The Record Crate by Alex V. Cook – Joe Adranga, Gillian Welch, Flatbed Honeymoon, and Happy Birthday, Teddy’s Juke Joint

I made my first trip to the Haven Gallery (7th and Laurel) to catch one of my favorite area singer-songwriters, Joe Adranga, fete the songs for his solo album Fall Back. After two albums of pitch perfect jangle pop under his collective project moniker the Junior League, Joe Adranga delivers on Fall Back a set of songs closer to his own heart. The slight rasp in his voice on “Ladders” the first two songs sits in a close dance with the soft bed of stunned acoustics and close harmonies, buffeted by a connoisseur’s collection of 70s pop flourishes. He has some talented friends on the record in R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and New Orleans chanteuse Susan Cowsill but somebody, lend this guy a string section to bring his pop vision to completion. Read more…