If you’re looking for a treat and an early bit of entertainment tonight, Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers takes the middle third of a three-band bill at Local 506: A 22-year-old singer-songwriter from rural Oklahoma and of Native American descent, Crain released her debut, The Confiscation EP, last year on Ramseur Records (former home of The Avett Brothers and current home of Bombadil) to modest but outspoken acclaim.
Here’s hoping her debut LP, the plainly but perfectly played Songs in the Night, continues Crain’s upswing. “Scissor Tales,” in fact, should take its rightful place as one of the better love songs in the Ramseur catalog and on any artist’s debut LP. Simple and stripped to an acoustic guitar, a direct rhythm section, and an electric guitar that squiggles with the glee of a giddy but cautious heart, “Scissor Tales” peaks at this couplet of internal rhyme: “I haven’t been brushing my hair because you say you don’t care/ Been standing out in the rain so you’ll come dry me off again.” Crain and her lover see the same things when they look at the world, and she suggests this person is so special she might want to expire now, in John Elway fashion, while he’s still perfect: “I’m thinking I want to die or leave/ while there’s still someone left to admire.” Can there be higher praise? Download the tune here at Scan.
Crain goes on tonight around 10 p.m.
