Photo by Akshay Sawhney (c) 2008
Anna Laube is a singer-songwriter in the folk-tinged Americana vein from San Francisco via Iowa City and Madison. She lists her influences on her MySpace Page as being Lucinda, Emmylou, Ani, and Joni Mitchell in addition to Iowa City artists Bo Ramsey and Dave Zollo. She certainly delivers all of this in her debut 2006 release Outta My Head. Anna’s lazy and seemingly effortless delivery floats beautifully over spare instrumentation placing the listener with the band on the couch in the various livingrooms in the Bay area where the album was recorded.
Anna is coming back to her childhood home of Iowa City to play two shows at the Downtown Iowa City Java House location (211 1/2 East Washington Street) on Friday, January 2nd in support of her upcoming album Pool All The Love * Pool All The Knowledge. The first show will be at Noon as part of the very cool “Java Blend” show with Ben Kieffer recorded live and aired later on Iowa Public Radio. It’s also usually video taped for airing on UITV. The second show on Friday is part of the Java House’s regular Friday Night Music series at 8 PM. Both shows are free to the public, and would be a great way to kick off the new year.
Anna sent me three tracks from Pool All The Love. And, based on those songs, and I would agree with her statement on her site that Pool All The Love picks up where Outta My Head left off. There is a song that I feel is a bit of a departure and that is the very percussive and slinky– almost ska “Hippie Boyfriend.” “Hippie Boyfriend” is funny and light song that I could see crowds of women singing along with at Anna’s shows! Anna graciously let me host “Hippie Boyfriend” here at playbsides, so download it!
Both shows Friday night are free, so if you’re in town, why not stop in? Unless I’m hung over or the weather is bad, I’m planning to hit a show.
Click Here to download “Hippie Boyfriend” from Anna Laube’s upcoming album Pool All The Love * Pool All The Knowledge
Click Here to visit Anna’s website
Click Here to visit Anna’s MySpace Page where you can listen to tracks from Outta My Head
Click Here to listen to other tracks from Outta My Head — Be sure to check out “Goodbye Blue Monday” — a personal favorite.
