Michael Kiwanuka (9:30 PM)
Elle King (8:30 PM)
Mon, August 13, 2012
8:00 pm
Troubadour$15.00
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This event is all ages
http://www.troubadour.com/event/118961/
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Michael Kiwanuka - (Set time: 9:30 PM)
With Michael Kiwanuka, it’s all about the voice. A voice that he describes as “hitting straight through to the core” with direct, emotional songs about love, yearning, comfort and belonging. It’s a voice that built him a following via MySpace and small London gigs, and led Paul Butler from The Bees to invite him to the band’s Isle of Wight studio to lay down these introductory tracks from what promises to be a major new British singer/songwriter. Which makes it all the more strange, really, that what Michael originally set out to be was a session guitarist who maybe wrote the odd song for other people.
Growing up in North London, he struggled at times to see where he fitted in. An avid England and Spurs fan, he found it hard to imagine a day when a name like Kiwanuka could sit comfortably on the back of a football shirt here. Nonetheless, when his parents took him and his brother back to Uganda to visit family, he and his brother were immediately recognised as British tourists. Like most of his schoolmates, he liked bands like Nirvana, Radiohead, Offspring and Blur, but it was only when he discovered that Jimi Hendrix was black that he understood he had a place playing rock guitar.
In his teens, two other icons helped him find his voice. A friend gave him a Bob Dylan box set,
and Michael was bowled over by the power of a well-crafted song, delivered with just urgent
vocals and an acoustic guitar. Later, he was playing the free CD that came with a music
magazine and heard an out-take of •Sitting on the Dock of the Bay• in which Otis Redding was
talking to the studio engineer. It made the soul icon seem more human, more accessible, and
though there were later to be other influences from Bill Withers and Terry Callier to John
Martyn and Laura Marling, it was Dylan and Redding who laid the foundations for Michael•s
own rootsy, folk-inflected modern soul.
He played in rock bands at school, and when he was 16 went east to Hackney in search of
other musicians to work with. He began hanging out with Tiny Tempah collaborator Labrinth
at his studio, played contemporary R&B, soul and jazz-funk at small jam sessions, and did
some session guitar for the likes of Tottenham rapper Chipmunk. “It was fun and I learned
loads, but I still felt like I didn•t quite fit in. I couldn•t express the side of me that had played in
rock bands, or listened to Dylan or Nirvana.”
He began writing his own songs quietly at home, just for fun. They weren•t meant for other
people to hear – at least not at first. “No one would give me a gig playing the kind of music I
loved, so I had to write my own. It was more to keep my passion in music alive, just
something to do to keep my soul warm, you know. It didn•t fit into what was in the charts at
the time!”
Eventually, he recorded demos of a few songs, hoping to give them to others to perform. But
he was surprised to find that people loved his voice, and began encouraging him to play small
shows. And finally, he found his place in the world. “I love singing live, the feeling when you
really connect with an audience, when suddenly there•s a hush and you can feel it in the air. It
doesn•t happen all the time, but when it does, it•s really special.”
The debut EP and its follow up, •I•m Getting Ready•
was produced by Paul Butler of The Bees,
in the band•s Isle of Wight studio. “I•d just been playing my songs with an acoustic guitar, and
that will always be the core, the thing I come back to. But Paul also encouraged me to mix in
the kind of music I was playing when I was hanging out in Hackney, so I got to play a bit more
electric, and a bit of bass, and it turned out to be quite a soulful record. It•s got folk things
there but also influences like Shuggie Otis and Curtis Mayfield. I really enjoyed making it.”
Growing up in North London, he struggled at times to see where he fitted in. An avid England and Spurs fan, he found it hard to imagine a day when a name like Kiwanuka could sit comfortably on the back of a football shirt here. Nonetheless, when his parents took him and his brother back to Uganda to visit family, he and his brother were immediately recognised as British tourists. Like most of his schoolmates, he liked bands like Nirvana, Radiohead, Offspring and Blur, but it was only when he discovered that Jimi Hendrix was black that he understood he had a place playing rock guitar.
In his teens, two other icons helped him find his voice. A friend gave him a Bob Dylan box set,
and Michael was bowled over by the power of a well-crafted song, delivered with just urgent
vocals and an acoustic guitar. Later, he was playing the free CD that came with a music
magazine and heard an out-take of •Sitting on the Dock of the Bay• in which Otis Redding was
talking to the studio engineer. It made the soul icon seem more human, more accessible, and
though there were later to be other influences from Bill Withers and Terry Callier to John
Martyn and Laura Marling, it was Dylan and Redding who laid the foundations for Michael•s
own rootsy, folk-inflected modern soul.
He played in rock bands at school, and when he was 16 went east to Hackney in search of
other musicians to work with. He began hanging out with Tiny Tempah collaborator Labrinth
at his studio, played contemporary R&B, soul and jazz-funk at small jam sessions, and did
some session guitar for the likes of Tottenham rapper Chipmunk. “It was fun and I learned
loads, but I still felt like I didn•t quite fit in. I couldn•t express the side of me that had played in
rock bands, or listened to Dylan or Nirvana.”
He began writing his own songs quietly at home, just for fun. They weren•t meant for other
people to hear – at least not at first. “No one would give me a gig playing the kind of music I
loved, so I had to write my own. It was more to keep my passion in music alive, just
something to do to keep my soul warm, you know. It didn•t fit into what was in the charts at
the time!”
Eventually, he recorded demos of a few songs, hoping to give them to others to perform. But
he was surprised to find that people loved his voice, and began encouraging him to play small
shows. And finally, he found his place in the world. “I love singing live, the feeling when you
really connect with an audience, when suddenly there•s a hush and you can feel it in the air. It
doesn•t happen all the time, but when it does, it•s really special.”
The debut EP and its follow up, •I•m Getting Ready•
was produced by Paul Butler of The Bees,
in the band•s Isle of Wight studio. “I•d just been playing my songs with an acoustic guitar, and
that will always be the core, the thing I come back to. But Paul also encouraged me to mix in
the kind of music I was playing when I was hanging out in Hackney, so I got to play a bit more
electric, and a bit of bass, and it turned out to be quite a soulful record. It•s got folk things
there but also influences like Shuggie Otis and Curtis Mayfield. I really enjoyed making it.”
Elle King - (Set time: 8:30 PM)
Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Elle King may be just 23 years old, but she's already got quite a story to tell. Born in rural Ohio, she moved to New York City at age 10 -- "there was definitely a big difference going from climbing trees barefoot to taking the subway by myself," she says. After getting kicked out of school, she headed to California, then returned to New York, and then Philadelphia for art college. Since then, King's home base went from Copenhagen back to LA before finally settling down in New York, where she has recorded one of the most exciting and unique debut projects of recent years.
Already hailed by such outlets as Entertainment Weekly, Esquire, Glamour, Perez Hilton, and Vanity Fair -- and featuring "Playing for Keeps," which was chosen as the theme song for VH1's "Mob Wives Chicago" series -- the four-song "THE ELLE KING EP" reveals all of this experience with a sound and style that is distinct and mature beyond King's young age. In the midst of her far-flung and hell-raising travels, King started playing the guitar at age 13 ("a friend of my stepdad's taught me, and I learned stuff by, like, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Otis Redding") and then later picked up a banjo, inspired by the Hank Williams and Earl Scruggs records her family listened to.
King pinpoints the day her life changed to her ninth birthday when her stepfather gave her the first album by hard-rocker girls the Donnas. "I put that on and that was it," she says. "I wanted to play rock and roll and be a girl and do it. I started listening to the Runaways and Blondie -- all the rad chicks."
It was during her time in Philadelphia that her music took a different turn, toward her current country-blues-soul blend, and her songwriting got more serious. "I was living on my own, getting into way too much trouble, and really getting my heart broken for the first time," she says. "I made friends with people who slept on park benches and wrote songs, and it made me start putting different words together. I've never been shy, but that's when I started singing in parks and busking."
A romantic disaster in Copenhagen led to the song that King considers her breakthrough, "Good To Be A Man" (featured on the EP), which has already garnered airplay on such influential radio stations as KCRW Santa Monica and XPN Philadelphia. "I thought it was catchy, and I saw that people liked to sing along to the mean songs," she says.
Following her own set at an outdoor show, King stuck around to watch a young band "just some cute boys who play banjos and guitars" -- and discovered a new way to approach her instruments. "When I picked up the banjo, I would play country music, that went hand-in-hand," she says. "But these guys played the banjo just as an instrument, not stylized in any kind of mold, and I got it -- just play it because it's beautiful. So I'm not twanging it anymore, and that totally opened up my songwriting. I had stopped writing on the banjo because I wanted a break from country songs, but now these weird songs just started coming out."
In addition to "Playing for Keeps" and "Good to Be a Man," the EP includes another King original, "No One Can Save You," and a live cover of Khia's gloriously lewd hip-hop hit "My Neck, My Back," which the singer says she included "so everyone can see that I'm kind of a crazy wild card -- the only problem is now I can't send it to my grandma."
While working on her full-length debut album, King has been touring with such acts as Train, Of Monsters and Men, and Dry the River, and her boisterous live show has been earning notice and acclaim everywhere she goes. The Austin Chronicle raved about her "shockingly sexy-sorrowful songsmithery" and her "sweetheart-with-a-knife voice that promises potentially dangerous intimacy on a grand, spooky scale."
For Elle King, all the hard living and hard work has gotten her to the place she always wanted, where she and her music are being accepted on her own terms. "People made fun of me when I was little, and I was never confident," she says. But one day I was like, 'I like getting tattoos and dying my hair, I like singing loud -- and people started listening. I was never begging for people to like it, and now everyone is like, 'We love you for you, just be yourself.'"
"All I want in life is for people to sing the words to my songs at my shows," she concludes. "One of my dreams is coming true, and it's coming true in a really great way."
Already hailed by such outlets as Entertainment Weekly, Esquire, Glamour, Perez Hilton, and Vanity Fair -- and featuring "Playing for Keeps," which was chosen as the theme song for VH1's "Mob Wives Chicago" series -- the four-song "THE ELLE KING EP" reveals all of this experience with a sound and style that is distinct and mature beyond King's young age. In the midst of her far-flung and hell-raising travels, King started playing the guitar at age 13 ("a friend of my stepdad's taught me, and I learned stuff by, like, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Otis Redding") and then later picked up a banjo, inspired by the Hank Williams and Earl Scruggs records her family listened to.
King pinpoints the day her life changed to her ninth birthday when her stepfather gave her the first album by hard-rocker girls the Donnas. "I put that on and that was it," she says. "I wanted to play rock and roll and be a girl and do it. I started listening to the Runaways and Blondie -- all the rad chicks."
It was during her time in Philadelphia that her music took a different turn, toward her current country-blues-soul blend, and her songwriting got more serious. "I was living on my own, getting into way too much trouble, and really getting my heart broken for the first time," she says. "I made friends with people who slept on park benches and wrote songs, and it made me start putting different words together. I've never been shy, but that's when I started singing in parks and busking."
A romantic disaster in Copenhagen led to the song that King considers her breakthrough, "Good To Be A Man" (featured on the EP), which has already garnered airplay on such influential radio stations as KCRW Santa Monica and XPN Philadelphia. "I thought it was catchy, and I saw that people liked to sing along to the mean songs," she says.
Following her own set at an outdoor show, King stuck around to watch a young band "just some cute boys who play banjos and guitars" -- and discovered a new way to approach her instruments. "When I picked up the banjo, I would play country music, that went hand-in-hand," she says. "But these guys played the banjo just as an instrument, not stylized in any kind of mold, and I got it -- just play it because it's beautiful. So I'm not twanging it anymore, and that totally opened up my songwriting. I had stopped writing on the banjo because I wanted a break from country songs, but now these weird songs just started coming out."
In addition to "Playing for Keeps" and "Good to Be a Man," the EP includes another King original, "No One Can Save You," and a live cover of Khia's gloriously lewd hip-hop hit "My Neck, My Back," which the singer says she included "so everyone can see that I'm kind of a crazy wild card -- the only problem is now I can't send it to my grandma."
While working on her full-length debut album, King has been touring with such acts as Train, Of Monsters and Men, and Dry the River, and her boisterous live show has been earning notice and acclaim everywhere she goes. The Austin Chronicle raved about her "shockingly sexy-sorrowful songsmithery" and her "sweetheart-with-a-knife voice that promises potentially dangerous intimacy on a grand, spooky scale."
For Elle King, all the hard living and hard work has gotten her to the place she always wanted, where she and her music are being accepted on her own terms. "People made fun of me when I was little, and I was never confident," she says. But one day I was like, 'I like getting tattoos and dying my hair, I like singing loud -- and people started listening. I was never begging for people to like it, and now everyone is like, 'We love you for you, just be yourself.'"
"All I want in life is for people to sing the words to my songs at my shows," she concludes. "One of my dreams is coming true, and it's coming true in a really great way."
All lineups and times subject to change