Studio Live Rocks June 23rd
Sedona, AZ (June 10, 2011) – Julie Neumark & The Highlifes return to Sedona to perform at Studio Live on Thursday, June 23 at 7:30pm. This diverse performance will feature an acoustic set as well as a “rockin” set after a short intermission. The show is part of a 2-week tour that will see the Los Angeles based band perform throughout Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado.
Listening to Neumark’s debut album, Dimestore Halo (Lonesome Day Records), savoring its greasy guitars, gut-punch beats and vocals torn from a heart both broken and toughened by life, a question comes to mind: What’s a girl like this doing from a place so nice?
To clarify: Neumark is actually friendly, accessible, funny and charming. In other words, she’s pretty much the kind of person you’d hope to meet if you were passing through Cincinnati, her hometown.
None of this explains Dimestore Halo, a disc so full of passion, fury, sadness and triumph that you begin to wonder whether mean streets thread through the lawn-patched, summer-cookout, backyard-fence neighborhood where she was raised. How could Neumark have summoned the snarl of a “devil’s child” on the title track, that Delta blues spirit that haunts “Bobbi,” that knack for sketching an urban panorama on “Spare Change,” and that clash of slamming drums, percolating banjo, and weeping strings, all of it “washing away my good-girl attitude,” on “Fairytale?”
It’s a mystery to Neumark too. “My upbringing was picture-perfect,” she shrugs, “from family vacations to having parents who were happily married for 33 years. Every house in my part of town was basically the same. Kids were everywhere, playing kick-the-can in the cul-de-sac.” The problem is, of course, that nothing is perfect – not even Cincinnati. “Because everything was so nice, I put pressure on myself to be perfect, to stay within the lines and not break any rules,” she elaborates. “It wasn’t until I finally got out of town that I started to discover myself.”
“What I’ve been through over these past couple of years has set off a chain reaction,” she sums up. “It’s helped me figure out who I am and what I have to say. I’ve dug deeper and found my voice. And I’ve found how to express my feelings and thoughts in ways I never thought I could before.
That’s what Dimestore Halo is all about.”
Album Reviews:
“From the rat-a-tat lyrically delivery of ‘Spare Change’ to the sinewy howling of ‘Drink Myself Pretty’ to the tender emotions of ‘Take Me,’ Neumark so deeply immerses herself in the music that one cannot help but get caught up in the songs she’s singing. The 11 tracks on her debut album reveal she’s a major talent just waiting for the right break to become ahousehold name.” – Steve Horowitz, PopMatters
“Julie Neumark’s Dimestore Halo is one of the best new releases this year.” – Revolver Magazine (Netherlands)
“Rocking and rattling, Julie Neumark enters your life on Dimestore Halo with the strong title number and, ten songs later, will leave you dazed. What a fist of power! What a fire! What a punch of emotions! And above all, what songs! As mature as it sounds, it’s hard to believe that this is Neumark’s debut album!” – Ctrl.Alt.Country
“…an organic, American folk sound that delivers a literary punch with its portraits of life, love and the tangled knots between the two.” – Toledo Free Press
WHERE:
STUDIO LIVE
215 Coffee Pot Drive
Sedona, AZ 86336
(928) 282-0549
www.studiolivesedona.com
WHEN:
THURSDAY, JUNE 23
7:30pm
PRICE:
$15 Advance
$18 Day of Show
