10.05.2007 The Blow

Went to see an act named The Blow, which is essentially one woman, Kaela Maricich. Her initial collaborator, Jona Bechtolt, made the beats and has since moved on. What a great show! She was the only one on stage in her all white outfit, but she held everyone’s attention throughout. Her act is a little hard to describe — containing elements of hip hop and pop, she rhymes and sings catchy choruses over loopy beats.  She also reminded me of Miranda July (who happens to be her friend), and Ellen DeGeneres, but with a lot of really unique dancing, or throwing shapes, as they say in the UK. There was a lot of patter between songs, stories that flowed and connected the music — sometimes the punch line of a story would seem to trigger a beat and a song. The timing, the flow, was perfect. In that sense, it was almost a musical, though not like anything else out there. Sometimes she used props, like a dry-cleaning bag or a plastic water bottle. (Here is a picture from her Flickr page.)

The songs, some of them, are super catchy, and as a result she attracted a healthy sized, and fairly young audience in this alt-rock venue (The Blender Theater) — but her act is pretty damn eccentric and arty for a pop act, even for an alt-pop audience if you ask me. But here it was, something that was determined to be what it was and not pander to pop performance expectations.  Yet, she jumped into a pop context and succeeded.