Know Your Local ... Electro-rocker: Vanessa Chamberlain of Cavedoll

Cavedoll singer/producer Vanessa Chamberlain, wife and creative partner of frontman Camden, is a local scene mainstay known for her signature sound and style. Chamberlain’s been in the biz since she was just a wee thing singing Christmas carols to senior citizen style. Chamberlain’s been in the biz since she was just a wee thing singing Christmas carols to senior citizens: “Anywhere they could put a mic in front of me, I’d sing.” Cavedoll performs as part of the free, all-ages Fat Flake Festival at the Gallivan Center, Saturday, Nov. 15, 4:30-10 p.m.
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nFavorite songwriter?
nExcluding my husband Camden? That is such a hard question. John Lennon. Default is always a Beatle. John Lennon is definitely an amazing songwriter. Especially after he left The Beatles. Some of the lyrics off of Imagine...
nnIf you could do one thing for America what would it be?
nThe one thing I’m trying to do right now is raise global citizens [referencing her three children]. Children aware of problems that go on beyond their front door. I hope that all parents feel that is their duty to raise good Americans.
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Vanessa Chamberlain n Age: 29 n Utah Resident: 26 Years n Band: Cavedoll

nWhat local causes do you support?
nThe Utah Pride Center and Shriner’s Hospital. People need to support Shriner’s and donate because they’re running out; that’s what they survive on. nnFavorite coffee and tea place?
nMy favorite all time place in Salt Lake is The Beehive Tea Room. It’s a great place to take a date, a casual date. It’s a sit down and chat and have a tiny sandwich place.
nnFavorite snack?
nI’m way into raw almonds, it’s my default snack.
nnPerfect afternoon?
nIt would probably involve yarn at some point creating something. And being with Camden.
nnWhat nature spot do you enjoy escaping everyone at?
nI live by Millcreek in Salt Lake [City]. Whenever we can we go up there. It’s really, really pretty.
nnWhat was the first album that really resonated with you?
nJane’s Addiction’s Nothing’s Shocking. I remember dancing in my bedroom and losing my mind.
nnWhat would be an embarrassing band from youth you might not like to bring up?
nWhen I was in the 5th grade I was so into Paula Abdul. And now she’s so crazy, that poor woman. It’s like when people get too rich they get weird.
nnFavorite instrument to play?
nMy voice, I guess. I’d actually much rather produce songs than sing them.
nnAny local visual artists turn you on?
nI really really got into the 337 Project when it was here. Our music was listed on the DVD.

Hot In Here?: Karrin Allyson shines at the Sheraton.

As the chilly rains of late fall soaked into downtown Salt Lake City on Monday, Nov. 10, jazz vocalist Karrin Allyson did just about everything in her sultry power to counter the cold with the sunny warmth of Brazil in the 187th performance of the GAM Foundation’s Jazz at the Sheraton concert series.nThe two-time Grammy Award-nominated artist’s latest album, Imagina: Songs of Brazil (Concord), is culled primarily from Antonio Carlos Jobim’s vast catalog. However, given Allyson’s eclectic background—she’s recorded nearly a dozen albums spanning the entire spectrum of jazz holding down duties as a singer, songwriter, pianist, composer and bandleader—her live shows are wonderfully varied and unpredictable.
nOn Monday, Allyson interspersed enchanting samba and bossa nova rhythms with jazz standards, including Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints,” John Coltrane’s ballad, “I Wish I Knew,” Nat Adderley’s “Never Say Yes” and her own bluesy “Sweet Home Cookin’ Man”—of which she noted, “Blues gets you through a lot. First you get them, then you need them.”
nStill, those sun-drenched Jobim classics stole the show. And although Allyson (whose first name is pronounced “Car-in”) did play a few of the lesser-known Brazilian standards—like the one she dedicated to her mother, who happened to be in the audience, “Estrado do Sol”—her fresh vocal takes on some of the most commonly covered Jobim tunes particularly stood out, especially the evening opener, “A Felicidade (Happiness),” “Desafinado (Slightly Out of Tune)” and “Double Rainbow.”
nRhythm within Brazilian jazz is so central to the sound and drive of the music that often every instrument onstage added their own pops, bumps and beats to the sway, including Allyson’s vocals. Jobim as a composer always wrote with a particularly free structure around those intricately syncopated beats, allowing for the space needed for ample improvisation and skillful soloing—often performed by Allyson’s masterful scatting, playfully bopped off of the pounding bass or the thrashing of the percussion. When not seated at the keys, the songstress sauntered about the stage working out those contagious rhythms with her gyrating hips as her metronomic foot tapping could be heard adding just one more sound accenting the heart hammering pulsation of the music.
nAn old line of praise all too casually bantered about in the jazz community concerns the artist’s ability to make any song their own—and there really is truth buried within the familiar quip. If, as a jazz musician, you fail to play the standards as if they were your own tunes, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re no good, it just means you have no style. And, in jazz, without style, you have nothing. As Allyson nailed song after song at the Sheraton—be it a bawdy blues tune, a ballad waltz or those spicy Brazilian classics—she proved that without a doubt she has what it takes: plenty of magic, plenty of style.

Ryan Tanner & the Perfect Song

Local troubadour wins songwriting contest

When Ryan Tanner won American Songwriter magazine’s annual lyric contest for his tune “I Never Did My Best,” he didn’t exactly celebrate with champagne and caviar.
For one thing, such an audacious display isn’t fitting for the mild-mannered troubadour who deals in exquisite melancholia in much of his music. For another, he’d sort of been down this path before, when his former band Atherton landed a song on the soundtrack to the MTV series Laguna Beach.
For many bands, having a song featured on national TV would be a “big break.” For Atherton, it was another signpost on the road to breaking up. As Tanner puts it, the group basically ran out of gas after recording its excellent album Skyline Motel. “We never recovered from making the record,” Tanner says.
<p> </p> Ryan Tanner performs "Peaceful Mind" at City Weekly's downtown office. Filmed and produced by Erik Daenitz
Now solo, Tanner might just find the American Songwriter honor offers a bit more of a push in the direction he wants to go. Not only did he beat out nearly 9,000 songwriters, but winning meant he got to travel to Nashville for a songwriting session with one of his heroes, Americana artist Jim Lauderdale. They ended up writing a song together called “Learning to Listen,” recorded it, and Lauderdale set up meetings for Tanner at several publishing houses, including BMI and Bug Music, where Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and Alison Krauss do their publishing.
For a guy who sometimes questions his career choice, the experience was a much-welcomed shot of confidence that he’s on the right path.
“It was really encouraging to me as a songwriter,” the 36-year-old Tanner says. “I think about making music here in Utah, and I’m really glad I stuck with it while a lot of my friends have just moved on. Now I’ve realized my thing is just going after a song. I’m after a song. The song is everything. I’m not the hip guy. I’m not cool. I’m after writing a good song. I feel pretty fortunate that I’ve been able to stick with it long enough that I feel like I’m getting closer.”
The next step is capturing some of those songs on a new record, which Tanner hopes to record this summer. And though he’ll play those songs with a band when he can, he wants to be able to play them solo on tour. While Utah has fine musicians working in all genres, it’s not exactly a hotbed for roots music, especially compared to what Tanner experienced in Nashville, where “music is part of the everyday framework of life.”
Now, Tanner is trying to figure out how to make music and songwriting an everyday part of his life.
“I want to write songs, and I want to play songs for people,” Tanner says. “I don’t want to be a rock star, but I want to be a working songwriter. I realize it’s an uphill battle, but I also realize there are people who do it.
“I need to make a record. I have to have a record to go on the road, and I feel like I have a really good record in me.”