Thursday, December 13, 2007

Concert Review: The Sessions Make Successful Debut as Quartet

The Sessions with ALS
and Danny Montoya
The Ugly Mug
Orange, California
December 9, 2007
5 Teaspoons of Bosco (Out of 5)


By Allen Bacon
Editor
Bosco: The Blog

It has been a real pleasure to see the development of the Southern California-based folk rock group The Sessions. I first saw The Session's in October at The Chapman Coffee Shop in Orange along with Nam Ninja. At that time the group was a duo featuring frontman and songwriter Daniel Wolf along with an accomplished 19 year old lead acoustic guitarist Brandon Light. The group was totally unplugged due to the noise restriction of the CCS.

The sound was rich and textured and the original songwriting and music is well crafted. They also mixed in covers of songs from Gnarles Barkley and Justin Timberlake. I try to search for a good example of what Wolf's voice sounds like and I am hard pressed to find one. He is a truly unique voice with the only caviat being that even by his own admission he is good for a maximum of seven songs. That situation is going to resolve itself as he continues to sing more and his vocal chords get stronger. In other words, he knows his limit and knows when to walk away when he is finished.

While the duo of Wolf and Light continued to do their weekly show at the CCS, they were busy behind the scenes auditioning and searching for a bassist and drummer. The search led to adding two more accomplished musicians - a drummer Shem Dahoud, and bassist Peter Alison. With Alison, Wolf got a bonus...the young man plays a mean cello.

The Sessions actually debuted in Hollywood on Saturday night Dec. 8 to a full house. They were supposed to play at Plush in Fullerton, Southern California on Sun. Dec. 9 but the club bailed at the final minute leaving The Sessions stranded. Wolf made some phone calls and moved the show to The Ugly Mug in Orange, CA. Somehow, the word spread fast and the place was packed for the impromptu concert.

Danny Montoya, a strong-voiced energetic solo blues singer and guitarist opened with a wonderful set. Then the four Sessions took the stage and launched into a seven song set. All songs were original save for the Gnarles Barkley cover, a slowed down, gritty version of "Crazy" with the lead-in being Wolf's original "A Penny Saved". The Sessions were joined on stage by rap artist ALS (Jason Frerking) for "Goodbye" and "It Happened". The set ended with the energetic rocker "The Chase".

The Sessions are featured on this month's selection on the music channel of Bosco TV. The website is myspace.com/iheartthesessions . Danny Montoya can be found at myspace.com/dannymontoya. ALS can be found on the web at myspace.com/als

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