Artist: Katie Mullins

Tonight online literary/music/visual arts journal Storychord 's founder, Sarah Knowles, presented an evening of spooky stories, spookier songs and — this part's the spookiest — S'MORES. It provided a perfect transition into the impending madness of CMJ week. First worth noting is the intimate venue, HousingWorks Bookstore Cafe in New York's Greenwich Village. The old-timey structure boasts wrapping staircases, walls stuffed with books and a pious vibe. That last part's likely thanks to the establishment's charitable roots. Absolutely all proceeds generated from book, media and cafe sales go to benefit [...]

Photo by Andrew Nawrocki Three the-rubber-game-will-be-played -in-perfect-baseball-weather reasons to slick back your hair, tighten your suspenders, peg your pants, and velcro your laces head to the Hideout tonight.... 1. Sad Brad Smith , Chicago's own Sad Brad, is indeed that guy with that song that you heard in Up In The Air and thought was just perfect. He is indeed. Check it out, he has a bunch of other songs - simple, melancholy little pop gems - that he can play for you, too. This is exactly what [...]

Katie Mullins - "Pastoral" There's little doubt: I was avoiding Pastoral . I don't know who Puppini Sisters are; I don't know who the FUCK Lucinda Black Bear is, nor do I know who Katie Mullins , herself, is. What to do? Thing is, most of Pastoral is fairly solid. (In unrelated news, I'm thinking about Dan Fogelberg 's "Leader of the Band" right now [...]

• katie mullins - pastoral

I had a partial idea of what Katie Mullins upcoming release Pastoral might sound like just from viewing the top friends section of her MySpace page. With friends like C. Gibbs, Clare Burson, Lucinda Black Bear, and Fulton Lights I suspected that her sound would not be typical chick with guitar alt-rock. Happily I was right. A good place to start is the title track "Pastoral". The song begins with a line about Tom Waits with the only accompaniment being a kalimba, but soon enough an ominous sounding bass enters and the song [...]

• katie mullins - pastoral