Virginia-born singer/songwriter Erin McKeown , insists that, although she plays the guitar, banjo, drums, organ, bass and piano, she isn’t necessarily good with any of them. But the results on Grand–her third solo effort to date–seem to suggest otherwise. On the Dave Chalfant-headed project, McKeown emerges as an amalgamation of her mixed-bag CD collection–writing perfect new wave pop inspired by The Bangles for “Cinematic,” making big on a small lounge band with sassy, sultry show tunes like “The Taste of You” and “How to be a Lady,” and grooving like a beat poet with “Cosmopolitans” before cascading into the number’s Morcheeba-conjuring chorus. But McKeown seems to fit best into her own two-and-a-half minute thoughtful gems rooted in simple guitar patterns and semantically perfect verses that sound entirely original. “I was slung-lo and/so gung-ho/for anything to get me to start/I had my rock, I had my roll/but I couldn’t find my spark,” she sings in an endearing voice built with one part Bjork, one part Mother Maybelle and two heaping portions of vulnerability-tempered charm. Catch her solo on her first trip through the Southeast with new material. 9 p.m. $8. 969-1400.
