Cloaca Melodia

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...

Millennium Harvest House Hotel, Boulder, CO..... This was a showcase performance for a radio convention. I had seen Jesse a bunch in the summer of '03, at another radio conference as well as at the WYEP Summer Music Festival . He was on the road, working it in support of his album The Secret Sun . My primary recollection of Rachael Yamagata was her wearing gloves while performing. I think she also popped in during the late-night Robert Randolph set to watch his performance.