Gina Chavez
The Artist Spotlight program provides fans a new path of music discovery and exposes the Gibson international audience to innovative new music that reflects diverse genres across the globe.
Latin GRAMMY® nominee and 16-time Austin Music Award winner-including Musician of the Year-Gina Chavez is an Austin icon making waves globally. Gina’s first all-Spanish language album, La Que Manda, was nominated for a 2020 Latin GRAMMY in Best Pop/Rock, making them the third Latine born in the continental U.S. to ever be nominated in history of the category, and the first queer Texan. Featuring collaborations with GRAMMY® -winning heavyweights like Thom Russo and Adrian Quesada, La Que Manda marks a sonic evolution blending organic and digital sounds. Gina’s NPR Tiny Desk concert has more than 1.4 million views and she is featured on Brené Brown’s hit podcast, “Unlocking Us,” for which she co-wrote the theme music.
Gina serves as the newly elected president of the Texas Chapter of the Recording Academy, and tours internationally as a cultural ambassador with the–ahem–U.S. State Department. Gina co-founded Niñas Arriba, a college fund Gina and their wife founded for young women in gang-dominated El Salvador and throughout Latin America.
Listen to Gina Chavez’s first all-Spanish-language album La Que Manda HERE.
Watch Gina Chavez’s live performance on NPR Tiny Desk HERE.
I caught the first set of Ian Fisher at Wine and Song in South Pasadena tonight; Wednesday, October 30th. Ian is a folk singer whose press release we got in a few months ago.
I walked around for 10 minutes looking for the place. Finally, I asked some dudes in an alley that looked like musicians coming out of a Masonic Lodge. Sure enough, one of them directed me where to go that my navigator understood, but I didn’t. It was right around the corner from Trader Joe’s in a strip mall. The kind woman handling the guest list said she thought I’d be watching the World Series instead. She obviously doesn’t know me. If I had been anywhere else tonight, it would have been to Vegas for Tears for Fears, or at National Grove for ZZ Top. Brad, who runs the joint came up to me. I thought I was in trouble. Nope–just a friendly chap who reminded me of a kind hippy with a bit shorter hair.
I thought of all the folk singers I have seen live, or those somewhat folk: Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Victoria Williams, Brian Johnston, Carole King, Donovan, Julian Lennon, and Jewel, to name a few. After seeing Jewel around 6 times the first year she got signed to Atlantic, and interviewing her several times, I knew nothing could top her, but I kept an open mind.
The venue itself is nice. A large coffeehouse type of space, with tables, chairs, some comfy seat cushions, and friendly hippy / suburban type folk. Mostly Gen X to baby boomer age range, including even an actual baby here tonight that Ian called out as being “very cute.” There was around 35 to 50 people here tonight, with a capacity of probably around 100 in the front area, if you squeezed them in. The area here in South Pasadena is a very nice, upscale area. Safe, with plenty of free parking. A perfect location.
Brad’s band played first, who I mostly missed. Maybe next time. A lovely singer named Malena Cadiz played next. Malena has a beautiful, unique voice that hovers just above raspy, giving a unique vocal quality not wholly unlike Victoria Williams, yet Melena stays richly on key.
I’d love to see Malena and another songwriter create material together, with Malena focusing totally on her vocal work. Her voice has greater depth than what we even heard her tonight. Her songwriting, like Ian’s, is unique, filled with a good story, and she puts the story senior to any hook, when there are any.
Ian Fisher played next. Ian has reportedly written over 2,000 songs. He also wrote a number of songs about his mother who sadly recently died. One in particular I heard kind of made me cry, so of course I loved it. Great music touches the soul so quickly and deeply, because it touches on universal themes and universal emotions that we all have. When done expertly, it reminds us that we go through the same ups and downs of life: love, loss, life, death, etc. When we hear such a song that works, it can have two profound effects: one, it can take us out of our head, taking our mind off of our own problems for a while. In other words, it can change our emotional state for the better. Secondly, it can put us in the mindset of a stranger, letting us live, see and feel–for but a few short minutes, through their eyes and soul.
Ian has occasional yet frequent great moments of emotional depth in most, if not all of his songs. Like Victoria Williams, Bob Dylan, Brian Johnston, and some other great folk singers, he is off key, but it works. His songwriting puts the story above the chorus, which is often lacking. Still, it’s enjoyable.
Ian Fisher is the type of singer one can imagine may be singing to the last surviving members of humanity after World War 3. Just Ian, maybe some tires and a fire truck burning up nearby, and a borrowed guitar. Everyone crowds around the campfire as Ian sings about all those lost souls and bodies we just buried. It’s depressing as can be, but it somehow feels quite nice.
According to his press release:
About Ian Fisher:
Ian Fisher excels at making a style of music that Rolling Stone has described as “half Americana and half Abbey Road-worthy pop.” “Growing up in a small town in Missouri in the ’90s limited my options. I was raised on the country music that was on the radio and my dad’s collection of classic rock vinyl,” he says of his upbringing. “The boredom gave me nothing better to do than write songs and my dissatisfaction with being there made me dream so much of the world outside that it acted like a slingshot pulling me back till it released me and threw me to the other side of the world. Musically, my folk roots come from Missouri, but my time abroad made it more urban than country.”
Melina had a lot of nice-looking merch including CD’s and vinyl for sale on a table near the door. No one was at the table, so I stepped outside during the intermission. I don’t recall any recent concert that has ever had an intermission. Maybe it’s something hippies invented. I don’t know, but it’s actually not a bad idea. I took off early during the intermission–not to watch the World Series which I still don’t care about (I just found out who was playing yesterday). I got in my car and thought of blasting the Misfits or something else brutal. I played PJ Harvey instead. I’m glad I went out.
Check out Ian Fisher and Malena Cadiz when you can–if you dig folk. Up next at Brad Colerick’s Wine and Song: Nov 6, Teni Rane, with Splendid Torch, and Nov. 13, Matt Axton with Megan Burtt. Wine & Song is at 1119 Fair Oaks, South Pasadena, California.
Ian Fisher – One Foot ft. PRESSYES [Official Video]
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