'Vanessa Peters & Ice Cream on Mondays:' 'Sweetheart, Keep Your Chin Up'

[John (Biscuits and Gravy) Davy]

'Vanessa Peters & Ice Cream on Mondays:'
'Sweetheart, Keep Your Chin Up'

- Album: 'Sweetheart, Keep Your Chin Up' - Label: 'Little Sandwich'
- Genre: 'Folk' - Catalogue No: 'Music007'

Vanessa Peters & Ice Cream on Mondays: Sweetheart, Keep Your Chin Up (Little Sandwich Music007)


A Texan girl who's relocated to Italy, Vanessa Peters is quite some songwriter - certainly quite some lyricist. She plays with words and ideas in an arrestingly intelligent fashion, weaving together in this set of songs figures from myth and legend, personal experience and emotion, real world events and the imaginative life, so that all are part of the same fabric and we can only wonder that we never saw the connections before. Her opening song (Good News -The Siren Song) is as good an example as any. Sung in the voice of a luckless mermaid, failing to lure any sailors from their passage home, the scenario is clearly fantastical, but the wry reference to continuing war ("good news...this war keeps draggin' on/ and they're sending more sailors out to sea/ to get sucked in by a song") and the closing reference to being the girl left behind that sounds more like confession than fantasy serve to broaden the scope of the song and set the imagination going. Vanessa's love of a good pun is evident enough in the band title on the album sleeve (V.P. et Ice Cream on Mondays...) and there are plenty more examples scattered throughout, but it's her ability to delve deftly beneath the surface of her subject matter that makes her lyrics memorable.
As to the music - this full band album provides her with a backing of distinctly Lucinda Williams-ish country inflected rock. They're a good band and the drumming is notably solid and no nonsense but I persistently get the feeling that either the band or the production, or both, are not really in tune with what the song needs - they're doing their thing and putting the song at their service, instead of the other way round. This is particularly true when the guitar features - it consistently comes in too heavily, seemingly insensitive to the mood of the song. These things are difficult to disentangle but I guess the problem is more in the mixing than in the playing itself. Vanessa's singing has been compared to Beth Orton's before now - my house guest, unprompted, asked if it was Beth Orton on the player, so I guess there's a fair bit in the comparison. Personally, I think I probably prefer V.P.'s voice; it might not be brightly attractive in a pop-tastic sort of way but she makes a lot of it even if that is sometimes lost in the production on this cd.
Three or four of these songs stand out for their tunefulness, and the album closer (Okay From Now On) is richly satisfying from that point of view, the sort of song that, performed at the end of the set, would pretty much guarantee the encore. The standout track for me though is First Lesson; the lyric comes through clearly starting from a shocking line sung over the descending guitar line played on acoustic guitar: "So this is my first lesson in dying..". Our attention is grabbed and then held as she gives a personal take on 9/11. Good stuff. She's not a clone of anyone I've ever come across, so hooray for that; listening closely to the quality of these songs it's a surprise that she hasn't attracted the music biz support that would give her a breakthrough. It's not for the want of trying: "Austin, I Made a Mess" chronicles her failure to catch fire in that particular music city. Can't help feeling though that she's just a step away. Keep an ear out for her

John Davy

[The Medicine Show]

UK Dates http://houseconcerthub.ning.com/profiles/blogs/vanessa-peters-november-uk
This past summer, the band got another surge of interest when Vanessa and Manuel entered Aimee Mann’s video contest for her hit single, “Freeway.” They placed as runners-up in the contest and overnight their video went from 3,000 hits to 30,000 – it’s now over 100,000! Aimee even singled out their video as one of her favorites when she announced the winners.

Their newest record, “Sweetheart, Keep Your Chin Up,” is co-produced with Salim Nourallah (The Old ‘97s) and expands on the sound they have become known for:a blend of rootsy pop jangle and country noir. Like its predecessor “Little Films,” “Sweetheart, Keep Your Chin Up” is something of a concept album, taking fairy tales and myths and putting a modern spin on them, giving voice to such characters as Odysseus, Penelope, The Sirens, the Wicked Witch of the West, and others.

Their 2009 touring will take them across America and Canada and back to Europe as well, where they will focus on Italy, the Benelux, Germany, Scandinavia, and the UK.



Sunday 01 November 2009
Venue Live @ The Acoustic Shift,
Cardiff
Postcode CF10 1PL
Venue website www.cafejazzcardiff.com/
Venue/box office tel: [phone]
Doors 8pm

Monday 02 November 2009
Radio Show House of Mercy, London

Tuesday 03 November 2009
Venue The Beehive
Swindon
Postcode SN1 3JS
Venue website www.bee-hive.co.uk
Venue/box office tel: [phone]
Doors 8.30pm

Wednesday 04 November 2009
Venue Bedford Live @ Harpurs Cellar Bar
Bedford
Postcode MK40 2RD
Venue website http://www.myspace.com/bedfordlivepresents
Doors 8.30pm

Thursday 05 November 2009
Venue The Prom,
Bristol
Postcode BS7 8AL
Venue website www.theprom.co.uk/
Venue/box office tel: [phone].
Doors 7.30pm

Friday 06 November 2009
Venue The Grub Café,
East Grinstead
Postcode RH19 1EP
Venue website www.grubonline.co.uk
Other ticket outlet wegottickets.com
Doors 7.30pm

Saturday 07 November 2009
Venue The Windjammer,
Dartmouth
Postcode TQ6 9RT,
Venue website http://www.thewindjammer.co.uk/
Doors 6pm

Sunday 08 November 2009
Venue The Marine Theatre,
Lyme Regis, Dorset
Postcode DT7 3QA
Venue website www.marinetheatre.com
Venue/box office tel: [phone]
Doors 7.30pm


Thursday 12 November 2009
Venue The Green Note
London
Postcode NW1 7AN
Venue website www.greennote.co.uk
Doors 7pm
Venue/box office tel [phone]

Friday 13 November 2009
Venue House Concert
York
Postcode YO1 6LF
Venue website www.houseconcertsyork.co.uk/
http://houseconcerthub.ning.com/profile/HouseConcertsYork
Venue/box office tel: [phone]

Saturday 14 November 2009
Venue Barnsley House Concert,
Wombwell
Postcode S73 8ES
Venue website www.wombwellfolk.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
http://houseconcerthub.ning.com/profile/HedleyJones
Venue/box office tel: by invite only

Peace, Health & Happiness
Event Management/Publicist/Tour Organiser/Music Marketing/Radio Dee Jay/Music Fan
www.medicinemusic.co.uk