As I discover more and more artists, one place that comes up a lot where they play is The Hotel Cafe. I finally checked it out online – it’s a cool little cafe in LA that is also a listening room for singer-songwriters and acoustic artists. (Listening room as in, people come to listen to the music, not to hang out with music in the background.) People are comparing it to the late 60′s and 70′s when the whole singer-songwriter thing really blossomed in LA before. So far the Hotel Cafe scene has grown up very organically and it seems like a very real, unpretentious place with a whole lot of awesome music coming out of it.

One thing they’ve done for the past couple years is a “Hotel Cafe Tour“, where a bunch of the people who play at the cafe go out on the road together.

Feed and email readers may need to come to the blog to see the video

Since the chances of me actually getting to see the tour are slim, and I needed a theme for my radio show, I thought I’d check out some of the ladies who’ve been on the tour in the past and present.

And that’s where I got into trouble.

Usually I sort of discover artists one at a time and I have the chance to really listen and get to know them, but THERE ARE SO MANY GREAT ARTISTS FROM THE HOTEL CAFE TOUR!!! Can we say “Kid in a candy store”? I could quickly go broke buying up all their albums. (and that’s just the girls, the guys are awesome too.) I already had some – Ingrid Michaelson, Jessie Baylin, Imogen Heap, Priscilla Ahn, The Weepies, Mandy Moore and KT Tunstall – but I had to restrict myself to just one song each from other artists to do the radio show.

Go here for the playlist, complete with links to all the artist’s websites.

Sweet like candy. For your ears.

Excuse me while I go bounce around on my sugar high.

I love this sweet little video of Ani DiFranco performing Overlap with Erin McKeown and Julie Wolf. It starts out with the girls practicing unplugged, probably in a hotel room, and then melts into them performing the song on-stage. The camera work is obviously by someone close to them because that person got to be at the rehearsal and had a really good balcony seat at the concert.

I have to admit I never got into Ani the way people seem to expect me to. I have a few of her songs from iTunes but not one whole album! Most of my early exposure to her was more through friends doing covers in dorms and such. I’m feeling like I should explore her stuff a little bit more though, because I certainly like what I have, and what I’ve heard from my friends. T gave me a little overview of “the history” of Ani in college once. She had almost every album and highlighted the changes and growth from the first one to the most recent. It was pretty encouraging actually to realize that even someone as famous as Ani DiFranco started with what she knew and could do and then evolved from there. That’s the process for pretty much everyone I guess, but it’s easy to see someone really talented and say “I’m not as good as that, and I don’t know if I ever will be, so I should just give up now.” Some of her simple first songs (like Both Hands) are still my favorites!

Back to the video though, what is really neat to me about it is the collaboration of the three artists, especially because I’ve seen both Erin and Julie live. T actually introduced me to Erin McKeown a few years ago, I think she had seen Erin open for an Ani concert. (now I’m wondering if it was for this same tour featured on the video?) I really fell in love with Born to Hum off Erin’s 2003 album Grand. Got on her mailing list and then got to see her live when she came through Iowa City about a year ago with Melissa Ferrick. Very awesome, fairly small but packed concert at The Mill, but that’s probably a story for another post. I’ve seen Julie Wolf a couple times playing with Dar Williams. It must be so neat to get to play with so many different artists the way Julie does. Getting this little sneak peak at the rehearsal process and then seeing how it translates to full-on, fun and funky performance is a real treat! Enjoy!