Martha Wainwright

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LANDMARK BODY COUNT: August appears to be the cruelest month in terms of downtown Santa Barbara’s slickening, morphing process. As summer wanes, so will two longtime unofficial State Street “landmarks” Morninglory Music and Mel’s. They are the latest historic entities in town pushed aside to make way for the New Santa Barbara, a fantasyland of over-sized new buildings, over-priced boutiques, McStarbux-by-the-dozen, spas, and other chic, soul-sapping accoutrements. Does this mean Santa Barbara is losing its status as one of the finest towns in the world? Not by half. But respects should be paid.

Morninglory Music, originally a bastion of good music in Isla Vista going back to the early ’70s before moving downtown, is victimized both by the State Street squeezeplay (flush out the poison, keep out the riff raff) and the de-evolution of brick-and-mortar, physical music products. Mel’s, a rare honest State Street bar north of Ortega, has stubbornly hunkered down since 1963. Something of a faith-keeping symbol, Mel’s refused to sell out and move when Paseo Nuevo set up its shop. Catch ’em while you can.

FRINGE PRODUCT: There’s a new Wainwright in town, and our kind musical attentions are boldly demanded. We know about veteran wit and wise man Loudon Wainwright III (coming soon to a Campbell Hall near you), and his uncommonly gifted son by his ex-wife (Kate McGarrigle), Rufus Wainwright (who put on an amazing show at the Marjorie Luke this spring). Now, break out the hats and hooters for Martha, Rufus’s uncommonly gifted sibling, whose new album, I Know You’re Married but I’ve Got Feelings Too (Zoe) is one of the top albums of the season.

Of course, Martha is hardly a new sensation. Discerning art pop fans and those in the know have savored her stuff for years, but the new Zoe album promises to expand her public profile exponentially—if there’s any cultural justice in the pop world (jury’s still out on that one). This Wainwright possesses a tough-and-tender sensibility, as songwriter and singer of no small power, charm, and well-placed irony. The fun starts at the start, with the startling and deceptively sweet-sounding tune “Bleeding All Over You,” with the title line “I Know You’re Married but I’ve Got Feelings Too.”

At times, Martha’s big, confident voice and snaky way with a phrase reminds us of Chrissie Hynde, and it is hard not to play the comparison game with bro Rufus (who makes a cameo, along with Ma McGarrigle, Pete Townsend, and Donald Fagen). Really, though, Martha is the keeper of a refreshingly personal voice. For one thing, as a genuinely integrated singer/songwriter, she has that magical balance between being the cool, objective storyteller and the painfully honest confessor. On the song set, she traverses the world of lost and would-be love, betrayal, and temptation—the usual perilous playground of song material, but approached from new pop-rock-art-song angles.

We can’t help but sniff out references to her own life, including a dig at her father, who left when the prodigious kids were quite young. In “Jimi,” which mixes folky brooding verses and crunchy rocking sections, she sings of haunting emotions by night: “Sometimes, I feel like my dad / for leaving her sad and alone / in this big house.”

Dwight Trible

Two of the oddly catchy, left-of-pop charmers on the album are “You Cheated Me,” with its fittingly, obsessively repeated chorus, and “See Emily Play,” 2:17 of quirky, quasi-retro ’60s pop ear candy, laced with some new flavor of tangy, canny seasoning. This Wainwright has a great vocabulary, in words and musical linguistics that could put her in the cul-de-sac of art rock, except that she knows how to keep the grit and heart intact—and ambiguous.

TO-DOINGS: Los Angeles-based jazz vocalist Dwight Trible returns to SOhO on Wednesday, a show to catch if jazz with an adventurous and soulful intensity is your thing. Trible has been involved with Pharaoh Sanders and Horace Tapscott’s Arkestra, and countless other jazz settings, over the years/decades.

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