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* "and i'm looking for space..."

As I suspect is the case with most folks reading this, I occasionally do a little surfing around MySpace to check out things I've maybe heard a little bit about and might wanna check out. The secret to MySpace's success, of course, is ease of use; it's remarkably simple to just go to a page and start up a song immediately -- often easier than searching for a particular song or artist amid a stack of CDs. If I want to go deeper, I'll dig out the disc; but MySpace frequently is a breezy way to do a "drive-by" listen.

Anyhow, a couple of my most recent finds:

* Gina Villalobos, "If I Can't Have You": Yes, it's the old Yvonne Elliman hit (written by the Bee Gees) from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. Always was a good song, one of the best from that zillion-selling album; I'd not have guessed, though, how well it could be adapted into a rootsy ballad. Villalobos' take recalls the brilliant makeover that mid-'90s Bay Area band Swingin' Doors did on the old Blondie hit "Dreaming". You can check out Villalobos' "If I Can't Have You" here:
http://www.myspace.com/ginavillalobos
The track is also available on Villalobos' new disc Miles Away, which comes out today on Face West Records.

* Kurt Hagardorn: Somehow I either never met this guy or don't remember him from our respective tenures in the NC Triangle area; seems hard to fathom, since his credits include gigging with Thad Cockrell and Caitlin Cary, two artists whose shows I rarely missed during my four years there. Anyhow, a friend from Portland, Oregon, on the old Yahoo ND board mentioned him a few weeks back -- apparently Hagardorn lives in Portland now -- so I checked out his stuff and, yeah, I can certainly hear how he would've fit in with Cockrell in particular. Relatively minimal stuff, but very nice and easy country-folk melodies on the four tracks he has at his myspace site:
http://www.myspace.com/kurthagardorn
Three of the four tracks there are from his new disc Ten Singles, which came out a couple months ago on Bladen County Records.

* Stephanie Dosen: This one I mentioned last week in my "Try not to speak" blog; but leaving that matter aside, just check out the songs on her site. Well worth the visit, I believe, as this is beautiful stuff:
http://www.myspace.com/stephaniedosen
The three tracks there are apparently unreleased on disc at present (far as I've been able to ascertain, anyhow).

adios,
peter

Posted by peter on April 3, 2007 11:26 AM | Permalink