Two Sides of LP

The artist LP is a testimony to perseverance in the music business. She has been signed to labels, dropped, resigned, dropped, and every time continued to move forward. She never gave up and just recently put out her first full length album (or I could joke LP) and it has been getting a ton of attention. LP may be short in stature, but not in determination. When you hear her powerful voice you wonder how it can come out of her body. Her voice soars and brings you into her lyrics immediately.

LP was born in NYC in the early 80’s. She likes to be a bit mysterious (hence using a moniker rather than her real name) and not giving a date of birth. Her dad was a lawyer and her mom was an opera singer who passed away while LP was still in high school. Music is how she coped with her mother’s passing. David Lowery from Cracker heard her and featured her on a 1998 Cracker song. Lowery produced her first full length album but if never caught on. In 2006 she performed at South by Southwest and a bidding war was started to sign her. She signed to Def Jam records but left the label before she put out an album due to artistic differences. She then signed with RedOne Records, but that also never materialized an album.

LP was however writing tons of songs and a few of these songs were picked up by major artists. These varied from Rihannah to Backstreet Boys  to Christine Aguilera to Joe Walsh. Millions of people were hearing her songs and not knowing who wrote them. LP had earned a great reputation as a songwriter in the industry and was sought out after for her hit songs. Because of the overwhelming demand for her songwriting ability, she moved to Los Angeles. In 2011 she started performing again with her traditional ukulele by her side and this time drew large crowds to see and hear her. LP signed with Warner Brothers who put out an EP in 2011 titled Into the Wild.  The title song got a lot of airplay and was featured on a national bank TV commercial. All of a sudden everyone wanted to know who was behind that voice. LP just released her first full length album on Warner Brothers Forever For Now. I am not going to play "Into the Wild" but rather chose  "Night Like This" for your listening pleasure:

I recently had the privilege of work an LP show when she recently came to Baltimore. I had not heard much about her, so I didn’t know what to expect. I can tell you that she was one of the most humble artists I have worked with. She appreciated everything I did for her at the merch table. What impressed me most was she signed merch after the show. The line was very long and she spent time with each person one on one. She asked their names, had a short conversation, took pictures, and made each one feel like a friend. She wasn’t doing it to sell merch, she was really interested in what each person had to say. Her honesty and kindness came through. I was very impressed with her positive attitude about life, especially since she has gone through a lot to get to where she is today.

UPDATE: The gorgeous harmonies of Sweden's First Aid Kit are back with a new release titled Stay Gold. I have written about them in the past and this album has some stronger writing but continue the mesmerizing sister harmonies. Do yourself a favor and check it out. 

Are You Listening- Kopecky Family Band

The Kopecky Family Band has what some in the merch business call “The Great Unknown Bounce”.  Let me explain what this means. First is that the band is great, and trust me this band easily meets that criteria. The “unknown” is that because they are a band that is getting popular, they are at a stage where they are opening for more well known bands. Probably more people are coming to see the headliners than the support acts. The “bounce” means that many times they are outselling the headliners at the merch table because they are so impressed by them. Many people may already have merch for the headliner and when you hear a band that is so good, you want the merch to remember and support them. Then you can say when they become a headliner that “you knew them when” and have the merch to prove it. I recently had the privilege of working the merch table and the Kopecky's outsold the headliner. I love it when people come to buy things at the table and you hear “Wow this band is so good, they are going to be huge.”

The Kopecky Family Band is not a family in the sense of being related by blood. They consider themselves a family because they work and tour together and have to support each other. They are based out of Nashville and met each other while in college at Belmont University in that city. Kelsey Kopecky and Gabe Simon formed the band back in 2007. The rest of the band consists of Steven Holmes, David Krohn, Markus Midkiff, and Corey Oxendine. They write what I would call Indie rock-folk and pop song mix. They have a sonic music palette. Not only are the songs catchy and stick in your head, but it is all done with intelligence both musically and lyrically. You will hear the standard bass, drums, and guitars but it will be interspersed with cello, lap steel, horns and keyboards. There are places in their live show (which is great!) where they switch instruments, but don’t lose the flow of building the show. To top it off they have killer male-female harmonies that will send goose bumps up your arm.

Between 2007-2010 they released two EP’s on their own and then a full length Kids Raising Kids. The record label ATO  signed the band in late 2012 and re-released the Kids album this past April. It has received a lot of great press from blogs, music magazines, and critics. Here is "Are You Listening" from Kids Raising Kids:   

This is a band I believe next year won’t need the Great Unknown Bounce because they will be the headliners and people will know who they are. To prove that this is a band on the upswing, the night before I worked the merch table for them, they made their major television debut on the Jay Leno show. But until they headline, please make sure you see them so that you can be the person who can say “ The Kopecky Family Band..oh yeah.. You’re just hearing about them.. Not to brag but, I knew them way back when.”