments if you were also there!

Fox Theater, Boulder, CO..... Cullum was a consummate pro, as I discovered a few months earlier at a different radio conference . That early impression was confirmed by seeing this more typical performance. Glen Phillips is a bit of an enigma to me. He had a couple of great years with Toad the Wet Sprocket, but the rest of his career has just been OK in my estimation. He had released his solo album Winter Pays For Summer (great title) back in March, with the first single "Thankful," and it was... adequate. I always feel like her has the tools in the toolbox to be very good but it never seems to come together, in my view. He was good live, but nothing to write home about. Rachael Yamagata was one of the coterie of young female singer-songwriters with albums out in 2004 that had shelves-full of reviews using phrases like "think Tori Amos" or "a la Tori Amos" (including Vienna Teng and Charlotte Martin ). Her music is also just OK. There was a bar right next...

Crystal Ballroom at The Brown Hotel, Louisville, KY..... This was a lunchtime showcase performance for a radio convention.  Jamie Cullum was a complete package. He had enviable musical talent and a winning personality, but the 25 year-old singer (then promoting his album Twentysomething ) seemed like an old hand speaking to a roomful of radio programmers and record label people. He pitched himself as a willing partner to radio in an articulate and self-assured way, something that even many grizzled veteran musicians didn't feel comfortable doing. It all clicked that he was being touted in his native UK as a "Sinatra in sneakers," since he seemed like such an old soul in a hip young guy.