concert review - jesca hoop & the ditty bops

here's the story. two months or so ago, my friend valerie told me about some girl she heard on kcrw named jessica hoop. she said i should look her up and i did, but according to the internet she didn't exist, let alone have any music on the radio. eventually, we found out she spelled her name the way she does and i was able to find a 30 second clip of her songs on her website. i liked it, but without access to the whole thing, i forgot about it. then, a couple of days ago i saw her name again somewhere and tried to give it another shot. i scowered the internet, eventually just buying her song "silverscreen" from the itunes store. i sent it to my buddy marc knowing it was up his alley and sure enough, by the next day he knew more information about jesca hoop than i did. and last night when i came home from work at 9pm, he IMed me a list of her upcoming performances. one of which started forty five minutes later. it was at the hotel cafe, which my roommate brendan and i had been to before, so we hopped in the car and went. spur of the moment adventure kind of thing.

we get there a little late. she hadn't started yet, but the hotel cafe basically can fit less than a hundred people so we were standing behind a few rows of people and our view was obstructed by abnormally tall people. that was the only negative to the show though. it turned out to be her birthday, so the set begin with "happy birthday" and then she sang a really nice a capella song to get things rolling. it was her, two back up singers, a bass player and a percussionist. i'm not familiar with her enough to know song titles, but one highlight was a track that featured handclaps and a swift tempo change between chorus and verses. a couple songs in, it was revealed that the back up singers were actually the group the ditty bops, which i had just recently found out about (again from valerie) and downloaded. the three performed an a capella version of the song "fixit men" which was another highlight that made me think of a 21st century andrew sisters. it helped that the three wore matching white blouses, black skirts, and black ties as well. at the end everyone sang "happy birthday" again and there was cake. the show was good, making me a bigger fan of both artists, and i hope you'll check them out too.

here's a download from the sxsw site, which jesca hoop played this year.

jesca hoop - silver screen demos

jesca hoop official site





and here's a link to hear some of the ditty bops

ditty bops music


after the show, brendan and i went to the beauty bar where not two minutes into our stay, he was randomly grabbed by a girl and kissed. the look on his face was priceless and there was no interaction between the two afterwards, but it made me wonder what would happen if i had the same gall that this girl had. if i were to randomly grab a girl and kiss her, i think i would get slapped. some sort of consequences would be had. but this girl got away with doing it to brendan scott free. anyway we ended the night with some delicious fucking hot dogs wrapped in bacon being sold by a vendor outside the bar. they were amazing. only drawback was having to wake up three and a half hours later to go to work.

concert- b+
hot dogs- a+