Serendippity Do Da

I've started to receive a lot of promotional CDs in the mail lately but given the fact that I barely have a chance to listen 5 percent of my own large collection, I rarely listen to any of them. But last night I made an exception. Perhaps because it was a female artist's name on the faceless label I popped Nicole Atkins' "Neptune City" in my player last night and decided to give it a shot. Right from the opening track, the euphoric "Maybe Tonight," I was hooked! My friend Mark called as I was nearing the end (a compact 10 songs -- perfect!) and I found myself struggling to explain to him what I was hearing. When I finally thought of something all I could muster up was that "she emcompasses all of the traits that everybody told me would make me like Amy Winehouse" (only more Petula than Ronnie). Later I saw people on Amazon called her "a cross between Janis Joplin and Fiona Apple, with a twist of 50's retro and a sprinkle of goth for seasoning" and what it would be like "if Lesley Gore and Roy Orbison had a daughter."

AllMusic tells us that she grew up in Neptune, N.J. and returned to the tri-state area after playing a few years in North Carolina with alt-country band Los Parasols. She was named by Rolling Stone as an artist to watch, her full-length record "Neptune City" was released in 2007.

I played the CD over and over all night as I blogged and by 5 a.m. I was searching Ticketmaster to see if she was going to be playing in New York anytime soon. (I'm pretty obsessive slash all-or-nothing when it comes to these things.) Indeed, she was. She's opening for the Pipettes next Tuesday -- a show I happen to already be going to! Pretty funny stuff (fun-girl destiny?). If you're at all curious, her MySpace is a great place to start.

Of course, if she's gonna do this, how can I not love her?