At twenty-eight years old Jessica Lea Mayfield, is already a seasoned music biz veteran who has undergone a wealth of creative and artistic growth throughout her career. Getting started at the tender age of eight with family bluegrass outfit One Way Rider, the native Ohioan would record her first solo EP as a teenager before teaming up with producer Dan Auerbach of Black Keys fame for her first full-length, 2008’s With Blasphemy So Heartfelt. While much of Mayfield’s early work is reflective of her Americana roots, focused primarily around country and folk musical styles, the talented singer-songwriter has ditched the acoustic guitar and plugged in since 2014’s grunge masterpiece Make My Head Sing. This past Friday, March 9th, Mayfield and company rolled into town for their second New York City appearance in four months, supporting her latest effort, Sorry Is Gone, with a sold out show at the Mercury Lounge.
Before JLM could do her thing, however, Mal Blum and the Blums would warm up the crowd of handsome millennials with forty-five minutes of hyper-literate bubblegum punk and folk rock. The transgendered lead singer/guitarist offered a refreshing voice from a minority entirely underrepresented throughout rock n’ roll history, leading the quartet of progressive punks through a mix of topical songs with long-winded musings on subjects that ran the gamut from reality TV and the connection between blizzards and depression, to eating vegan and “smoking weed and playing blackjack”- all with an underlying sense of Blum’s dark, sardonic humor. Borrowing the headliner’s bass player, Audrey Zee Whitesides, the multi-instrumentalist displayed her prowess on a six string by adding crescendoing and Thin Lizzy-inspired guitar licks between Mal’s verses. Unfortunately, many of the Blums’ strongest songs were off their unreleased new album, as the group has yet to find a record label to back it, which built to anticipation for its uncertain release date.
Jessica Lea Mayfield and her band hit the stage a 10pm and began their hour long set fittingly with the opening track from Sorry Is Gone – “Wish You Could See Me Now”. The bass-heavy, straight-forward rocker chugged ahead in a manner similar to that of the Pixies and represented a step in a slightly new musical direction from the elusive artist. Expressing a newfound glimmer of optimism and written in the edgy lyrical style she has become known for, her vocals sailed above the fuzzed-out chords like a cool breeze sweeping over a junkyard: “If everyone would talk about it/ No one would be ashamed/ Got a purse full of pills/ But they’re all in my name/ I’m a good girl now/ Won’t hand them out/ I’m a good girl now”. Three more selections from Sorry is Gone were to follow, including the brooding, down-tempo “WTF” (an acronym for “white trash fighting”), the hauntingly pretty number “Meadow”, with Mayfields’ unmistakably vulnerable and plaintive vocal delivery, and “Offa My Hands”, a track that effectively sums up the juxtaposition of breezy and grungy sounds that pervades throughout the record.
Midway through the performance, the backing band would exit the stage leaving Mayfield to hold her own on a trio of ballads. “Standing In the Sun”, a stripped-down, dream pop number and the first song of the night from Make My Head Sing, was met with cheers of recognition and proved to be a real tear-jerker. While at times the vocals became lost in the mix with her full band, the solo portion of the show allowed room for Mayfield’s ethereal voice to take center stage and the seemingly transfixed crowd crowd hung onto her every word.
Some other notable moments included “Soaked Up”, easily the heaviest, most head bang-able song of the evening, it crawled along at a snails pace and brought to mind the drone metal of the band Earth, and the encore “Seein* Starz”- a brutally direct love song that ended the set with a solemn, bittersweet confession: “you’ve got a stranglehold on my heart”.
