Last night at Dan's Silver Leaf, Kandace Springs wore her influences on her sleeve with a commanding performance that even illicited a shout of, "You should run for president!" from the Monday night crowd.
Flanked by Dillion Treacy on drums and Jesse Bielenberg on bass, Springs flexed her musical agility, seamlessly switching between soul, gospel, and blues but somehow always landing solidly on her female jazz vocal influences such as Nina Simone, Billy Holiday and Eva Cassidy. We chatted with Springs a bit before the show about how she got started, influences, and what it is like to have Prince reach out to you via Youtube. Yes, that Prince.
Read MoreI first heard the song “Chasing a Bee” from Mercury Rev’s debut album, Yerself Is Steam, in the early '90s. The song finds symphonic grandeur in a droning, looping psychedelic wash of noise that intermittently envelopes instruments such as acoustic guitar and flute creating a seven-minute capsule of blissed-out experimental rock. Two and a half decades later, Mercury Rev continues to release albums that veer stylistically from the dense, sonic explorations found on Yerself Is Steam and Boces to the often stunning, orchestral statements found on Deserter’s Songs and their recent, The Light in You. In preparation for their upcoming show with Josh T. Pearson at Dan’s Silverleaf on Sunday, March 20th, I had a chance to talk with one of the band’s founding members, guitarist/clarinetist, Sean “Grasshopper” Mackowiak. Read on to hear what he had to say.
Read MoreA few weeks ago was another one of those fake holidays that doesn’t really mean anything. Sure, maybe you like to wait in line at IHOP for free food on National Pancake Day, or maybe you enjoy getting excited about National Donut Day only to forget about it when the time comes around. Normally, we let them pass without much fanfare. National Pie Day, however, was different. We were immediately excited as soon as we became aware of this day. Pie is our lifeblood at We Denton Do It. “Where’s the best place to get pie in Denton?” we asked. A couple people said Loco Cafe. Some suggested we go grab us some pie at Ravelin, but there was definitely not a definitive Denton pie place. That may soon change.
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