I have played off and on the last few months with singer songwriter Matt Vrba, whose brand of 'high octane Americana' has caught the ear of Nashville Star, a countrified version of American Idol.Matt is in the running to be one of the primary competitors on the upcoming season and has made is so far that he'll likely at least be in the first episode. He's beaten out something like 10,000 competitors so far to get where he's at. Rockin!
Coincidentally, Matt was planning on moving to Nashville even before he found out about the show. So the stars seen to be aligning - no pun intended. He hit the road in a moving truck Monday but will be back in town to play May 9 at Ponderosa Lounge.
Last Saturday, we played a 'going away' gig at the Dublin Pub in Portland, and I posted some of the highlights on YouTube. Here are a couple of clips:
Danville Train
Trucker Song
2 comments:
For some unknown reason I keep missing his shows. I know Chard plays with the band all the time. Did he move too? This is Adam.
Cool. Nice performance. He's definitely a strong talent. (didn't I play a gig with you once at the Dublin Pub? Good times)...
Although it is probably nice for him to get the exposure, I'm personally not a big fan of these American Idol-type shows. It is all canned cover-driven irritation for me. At least 50% of musical talent is creativity IMHO (although classical musicians might disagree) and these shows don't really display that half (perhaps Nashville Star is different).
Even though Matt probably has an array of excellent original material displaying this creativity, they'll have him do some hammy version of Ed Bruce's Mamma Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys or Eddie Rabbit's I Love A Rainy Night and judge him entirely on that performance.
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