Song/Week: “Phillip,” performed by Kate Davis

Great performance; simple and beautiful.

Ever since I discovered Kate Davis I have been trying to figure out what song to highlight. I thought about posting “All About That Bass” with Post Modern Jukebox; a performance that highlights her singing and incredible bass playing. Then I thought about her Kennedy Performance when she was a Presidential Scholar and shows off her jazz singing and again, incredible bass playing.

I finally decided to go with “Phillip” because it shows off her performance chops as a rock star. She plays the uke and guitar fine, her singing is poignant, the instrumentation is interesting, and her presence on-stage is just right. The quality of the recording is less than ideal but the performance communicates everything you want from a song and persona that will hopefully rocket her great things soon.

Song/Week: “Clap Hands” - George Krikes & Ryan Lerman (Tom Waits cover)

This cover rocks! First the source material is excellent; there is no better songwriter than Tom Waits over the last few decades. Second, George Krikes does a great job of singing with some effects on his voice adding interest and intensity. Third, Ryan Lerman is awesome! Not only does he do a great job of playing the drums and bass, but he is a great guitar player and the solo in the middle of the song rocks (I think he is playing a Gibson ES-335, too cool). Finally, the video is just right. The nice thing about YouTube and the contemporary music scene is that you do not need a huge budget to produce a good looking video. What need is good music that is marketed with a video that highlights the music, not the people, and this video does this perfectly.