Stephen Mejias

There's a strange similarity between La Lupe and Melanie. They are both clearly passionate, to say the least. I've read that La Lupe's live shows had that certain danger to them that only the greatest rock performances can manage. On stage, her hands went wild like pigeons exploding into the summer sky: Lupe would poke at her face, tug at her clothes, and throw her shoes into the crowd.

I also picked this one up at Boomerangs. At the time, I knew nothing about Melanie Safka. Looking at the front cover, I must have immediately thought, hmm… psychedelic hippie music, or something like that. I also noticed that it was released by Buddah Records who I was familiar with for their work with Captain Beefheart and Rodriguez. Turning to the back, I was intrigued by Melanie's liner notes, which pretty much told me that this chick is crazy.

Willie Nelson's Phases and Stages was released one year prior to Wainwright's Unrequited and takes a somewhat similar artistic approach. It is clearly a concept album with two distinct, but closely related, sides.

Though earlier in the day I had entertained ideas of soaring through the cold night, piercing hearts from here to Williamsburg and back, when it came time to make my move, I could only sit there, alone, still and quiet and entirely comfortable on my warm, orange couch.

John Atkinson snapped this shot of our hardworking intern, Ariel">http://www.myspace.com/arielbitran">Ariel Bitran, during last night's performance at the Sidewalk">http://www.sidewalkmusic.net/">Sidewalk Caf. It's not that this photo was taken on John's phone under poor lighting conditions; Ariel actually looks like this when he plays. The dude is on fire, lit from within like a good single-ended amplifier.

Beautiful, beautiful! That's it right there, yes. Wait, no, don't lose that pose. Steady now. Oh, yeah. Yeah! You got it. The camera loves you, baby! Just one more now. One more. Hold it, hold it, yes!

The secret to the powerful, effortless performance of the YG Acoustics Anat Reference II Professional loudspeaker is what's inside its mighty cabinet: