Smalltown Devotion #1

I feel like writing about good people.

Good people like my pal (and therefore, yours) Joel Elliott.

Joel at play

For a guy built like a well-postured Grizzly Bear, Joel has the voice of an archangel, the range of an arrow and the backhanded love songs of a baseball bat. If that wasn't enough weapon references, the first song on his first self-titled release is called I Am A Weapon, so you get the idea.

He first hit the stage as the lead vocalist and guitarist for 'angular, dissonant' math-rockers Bird Rentals years ago. and just recently started playing shows with The Thin Line (a.k.a Circuit Breaker) as his backing band. Joel's performance is a double-edged sword of a different kind- when he play's solo, his voice is almost ghostly; flowing between chords and floating through walls. With a band, his songs act like rays of sun through a windowpane- curing the most violent of hangovers with a snappy rhythm section and glowing keyboards to boot.

With a new album in the works and the frequency in which this fellow likes to play shows- you better book him now, wherever you are (for the sake of good people).