A Girl and A Guitar

Many times, if I like an artist’s music but don’t know much about them, I can sort of bluff my way through a post, using a combination of biographical information and miscellaneous quotes (see yesterday’s post).

Then there’s today’s post, which gives me nothing but the music, although I think that’s the way the artist wants it. A few days ago I got an “add” request on my MySpace from someone calling herself “A Girl and A Guitar.” I was intrigued enough to check out her profile, which has as its default song “Ask Me if I Give a Shit.” I listened to the entire song, which is something I rarely do on someone’s MySpace, then dropped her a note telling her I really liked her music. Interestingly, she responded with a nice note, and she sent me some music, but she did not offer up any other identifying information. Neither is there any bio information or pictures on her MySpace. It simply says, “It is not what you have that matters. It is what you do with what you have that matters.”

A Girl and A Guitar defines her musical genre as “acoustic / country / Americana.” She fits all of those neatly, but there’s also an old-school rockabilly feel to her songs. She wrote and recorded all of the music herself and has released an independent album called One Track Recordings, a nod toward her motto of “One girl. One guitar. One microphone. One computer. One software program.”

While the music has a minimalist feel, the songs keep with the country tradition of “Somebody done me wrong.” If there’s any autobiography behind any of these songs, A Girl and A Guitar has been done way wrong. Look at song titles such as “Ask Me if I Give a Shit” and “I’m Not Your Booty Call,” not to mention lyrics like “It just blows my mind time after time / when I can't believe what you've done to me / And you don't even know that you've dealt this blow / You're too self-consumed, boy, to know what you do,” from “Self-Consumed.”

Of course, like all good country lyrics, some are apropos to a number of situations. I think a few of the women in Miami-Dade County could learn from these lines from “When I’m Holding Your Hand”: “Maybe someday you'll realize that it ain't all about the size of your wallet or your automobile. It's just the way you make me feel.”



For more information, and to order a copy of One Track Recordings, go to A Girl and A Guitar’s MySpace space (or click on the above banner - same thing). You can also go to her Web site and send her a request to play your town.

Ask Me if I Give a Shit.mp3
Doubt.mp3

Labels: alt.country, indie, new stuff

posted by aikin @ 11:50 AM