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NICOLE ATKINS AND THE SEA 7:30pm
SALT AND SAMOVAR 6:30pm
TUESDAY, JUNE 17 2008
WEATHER PERMITTING
FREE ADMISSION

http://www.nicoleatkins.com/
http://www.myspace.com/nicoleatkins

"I'm sitting over/Neptune City/I used to love it/It used to be pretty/I'll come down/Walk around awhile/Until I'm sure/I can never go home again." " Neptune City "

The sound of Nicole Atkins' Bleeding Diamonds EP is like the opening scene to one of her favorite directors David Lynch's Blue Velvet. Underneath the sunny blue skies, immaculately manicured suburban homes and their bright green lawns lies a forbidding black hole of danger, violence and death.

That is the world described by this 27-year-old singer/songwriter from Neptune, a New Jersey shore town just down the coastline from Asbury Park, where she grew up in an idyllic childhood, teaching herself to play a Grateful Dead song on the guitar she found in the attic once owned by an uncle who died when he was 13. Her father turned her on to blues artists like Jimmy Reed, allowing Nicole to sit in on sessions with local musician friends. She played for three years with the North Carolina alt-country band Los Parasols before making a name for herself as a solo performer on New York City 's anti-folk scene.

Earlier this year, Atkins was named one of Rolling Stone 's Top 10 Artists to Watch, raving about her "big voice full of longing and Loretta Lynn elegance, and slightly surreal folk-pop songs that evoke moonlit walks with the shadows closing in."

Think Roy Orbison's "Cryin'" if he was a woman, the orchestral sweep of Sufjan Stevens, the bleak vision of Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen, the darkly mysterious girl group-on-acid musings of Julee Cruise and Lynch composer Angelo Badalamenti, the sorrow of Patsy Cline, the '60s psychedelia of Love and Nuggets , all with a redeeming sense of hope amidst the emotional wreckage.

Her band The Sea includes guitarist Dave Hollinghurst, bassist John Flaughter, drummer Dan Mintzer and keyboardist Dan Chen. The group recently appeared on Late Night with David Letterman and on Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and is featured in a commercial for American Express. Watch her new video for hit single, "Maybe Tonight!"

Atkins shopped her demo record Party's Over , which attracted the attention of several labels and led to a live audition in the offices of Columbia Records, who snapped her up. She's about to go to Sweden to work on her debut with producer Tore Johansson (Cardigans, Franz Ferdinand, OK Go, Saint Etienne, New Order).
"I think of myself as an all-around entertainer. I dance and tell jokes on-stage," she says. "If I can make up an ice skating or ballet routine in my head to one of my songs, it's a keeper. Even if what I do on-stage is more of a mashed potato thing."


http://www.saltandsamovar.com/
http://www.myspace.com/saltandsamovar

Salt & Samovar is intent on writing the next great American songbook. Uniting classic rhythm & blues, "foot-stomping psyche-garage" (fiddlewhileyouburn.com) intensity and a keen talent for enduring, archetypal melody, their repertoire evokes the musical heirlooms of a cherished American past. The band's revival-like performances gather momentum from the spirituals of the 19th century, an energy that, on a club stage, sits unmistakably at the forefront of the 21st century.

Salt & Samovar's first shows were on a tour of France in September of '06, supporting singer D.S.'s album, 'Salt & Samovar'. They spent the cold winter of '06-'07 recording their debut, 'Old Joy, New Joy' (2007). That September the band launched its first US tour, delivering the sounds of 'Old Joy, New Joy' and their 15-foot American flag to 19 cities from coast to coast.

On November 8 S&S had its live radio debut when they appeared on KCRW's "Morning Becomes Eclectic", a performance that solidified the band's place at 3 on Music Director & host Nic Harcourt's Top 10 Albums of 2007.

S&S is made up of past & present members of Moonraker, FEAST & Mattison.