Hotel Cafe Paints The Crocodile Red
"You're going to buy it anyway," chirps the (RED) marketing copy. So why not put profits from sweatshop labor to use in the fight to eliminate AIDS in Africa? Do good and look fabulous at the same time. We're not entirely sold on that proposal, but we did have much more fun at the Hotel Cafe Tour [myspace] Saturday night at the Crocodile than we were expecting from a grab-bag of six singer/songwriters (part of a larger touring group who all have played at the Los Angeles venue).
Thanks to our Scrubs addiction, we had heard Joshua Radin's [myspace] breathy baritone before. He plays a gentle indie-folk with half-whispered, collegiately poetic lyrics -- sounding eerily like the bastard child of the Limelighters and early Simon & Garfunkel (he covered Simon's Cecilia, with Brett Dennen jokily joining him as Garfunkel). His set included "Winter," "Star Mile," and ("If you're a sad, depressed, fucked-up crier, this one's for you") "Closer." It's mood music for rainy days in cafes, but we think he could stand a little variety in his delivery.
"He's cute," pronounced the 20-something young women standing behind us. Well, all around us -- there were a plethora (Oh yes, El Jefe! A plethora) of artfully blonde women with glowing, exfoliated complexions, showing off their workout results in their "club" jeans, and often conducting animated conversations throughout entire sets, or scrolling through their cell phone's address book.
They were pleased with Brett Dennen [myspace], who closed the evening with something to dance to. Dennen looks like the poster for "Honey, I Blew Up Paul Williams" (except with red hair): he's tall and mop-topped, and for much of his set appeared to be channeling a lively old Creole grandma. The musical references are eclectic, from Dylanesque acoustic, to New Orleans busker, to reggae. He's something of a phenomenon: a polyrhythmic picker who's always phrasing his vocals, setting them just so. "When You Feel It, You Know" is an example of the straightforward good-time feel, but he also has a few songs about death and dying that look toward Van Morrison's bluesy poetry; we got the feeling that he may well be one of those death-haunted artists who produce bright, lively sparks of songs as a way of fending off the dark.
We don't have a picture of Brian Wright [myspace], a bearded, likeable Texan, who sang some indie-country-flavored tunes (harmonicas were popular this evening). We liked "Down Town Eloise" -- it had a Jerry Jeff Walker kind of perspective, penned by a country boy with a foot in the city. 
His guitar work backing Joe Purdy [myspace] set was even more impressive. Whatever else we can say about the Hotel Cafe talent, they know how to play their instruments. Purdy's set emphasized the rock in folk rock, and backed it up with genuine lyrical gifts. This was the first time we'd heard him, so we can't tell you which song it was, but at one point we were startled to notice he'd written a new Leonard Cohen song. As Cohen would tell you, it's tricky to pull that shit off. He might have stirred a little Joe Cocker in there (not the flailing around part, the unvarnished emotional delivery). There were downbeat ballads, furious paeans to the Dutch, and some flaming southern-rock fretwork. Purdy and Wright both have their hometown dirt in their mouths, if you follow -- their songs are from somewhere.
Cary Brothers [myspace] single is "Blue Eyes," which was on the soundtrack of the film about New Jersey. (A documentary, we think, of Zach Braff's emotional sensitivity.) It's fashionable to like none of the bands on it now that they're popular, but neither can we love everything. We enjoyed Brothers' set, but it didn't really stick with us. We'd say the same thing about Schuyler Fisk [myspace]. "Paperweight" offers a strangely backwards-looking folk arrangement for lyrics which sound written by a smitten college girl ("mess up / my bed with me") -- when Radin came out to sing a duet with her later, we were uncomfortably reminded of "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow," from A Mighty Wind. She's just starting out, though, so there's plenty of time for her to find her voice -- we think it might be bluesier.
