Shut and open

I'm sure she's quite good

She's just got the wrong last name. Which is no more her fault than the fact that I'm in the wrong hemisphere twice over for the eclipse, but hey. Who wouldn't rather know what the person below has been up to?

No compromise in defense of Mother Earth (photo: Dennis Keeley)

But as the saying goes, one door that wasn't really there is just a wall, and another swings open on the L to Brooklyn. Nobody's consolation prize, Sophia Knapp played a solo set at Bruar Falls on the night her band Lights' new record, Rites, came out. Rites, which was recorded, will be getting a lot of proper attention this summer; no album in memory has taken an arrow for your psychedelic disco love quite like this one. But Sophia played an entire set of her own pointedly direct songs, which I hadn't heard before. They were great—or, well, maybe they'd seem less so in anyone else's hands, but Sophia has a way of snatching back near and total clichés of beauty and romance from the Hallmarxists, blowing away the dust and replacing it with…different dust. I might not stand or even sit for anyone else singing of golden mountains and love that goes by "love," but Sophia's a guilelessly pure spirit; she isn't getting away with anything. And she'll probably never get her due as a guitarist—one of those seemingly simple yet calmly precise players who doesn't strike, stroke or strum a note without purpose.

Sophia Knapp, in rainbows

In search of...

…our generation's Anne Briggs.

This week at the Lakeside Lounge

All respect to Eric and Amy, but it was the sight of Kendra Smith's name that gave me long pause. Could it be? Nah. I mean, could it? Last name as common as trees, first name less so; a city of 8 million–plus. But no, no way. Here? Now? Then again, her long-ago bandmate Steve Wynn drops in on the Lakeside semiregularly, so it's less completely impossible than it would be otherwise. A quick consultation with Sherlock Google indicates that tonight's music will be provided by a different Kendra, meaning the writers of this here chalkboard screwed up royally, for Kendra Smith is nothing if not musical royalty, and not just for her (five) way of disappearing. Still…I should probably be there, just to make sure.