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I’ve been wanting to get to an Etown recording since I moved to Boulder. What better opportunity than tonight when two artists I really enjoy played together. For anyone still in the dark about Etown, it’s a locally recorded weekly broadcast that is distributed to hundreds of public radio stations across the country. It’s usually recorded at the Boulder Theater, but they sometimes record other places. (Yeah Boulder!) The live recording goes about two hours, but the broadcast is stripped down to just one, so the studio audience gets to see all the left out stuff. It’s like seeing how the sausage is made if the sausage was an awesome radio broadcast.
I’ve never seen Imogen Heap live before; she was incredible. And because it wasn’t a concert, she was interviewed for the radio broadcast about her background and about her musical studio back in England. Oh yeah, and she was wearing small microphones on the inside of each of her wrists to mic some of the percussion instruments she was playing. Incredibly innovative. She was also very funny, dressed oddly with crazy hair and did live looping that was on par or surpassed Andrew Bird. In the case of Imogen though, the technology was more overt. Her electronic keyboard that she played like a guitar made her sound like three people were singing. She also lead the crowd in a musical collective experience. In short, she totally blew me away. My fan status is cemented.
Later in the program, one of my favorite up and coming artists, Gregory Alan Isakov, took his turn to record. Gregory is from South Africa, but he’s moved to Colorado, so he’s a local more or less. His soothing melodies were lovely. He’s got a mild manner about him that’s reflected in his tunes with wonderful lyrics. He said he was inspired by Colorado and the vastness of the west in recording his latest album. I didn’t realize that Brandi Carlile recorded with him on the album. It’s definitely a new favorite, especially perfect for mellow evenings (I like “That Moon Song” and “Evelyn” in particular).
The crew finished the evening with an Imogen-Isakov mashup of “We Will Rock You” and they did. It was a stunning evening. Check out etwon if you can and get your hands on these albums if musical talent means anything to you.
