Bonnie and the Beard

Also on the docket was Bonnie and the Beard at Mile High Spirits. If you haven’t heard these guys, stop doing what you’re doing right now (which I guess is reading this) and go check them out! More about them later...

Before I get too far down the road, I wanna tell you why I was so impressed with Bonnie and the Beard. Not only do they have a very colorful style, with elements of Spanish dance and jazz improv mixed with a free sound similar to The Doors, they know how to connect with people. You had no choice but to shake baby! Another thing they did extremely well was shamelessly self-promote. Their merch was displayed so you couldn’t miss it. Their t’s had “Bonnie and the Beard” splayed across the front and were easily readable. Add to that the fact they mentioned their name at least 5 times throughout the hour long set. My favorite was lead singer Tony “The Beard” telling us to include their music in our “i-life.” Very clever, very funny. - MusicMunch

We’ve sung their praises before, but we thought we would once again talk about how great Bonnie and the Beard are. The band, a must see at this weekend’s UMS, just released an incredible new album, Cascavel.
Slowly honing in on a sound that is uniquely their own, Bonnie and the Beard, fronted by Megan Fong and Tony LoVerde, play a style of music that is best described as “Gypsy Americana.” Cascavel shows the band taking their Bohemian-vaudeville act down steeper, more difficult terrain, telling tales of personal tragedy & loss, creating an overall sound that is darker, deeper and more personal.
Songs like “Dice and Bones” and “Sweet Devil Whiskey” help solidify the sound of a musical wagon falling off the main road and descending deeper and deeper into a dark forrest where there is no visible exit. - Illegal Pete's Blog

It's a shame the HBO series Carnivàle was canceled in '05, because Bonnie and the Beard's new album, Cascavel, would have made an excellent soundtrack for the gothic dust bowl of romanticized madness. Thick with a whiskey-and-humidity aesthetic, Cascavel is an appropriate release for the relentless triple-digit afternoons we've been experiencing lately. "Dice and Bones" delivers an ominous weight in its dark, bouncy rhythms, displaying both the band's sophisticated gift for creating complex moods through instrumentation and singer Megan Fong's commanding pipes (she moans a bluesy vibrato not unlike Fiona Apple's). "Sweet Devil Whiskey" is full of Tom Waits-y sin and sweat, the perfect complement to mint juleps and Southern romance. - Westword

“Bonnie and the Beard’s new EP, “Cascavel,” finds the trio maturing its approach to blues-based Americana into a sound that is truly its own. Recalling the Denver sound of bands like 16 Horsepower, Kal Cahoone and even a little bit of Reverend Deadeye, with an added sprinkling of sawdust and the dirt of country roads, all wet down with tobacco juice and whiskey, the threesome (with a little trumpet help from Wesley Watkins of Air Dubai and Petals of Spain) creates a saucy mash that makes “Cascavel” (funded through a successful Kickstarter campaign) a grin-inducing listen. Steal “Lightin’ Up” for a little taste of what this crew can do, then pick up the whole EP on Bandcamp for a mere $5. The band is playing all over Colorado lately, but your next chance to catch Bonnie and the Beard in Denver is a Saturday afternoon show on June 16 at Great Divide Brewing Company. Mark your calendar.”
- Denver Post's Hey Reverb

A week or so ago I put out a call across my twitter and facebook feeds. I was in the midst of a complete musical funk. I needed a band to come out of nowhere and knock me for a loop like Doc Dailey did at the end of last year. I’m starting to feel like either (a) The underground ain’t putting out shit worth noticing right now or (b) I’m totally fucking out of touch with the underground these days.

Now I’ve always known that 9B could eventually become my biggest enemy to hearing the music that inspired me to start 9B in the first place. And it’s possible that I’ve reached that point with all the music coming into the house that just doesn’t get heard, but my plea has been heard and the replies it received have their own stack in my computer room. This is one of those bands:

There ain’t too much info about Bonnie and the Beard on these ol’ internets, but from what I can glean, Bonnie and the Beard consists of Megan (Bonnie), Tony LoVerde (The Beard) and drummer Alex Ferreira. Hailing from Denver, Colorado, the band apparently became a band by accident. Like, literally, a car accident derailed vacation plans so they started playing music together instead, and Bonnie and The Beard was born.

Musically, I’d describe them as a bluesy, jangly Americana meets gypsy folk band. Kind of like The Devil Makes Three meets someone else less Devil Makes Three-ish. LoVerde reminds me a lot of Slim Cessna’s Jay Munly when he sings, and Megan’s smokey blueswoman voice serves as a great accompaniment. There are times when the production value on the cd slips below my abilities to ignore them, but as a whole this is a fantastic debut and another feather in the cap of my dream city out west.
- http://ninebullets.net/

Bonnie and the Beard possess a sound that is both sweet and sultry yet still raw and rawkus. Combining a bit of delta blues with indie-rock sensibilities, Megan (Bonnie) and Tony LoVerde (The Beard) sing about the struggle of human existence with the pipes to knock the dust off the highest rafters of any smoky bar. The band is currently in the midst of their Illegal Pete’s tour which will wrap up at our DU location on Friday the 15th with special guest Eric Halborg of the Swayback. Check out more info on Bonnie and the Beard at http://www.bonnieandthebeard.com.

See Bonnie and the Beard and Eric Halborg (of the Swayback) on Friday, July 15th at the DU Illegal Pete's - Illegal Pete's/Suburban Home Records

“The show started with a local Denver gypsy-rock band that I was also checking out for the first time. Bonnie and the Beard is a three-piece band – Bonnie plays guitar/keyboards/percussion and Beard (Tony LoVerde) plays guitar/banjo. The two share vocal duties and are backed by drummer Alex Ferreira. The trio created a gypsy influenced southern rock sound that was a combination of folk, blues and country. Their songs conjured up images of the wild frontier and sounded like what you might hear traveling gypsies play as they performed in an old western saloon. Their songs all have a fun feel, enhanced by the dynamic presence and energy from Bonnie and Beard, and they got me bobbing my head and stomping my feet the whole time they were on stage. They played mostly songs off of their self-titled album as well as a handful of other new fun songs. To set the tone and introduce the crowd to what this band was all about, they started their set with the song ” “, a tale about a zombie cowboy. From there they played songs that covered a variety of related subjects. There were the gypsy life songs ” “, and ” ” delivered with almost carnival-esque instrumentation. There were even odes to booze with songs like ” “, “Sweet Devil Whiskey” and “Beer, Beer. Beer”. They deliver their songs with such a charming playful seriousness it’s hard not to get sucked into the fun. If you’re looking for something bluesy but a little different, check out Bonnie and the Beard.” - Concerted Effort

“GtoC: How did the band meet and come to play music together?

B&B: Tony and I met at the good ol’ Meadowlark, over pizza & talk of cosmic lore. We knew each other for several years before we began making music together–he was playing with The Rooster Brothers and I was doing more of a singer songwriter deal (but barely playing anywhere.) We met our drummer Alex after we’d played a handful of shows as a two-piece– he happened to be filling in on drums for our buddy Jonny Woodrose during a show we were also playing. We all admired each-other’s long locks & we found our third member.

GtoC: What’s the songwriting process like?

B&B: I’d say the ways in which we create together are always changing and evolving. Often times someone will bring the skeleton of a song to practice, perhaps even have added flesh and blood to it. Often times that’ll get broken down completely–it can be hard on people’s ego, but s’ok. Working on getting a lot of our new stuff recorded right now as well.” (complete interview through link)

- G to C Magazine

... and the effervescent Bonnie and the Beard will shake the venerable park. - Hey Reverb

“?Bonnie And The Beard has a wayward traveler-feel about its sound — if Vaudville Americana were a genre, the local trio would be at the top of it. The band’s stomping, clanging rhythms are complimented by a duet of male and female vocals and a little banjo, tambourine and keyboards between.” - Westword Backbeat Online

This past February, Tony LoVerde and his girlfriend, Megan Fong, were waiting at a stoplight when out of nowhere, a car traveling at about fifty to sixty miles per hour slammed into the back of their vehicle. LoVerde says the other driver never even slowed down. Fong suffered a severe concussion, from which she's still recovering, and LoVerde still has back and neck pain from the accident. But it's like they say: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Dealing with the accident has been trying, says LoVerde, but it also gave the couple time to concentrate on Bonnie and the Beard, which they founded in the fall of 2009. (They'd met two years earlier, when LoVerde was playing in the alt-country act the Rooster Brothers.) The initial plan was to buy a van and live out of it while they toured around the country and played music. But the car accident derailed those plans and forced them to stay in Denver for doctors' visits and rehab.
"That was really what kick-started the development," LoVerde points out. "We had all this time to really focus on the music that we were doing. It's ironic, in the sense that it's in many ways due to that accident that we've had the time and space and whatever to do nothing, really, but music."

With extra time on their hands, the two got busy writing songs and worked on honing their sound — folky, singer-songwriter-based material spiked with blues and country. The music eventually morphed into what LoVerde describes as "whiskey-slinging, boot-stomping gypsy rock" — though hanging that handle on it raised a few eyebrows.

"'You can't call it gypsy rock,'" LoVerde recalls people saying. "'You guys aren't gypsies and you don't have a fiddle, so it's not.'

"It's not gypsy music, really," he concedes, "but I kind of like to call it gypsy rock because it's very open-ended as far as what people want to infer — or don't want to infer — from it. As far as our sound, it can be a little all over the place. Like, one song will be kind of an upside-down polka, and the next song will be blues, and then next one will be a soul song. I think what ties them together is the attitude and the way that we sing and what random notes we decide to play. But, really, a lot of it, I think, is the way our voices and the way that we come to it, in that respect, give it this overall sort of ambiguous, sort of ramshackle, carnival-y sort of party feel."

There are, in fact, elements that are carnival-y, and there's a lot of inspiration taken from the desert, which prompted someone to say that the music is like psychedelic desert blues. Whatever you call it, LoVerde says the sound, direction and feeling of the group (which is now a trio after bringing on Brazilian drummer Alex Ferreira a year ago) ultimately comes from breaking each other's work apart.

"It can be really difficult and painful when you write something and you're in love with it," notes LoVerde. "You just think, 'Oh, my God, this is the coolest thing.' And you bring it to the band, and somebody else is like, 'Yeah, I like this, but what about if we completely change it and do this with it?' I think it's a lot of that going back and forth and making compromises. We mull it back and forth, and sometimes feelings are hurt and everything else, but at the end of the day, I'd say we really like to write songs as a band."

While writing songs may be challenging, LoVerde says the music has also helped with the process of recovering from the car accident, as well as the stress involved in dealing with the aftereffects of it. "It's kept us sane," he declares. "Really, just because going through something like that and just trying to figure out how to get through it — it's a process that takes years. I mean, just the legal side takes forever, and it's so slow. You want to be like, 'I want to get beyond this. I want to get my life back. I don't want to have to deal with this anymore.' You really have to put it behind you.

"So I think playing music for us has been a wonderful salvation," he continues. "It's so positive, and it's something that we feel we can really do and have control over. And it's not people saying, 'You can't do this, and you have to do that.' We can really just let loose and let out a lot of the things like stress. And dealing with residual pain — it's like you've got so much adrenaline rushing and everything else that you can sort of forget about all of it, which has been great."

While the outfit regularly performs locally, LoVerde says he and the other members feel most at home when they're traveling, even it's just a trip up north to Wyoming. "We're so comfortable and happy being on the move," he says. "Going and playing the show is cool and fun, and that's a bonus, but it's almost the journey of traveling, just seeing new places and meeting new people. That's where we shine."
Being on the road also inspired the moniker of the group. In the summer of 2009, LoVerde's grandmother Bonnie had been dealing with cancer, and she had been on his mind a lot. LoVerde and Fong were driving back from Santa Fe, and the name just popped in his head. LoVerde's facial hair inspired the second half of the name — but he discovered another potential meaning when a friend asked why he chose the moniker. "'She's the Bonnie, and I'm the Beard,'" he recalls telling his friend. "He was like, 'Yeah, people are going to ask which one of you is gay.' I was like, 'What?'" LoVerde wasn't aware that "beard" can refer to someone being used by another to conceal his or her sexual orientation. "He explained it to me, and I was like, 'Oh, shit!' I think it's kind of funny that people kind of wonder, 'So, wait, which one of you is the beard?' We usually just try to play it off."

And besides, concerns about the name seem slight when compared to the ups and downs of maintaining a four-year relationship while also being in a band together.

"I think in a lot of ways it's made it stronger," LoVerde says of his and Fong's relationship. "It's tough, but at the end of the day, it's really special. It's really special to go through this kind of process and do this kind of work with somebody that you're also with. What we always say is that most people probably couldn't do this. They would drive each other crazy, and we do drive each other crazy from time to time.

"Our relationship is kind of evolving and changing as the band is evolving and changing," he concludes. "It's kind of an amazing thing to be in and be part of. It's kind of like both relationships affect each other, and we're just hoping to keep it going and keep both trains on track." - Westword (print and online)

Bonnie and the Beard's set at the Irish Rover boasted a much more appropriate marriage of sound and place. It was the fullest I'd seen the small Irish pub on South Broadway, and the trio seemed to thrive on the dense audience's energy. Both titular lead members played off each other, with Bonnie delivering snappy keyboard lines and the guitarist responding in kind, delivering vocals with a frenzied, carnival barker-like enthusiasm.

It was a manic energy that I found hard to match during the remainder of the festival.

...Still, it was hard to calm down for the group's (John Common & The Blinding Flashes of Light) distinctive brand of folk-based rock after Bonnie and Beard's explosive set...

Perhaps I was still pining for the cramped, energetic feel of Achille Lauro's set at the Brass Tree House or Bonnie and the Beard's remarkable performance at the Irish Rover. - Westword

After the concert ended we went to our new favorite hangout in Salida, Fritz aka Mr. Fritzy’s. They have a great patio with live music. The band playing was Bonnie and The Beard. They played a set of gypsy-type rock then a second more rock/alternative set. They were fantastic! After the show, a couple of us even bought their CD. Sorry, no pictures of Bonnie and The Beard were taken. Boo.
- http://fearofbananas.com/

Free spirited, whimsical and other worldly are all good ways to describe the music of Denver based Bonnie and the Beard. Their nomadic sounds take you on not only an auditory journey but a journey of the soul as well. Referring to their recently released self-titled debut album as, "A collection of musings on wandering, thieves and fools," the three piece band eloquently captures not only the feel of their album but their artistry as well. I caught up with talented trio recently and found out what goes into the making of their music, their inspirations as well as their plans for touring.

Continue reading on Examiner.com: Introducing Bonnie and the Beard - National pop music | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/pop-music-in-national/introducing-bonnie-and-the-beard#ixzz1L2GxqXyD - Examiner.com National

Falling somewhere between Tin Pan Alley and bluesy Americana, this debut from Bonnie & the Beard sounds as if the band spent last year on an extended journey, collecting adventures and experiences along the way. The songs are the sort that come from people who once had dreams of running away with the circus (or actually did). Those same people might have also fallen in love with the music of Janis Joplin and Uncle Tupelo, and, rather than roam the world like Kwai Chang Caine, cultivated stories of their own to tell. If the sparkling "Lonely Hills" and the hazy carnivalesque strains of "Lost Tribe" are any indication, Bonnie and company have spent more than their fair share of time pursuing their dreams. - Westword

Falling somewhere between Tin Pan Alley and bluesy Americana, this debut from Bonnie & the Beard sounds as if the band spent last year on an extended journey, collecting adventures and experiences along the way. The songs are the sort that come from people who once had dreams of running away with the circus (or actually did). Those same people might have also fallen in love with the music of Janis Joplin and Uncle Tupelo, and, rather than roam the world like Kwai Chang Caine, cultivated stories of their own to tell. If the sparkling "Lonely Hills" and the hazy carnivalesque strains of "Lost Tribe" are any indication, Bonnie and company have spent more than their fair share of time pursuing their dreams. - http://www.westword.com/

February has been the month of local album release shows. FaceMan, Woodsman and Devotchka have all had their parties, and now, it’s Bonnie and The Beard’s turn. The Denver trio plays a mix of blues, soul and folk that is hard to define. But it’s certainly easy on the ears, and will be on full display Feb. 25 at 3 Kings Tavern. Bonnie and The Beard talked with The Metropolitan about what to expect from their new self-titled album and their next step as a band.
MP: How would you describe your sound?
The Beard: We’ve been thinking about how to give it a name, so lately we’ve been calling it whiskey-slingin’, boot-stompin’ gypsy rock.
MP: What are some of your influences?
Bonnie: We of course love Hunter S. Thompson and gonzo [journalism], the sea, the desert. Dahli — kind of writing about coyotes and carnival life and being in a sort of delightful delirium.
MP: Are there other artists who inspire you, too?
The Beard: I’d say there’s almost too many. Nobody specific is at least the way that I feel. I think too … at least when I am gonna go write something, I feel like it’s most beneficial for me to not have heard any music for a good period of time before that. Occasionally we’ll be like “Hey, let’s sit down and let’s listen to some funk or some soul or some Indian [music] or whatever,” but as far as trying to write a song like The Rolling Stones or … constantly listening to The Beatles, that doesn’t really happen. We listen to a great variety of music, but as far as artists in the music world I don’t think there’s anybody that we constantly go back to. Honestly, it’s more real-world weirdness that we get excited about and we try to build a song around it.
Bonnie: We just love music and get excited about music!
MP: Tell me a little about the new album. How do you think it turned out?
The Beard: I think that we worked on it so hard and we put so much effort into it that it’s something that, at a certain point, we’re going to fall back in love with again.
Bonnie: Right now we’re just letting it be.
The Beard: Yeah, right now it feels good to not have to get up every day and listen to it.
Bonnie: About the album, I think it’s kind of cool because it encompasses our musical growth, from songs we wrote when we were just a two-piece that were a little bit more Americana/country/folk songs … and some of the later stuff on the album is more kind of the “stompin’ gypsy rock” thing. It shows that growth.
MP: What can fans expect from the CD release show?
Bonnie: Just a big party. That’s what we want it to be. We don’t want it to be so much about us and our album and releasing [it], we want it to be about the other fun bands we’re playing with — Slackjaw and Woodrose and Disaster Canyon — [and] we want it to be about our friends and family and fans who want to come, and just get crazy. We’re encouraging people to wear fake beards and face paint, and whatever makes them feel good.
MP: What’s your favorite part about playing live?
The Beard: First it’s that every time we get up to play we’re actually doing what we love. I think a big part of what we love about it is, you feel at home, but at the same time you’re getting lost and you’re being found all at once. You forget about everything else that’s going on in your life except for that moment.
There’s obviously a huge give-and-take with the audience that’s really powerful. Lately, since the album has been finished and we’re working on new material, it’s really interesting when [we] get up on stage and start playing a song. [We] don’t always remember where the song came from when we wrote it; now it’s just its own entity, kind of like it [has] grown up.
Bonnie: The relationships with the songs change the more you play them, and getting to watch people’s reaction and interaction with those songs … is really cool. I love when we’re out playing live; I love seeing people having a good time. That’s one of my favorite things: to make people feel happy even if we’re singing about stuff that’s not always super joyful.
MP: After the album release, do you have anything else planned for the year?
Bonnie: We’re booking [shows] for a tour at the end of spring [and] into the summer as an album support tour.
The Beard: Where we’re going and the details of that aren’t yet known. That’s kind of our big project for this year — we want to really get into touring much more than we have. - http://themet.metrostudentmedia.com/

Bonnie and the Beard
Bonnie and the Beard crafts backwoods, blues-folk-rock that could be played in a revival tent that’s been set up behind a circus. The duo consists of Tony and Meghan, who trade off vocal duties while keeping the rhythm pounding on their respective instruments. Fans of Tom Waits and The Black Keys would do well to check them out. - http://thedenverdailynews.com/article.php?aID=9911

?You know what's awesome about dream catchers? They catch your dreams and turn them into reality. Well, that's how we've always understood it -- though we've never actually researched it. Anyway, this flier for the Bonnie & the Beard release party might just be a dream come true, as releasing records is always something of a mystical adventure.
At first glance, there isn't anything absolutely striking about Alexander Diner's design here, but there is still something to be said for the old-school nature of it. This looks like a band poster, through and through. It's not breaking any molds and blowing any minds, but it is offering stark, contrasting colors that immediately catch the eye, and it delivers the necessary information quickly and without trouble.

It's fitting for the bands on hand -- the whiskey soaked swagger of Bonnie & the Beard nearly demands a somewhat ironic, patriotic-colored Native American theme. The scratched up and faded colors work, too, as they manage to convey the sort of poor man's Americana the band delivers.

While we'll always have respect for people attempting to explode our minds with fancy-pants typography and layout, sometimes a straightforward, classic rock poster delivers the same amount of oomph. - Westword Blogs

The story of Bonnie and the Beard’s self-titled debut album is one of love and loss. The duo of Megan Fong (a.k.a. Bonnie) and Tony LoVerde (a.k.a. the Beard, formerly of raucous Denver Americana the Rooster Brothers) didn’t originally set out to make an album — they wanted to take a road trip. But when a car accident last February cut short their plans for a nomadic desert journey, the couple turned their energies toward music. Drawing upon memories of past adventures, the couple united with Brazilian drummer Alex Ferreira and began to shape the album.

While a variety of styles pepper “Bonnie and the Beard,” the record’s 11 tracks are united by Fong’s powerfully throaty vocals — part Janis Joplin, part Ani DiFranco — and by the band’s loose, jangly approach to the carpet bag blues. The dusty charm of LoVerde’s slightly thinner vocals provides an excellent foil for Fong’s puissant pipes. Though the record occasionally suffers from a sameness of sound and mood, unique instrumentation, heartfelt delivery and evocative lyrics keep things moving. Steal “Early Morning Request” to hear it for yourself, then make your way out to 3 Kings Tavern on Feb 25 to pick up a copy of the album for yourself. SlakJaw, Woodrose and Disaster Canyon open the show. - http://www.heyreverb.com/

There’s something about a live show in a small mountain town, especially in the winter. Unlike city folk who luckily enjoy night after night of enticing live music, locals in mountain villages don’t get consistent opportunities to groove during the winter months. So when an act like Denver’s upstart Bonnie and the Beard hits town, locals light up. Donning beards and their best party shirts, Salidans packed the Fritz last Saturday for a steamy dancefest, spilling their raised-high PBR tallboys as golden-throated Bonnie and the headbanging guitarist Beard (Tony) blew the joint up.
Rolling through rock-the-house covers and gypsy-folk originals, Bonnie and the Beard kept a fluid pace that certainly tickled the increasingly diverse collection of river-loving, bike-pedaling, mountain hip locals. (Seriously, how many tiny Colorado towns can fill a bar with locals who know every word to “Business Time” by Flight of the Conchords?)

The Beard can wind up heavy licks on both the banjo and six-string, easily dancing between a Johnny Cash strum and a Duane Allman jam. Bonnie channels her namesake Raitt with aplomb in “Money Honey.” Joining the Beard, the duo delivered a caressing version of Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros’ alluring “Home.”

Drummer Alex elevated everything, especially during the dynamic, punk-tinged “Beer, Beer, Beer.”

The locals showed their appreciation in spades, filling the band’s glass tip jar which, by the end of the night, overflowed with beerily-stuffed bills. As the locals spilled into the chilly night, they formed an impromptu cruiser parade, singing Bonnie and the Beard tunes under a crescent moon as they slowly swerved home. - The Denver Post, http://www.heyreverb.com/

When the Denver music scene gets mentioned, it is hard not to get caught up in hearing about The Fray, 3Oh!3 and even the Flobots. While those bands do represent Denver, there are local acts that are quickly being recognized as bands to watch. One band in particular is Bonnie and the Beard.

Members Tony, Bonnie and Alex got their start by putting their own soundtrack to the old cowboy tales we all admire right here in Denver. Bonnie and the Beard combined rough, dirty rock with country folk to create their own style. Each member compliments the other perfectly, which after only one album, makes Bonnie and the Beard one of the most polished Denver bands.

Bonnie and the Beard have played several shows around Denver and if you haven’t seen them yet, you should go see them this weekend. Bonnie and the Beard will be opening for Chad Price at 3 Kings Tavern in South Denver on Friday December 17, 2010. With their rustic tunes of cowboy wonder, Bonnie and the Beard is not to be missed. Go see why on Friday and pick up their album while you’re at it.

Visit Bonnie and the Beard and 3 Kings Tavern for more information.



- http://www.examiner.com/

November 8, 2010
In October I stumbled upon a righteous crew called Bonnie and the Beard at the Larimer Lounge in Denver. Tip your bartender, because if you’re in Denver and love music, you’ll be here again and again. They do it right.

Rising star Bonnie and the Beard opened for risen star Nicole Atkins and the Sea—the band I had extended my Denver trip to hear. I had just tried to see Nicole Atkins open for the sold-out Black Keys in LA. Then I noticed she was hitting Denver at an intimate venue. Booya.

This made me happy because Nicole Atkins is like my rock angel. I dread the day when I’ll need a stadium cushion and a telescope to see her. So it was truly to my delight and surprise to find a newly-discovered band with a vocalist in the same stratosphere with Nicole.

Bonnie’s voice is healing to the drunk soul like Nicole’s voice is to the psychedelic dreamer. Don’t let the sex appeal fool you. These women are on the planet for a higher purpose. Each play their part in bringing order to the sound and fury of the musical universe. I hope and imagine Nicole will take them on tour, repeating the magic over and over until the Earth finds its axis of harmony.

Let’s not forget “The Beard” (Tony). His guitar and vocals ground and compliment Bonnie in unexpected and comforting ways. Remarkably tight for a band just completing their first album. And of course wherever tightness is found, major credit goes to the drummer (Alex) for gluing it all together.

Feel the love up close at cozy venues while you still can. And please don’t take my word for it.

In this decade of ear-raping vocoders, and the fake stars ruining radio with them, you have to respect Nicole and Bonnie all the more: real singing stars that get it done live on stage, relatively unproduced, and sonically unique every time, to balance the energy of that particular crowd and space. Gratitude. - http://twangville.com/