Porlolo
Meadows
Pomade the Sun

The ghost of '60s folk music continues to haunt the coffee shops and open-mic nights of the American landscape. Considered increasingly irrelevant by today's music industry, folk snuck underground, where it quietly yet persistently maintains a subtle presence. Despite its unfashionable stigma, there are musicians out there who are not content to remain in the shadows. With a fresh take on an outdated sound, Colorado's Porlolo is making a convincing case for the importance of folk in the new millennium with its latest, Meadows.
Porlolo frontwoman and songwriter Erin Roberts has the ability and vision to transcend the tired genre of the Woodstock era into a vibrant, living force that's every bit as powerful as its louder musical rivals. Roberts doesn't merely trill and strum through Meadows' 11 tracks. Rather, she expands upon the traditional model with dynamic orchestration to enhance the distressed framework of her somber craft. The spirit of Joan Baez can still be heard, but it's been delivered unto the future aware of its limitations and unafraid to invite much-needed change.
In addition to singing and playing guitar, Roberts also breaks out her trumpet on several tracks. Though probably too loud an instrument for a coffeehouse, on CD the smooth brass tones complement soft guitars, adding color and texture to Roberts' uncomplicated songwriting. Strings, lap steel guitar, piano and even drums, the arch-enemy of folk, make welcome appearances on Meadows, ever pushing the boundaries of convention.
The additional instrumentation, while creating a richer, expansive sound, also tips an occasional hat to Colorado's Western influence. Tracks like "Tear You Down" border on alt-country with clean, electric picking and upbeat, cowboy drumming bouncing over Roberts' barely controlled heartbreak. Coming from the modern tradition of honest cruelty, Roberts pulls no punches. "Lately I've been thinking I would burn your bones to ashes" is certainly not a lyric you would hear from Peter, Paul and Mary.
Bidding comparisons to pre-Pope-ripping Sinead O'Connor, Roberts' voice has a stark, fluid quality. Like the Irish songstress, Roberts infuses raw emotion into Meadows, with no fear of using her natural volume to both lull and frighten when necessary. She never tries to be tough, allowing her exposed self-revelations to speak for themselves. The darker tracks such as "Lion In the Grass," with its eerily beautiful strings and deliberate strumming, create near-perfect, if ominous, backdrops for Roberts' haunting melodies.
For Porlolo, the more depressing the sound, the better. Other groups out there have "hope" plenty covered. Roberts shines the brightest when she's the most dismal.
— steven m. garcia { special to ink }

by Linda Ruth Carter
Photos by Brian Carney

Cd release shows are always hold a little more excitement than any other. It's kind of like a birthday celebration. (New songs are born and here's this shiny document to prove it.) Friday at the Hi-Dive was definitely a celebration of Porlolo's second full length release, Meadows.

This show was fun. If you read no further, just know that much is true. I've not kept it a secret that Porlolo is one of my all-time favorites, inside or outside of Denver, and I've been looking forward to the release of this cd for the past year or so, ever since I started hearing the first versions of the songs on it being performed. And Friday I got to be there.

As the rainbow unicorn cake on the merchandise table read: Porlolo believes in you. And from the people spilling in the door of the Hi-Dive, lots of people believe in Porlolo too. Present were not only the usual crowd of Hi-Dive regulars, but people who'd made a four hour drive from Gunnison just to be there.

Opening the evening was Sorellina, who is the Anna half of the duo cellists of Matson Jones. Though I couldn't make out a great deal of the lyrics, I'd characterize Sorellina's songs as being of the feminine singer-songwriter sort. Even the buzzy and a little too bright sound of a cello turned up loud at the Hi-Dive couldn't hide that this girl has a lovely voice, and can play that cello to pieces. I'd like to hear her in a place where the sound is more conducive to what she is doing, but I was glad for the introduction.

Next up was the eight member dance troupe known as Team Firefox. Donning spandex, leg warmers, and glow sticks as necklaces, bracelets and anklets, Team Firefox danced a coordinated choreographed number to "Never Let Me Down" by Depeche Mode. The stage was too small for this performance so they used the whole floor from the half-wall back to the wall and from the stage almost back to the little stage in the rear. It was fun to watch, though I had to stand on a chair to see. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it in the Hi-Dive. I mean, they were really dancing. But they had the crowd watching, smiling, clapping, and perhaps trying to remember some of those dance moves too.

With smiles on faces from the cheerful dancing, next came the debut of Wentworth Kersey. I was one of the fortunate early kids to get a copy of their disc along with my new Porlolo (and a copy of Roger Green's newest too.) Pretty awesome.

If Wentworth Kersey sounds oddly familiar for a debut band, it should. This is the musical project of Joe Kersey Sampson (A Dog Paloma) and Jeffrey Wentworth Stevens (George and Caplin) and if you like either or both of these people's prior musical releases, you will likely dig this new collaborative set of songs. I did. After a couple songs Wentworth Kersey retired from the stage and joined the crowd to listen to the featured band of the evening.

Porlolo said they chose to go .. Bad Weather California so they could sit back afterwards and enjoy hearing their friends play. Having heard a few of the pre-released songs off Meadows already, people were already calling out requests, many of them for "Animals," an extraordinarily catchy poppy song sung with the saddest, most tear-jerking lyrics, simultaneously hitting your emotions in two places at once. It's fabulous.

No two times I can recall have I seen the exact same set of musicians accompanying Erin Roberts, though I believe I've seen her solo more than once. The cast of supporting players have many amazing repeat performers, and whomever of her friends that accompany, I've always heard an enjoyable set. Whatever the line-up, the songs always seem to sound just right. On this night, accompanying Erin were: the overall-wearing guitar-sorcerer Roger Green; the ever consistent and copacetic drummer, Xandy Whitesel; the lovely and heart-stirring stringed sounds of Bela Karoli's Julie Davis on upright bass and Carrie Beeder on violin; and the talented songstress Kate Magnus (Placerville) on guitar, electric bass, and a hand-held keyboard.

They played a few songs from Storm and Season, but mostly performed a nice long set of songs from Meadows. Song after song, the listeners smiled and cheered. Did I already say it was fun? I'm writing these words two days later and I'm still smiling thinking about it all.

Bad Weather California took the stage to send off the night. Chris Adolf is another Denver songwriter that has been known to take the stage either solo or with a different arrangement of musicians from show to show, but for some time now he's had the stable line-up of Xandy Whitesel, Joe Sampson and Adam Baumeister, making Bad Weather California an identifiable group.

But things haven't gotten stuck in any rut. Indeed there is always a vibe of unpredictability with a Bad Weather California performance. Lyrics are elastic and verses change from show to show, like the songs have a life of their own and have to be wrangled somehow to get them out in the air. But the chorus is familiar enough that the crowd is often chanting along in communal song. That might sound corny if you haven't been there, but it is pure fun. Believe it.

Porlolo songwriter longs for simplicity

..

Porlolo
Pomade the Sun Records

  >>more on Porlolo   >>send to friend

You probably couldn't find a more inopportune place to try to launch a music career from than Gunnison, Colo., home of Porlolo's Erin Roberts. The mountain town's hardly a metropolis, and it's an intimidating three-hour drive into Denver, which, let's be honest here, isn't exactly crawling with A&R scouts (yet). So when Roberts and the rest of Porlolo launch their self-released second album, Meadows, the deck's stacked against them simply by a matter of geography, logistics and record-company practices. Then the band shows off its folk pop.

Consider the deck unstacked.

Singer, guitarist and occasional trumpet player leads her band on a tightrope walk between twee, indie folk and orchestrated pop on Meadows, blending all three with such a delicate touch you'll have to strain your ears to pick apart the lilting pop guitar from the folk from the tastefully restrained doses of string and brass orchestration. Maybe it'd be easier to focus on the band's playing if Roberts wasn't so distracting: The singer/songwriter commands a delivery perfectly suited for her subject matter, introspective, usually melancholic ruminations on everything from haunting loneliness to the loss of a favorite pet. And, miraculously, Roberts does it all without ever bringing listeners down.

It's her command of pop that keeps Meadows from becoming just another product of a depressed and self-absorbed singer/songwriter. "Meadows" opens the album, slowly unfolding from a pastoral folk-pop number into a sophisticated swirl of orchestration, slide guitar and loping drums. In "Tear You Down," Roberts simmers with visions of a scorned lover's revenge, "Lately I've been thinking I would tear you down to pieces" she warns, but struggles with shards of sentiment, "but know that I wouldn't do it if I tried," she admits, as her band strikes up a fetching blend of alt-country's modest twang and folk-pop melodies.

"Animals Should Live Forever" goes straight into twee territory, as Roberts dotes on dreams of, well, immortal animals that's miraculously more about kindness than cuteness, as guitarist Tom Mohr masterfully drops electric leads on top of her shuffling open-chord strumming; a piano comes in to give the song body and holds off the temptation to call the track a dose of sugar. Of course, with "I Don't Know" pitching a bluesy, traditional country sorrow ballad, "Turning On Heels" harnessing a majestic violin and trumpet arrangement to wake up memories of your worst break-up you thought you conquered years ago and "Lion in the Grass" aching with a violin lead to match Roberts' lonely-nights introspection, Porlolo probably isn't going to be known for its more twee element.

Roberts is a songwriter whose talent shouldn't lay sequestered in the Colorado Rockies. Meadows is one of the best albums to come out of Denver's snowballing scene -- or anywhere else on the planet -- this summer. Don't let Robert's remote ZIP code or her hard-to-find self-released effort keep you from checking out Meadows.

..tr> ..table>

- Matt Schild

Powered by

English

Albanian

Arabic

Bulgarian

Catalan

Chinese

Croatian

Czech

Danish

Dutch

Estonian

Filipino

Finnish

French

Galician

German

Greek

Hebrew

Hindi

Hungarian

Indonesian

Italian

Japanese

Korean

Latvian

Lithuanian

Maltese

Norwegian

Polish

Portuguese

Romanian

Russian

Serbian

Slovak

Slovenian

Spanish

Swedish

Thai

Turkish

Ukrainian

Vietnamese

Live Review: Porlolo, Bad Weather California, Wentworth Kersey, Team Firefox and Sorelina at hi-dive

.. --> Closes the title div-->

Erin Roberts (Porlolo) was joined by friends and acts like Sorellina, Wentworth Kersey and Bad Weather California for her CD release at the Hi-Dive on Friday. Photos by Brian Carney.

Three little whiskies, all in a row.

Whose were they? I'm not at liberty to say. At the beginning, they were all full, lined up on a squat Fender amp. And every few songs, they would disappear one by one, down the gullet of a band member I could never seem to catch.

This was a celebratory occasion, but also a casual one — of overalls, plaid shirts and liquor surreptitiously sipped. Porlolo is the music of a comfortable chemistry, where the R's lie flat and hardened at the ends of words as they would in conversation. It's music that bears the intimacy of a small room, regardless of a crowd's mass (which was, on this evening, substantial).

Erin Roberts stands small and modest at the microphone, the blue stage lights on her calm, liquid eyes. Among her are Bela Karolians and Placervillians, buoying her songs with an upright bass and a Casio SK-1 with notes written on the keys in Sharpie. There is a chunk of the Denver community onstage, playing with familiar faces to a group of the same.

On the bass drum is an illustration which reads "This is a religion." Maybe so, if this is the religion of home — a state, a city, a house. Make that an old house, where the nightly settlings-in make their own music, and chipped saucers sit in laps. The audience is here to be familiar, to roost. After each song, punctuated by Roberts' earnest "Thanks!" there is a din of cheers and whistles that only friends and fans can make. Then, again, the light, warm harmonies soar out over the crowd.

"I don't need a microphone in real life," says Roberts, back in the midst of chipper between-song banter, which ranges on subjects from pools and car keys to cosmonauts. Perhaps she was referring to the impressive force of her lungs, but I saw it differently. Anyway, she's not a belter, but a triller, crooner and warbler.

I was told as a child that the softer one speaks, the more people will listen. It sounds entirely counterintuitive, but if you recall the Roosevelt-appropriated African proverb, "Speak softly and carry a big stick," it begins to hold water. Roberts' voice may need amplification against the electric wallop behind it tonight, but her songs do not. The gentle, deliberate lyrics stand on two steady feet.

Before the night draws to a close, I discover the identity of the shot-swiller. It's Roger Green, who, until he took a telling whiskey break on the stage floor, has been playing his guitar with a black pick clenched firmly between his front teeth.

The show is almost over, but no one wants the truth. "I think this is our last song," says Roberts, to a chorus of "Noooooo!"s. No wants to have a good, cozy blanket torn from around their shoulders. She laughs and looks around. "Maybe our second-to-last," she offers, and the crowd responds with an affirmative clamor.

Alex Edgeworth is a Denver-based writer and regular Reverb contributor.

Brian Carney is a Denver-based photographer and regular Reverb contributor.

Thanks to John Wenzel and Laurie Scavo for the review.

Here you go:

http://blogs.denverpost.com/reverb/2008/04/15/fleet-foxes-porlolo-the-hi-dive/

Porlolo ville loves you.

Porlolo followed suit with both a packed stage and a packed audience. Once again, Julie Davis was a piece of the production, proving her versatility with that beautiful upright bass of hers. But the centerpiece of the well-arranged outfit was headmistress Erin Roberts, nominated in singer-songwriter category. Her songs grow with deep emotional roots that are simple and to the point, making Porlolo accessible and enjoyable as evidenced by the largest crowd that Sutra saw all day. She capped off her set with an amazing "experiment" of a new song, in which she asked Brigid from Bela Karoli, Ian Cooke and others up on stage to sing backup. After teaching the players the parts, she strolled through the new song with the impromptu members swooning behind her, a perfect ending for a near-perfect set.