Live: Jenny Owen Youngs at CMJ

When the ladies of The Ruckus asked me to represent them at CMJ, my only response could be, “Hell yeah!” I won’t repeat my reaction when they told me that Jenny Owen Youngs was going to be performing.

The showcase was held at the Rockwood Music Hall, a beautiful, oddly shaped little venue, and as the hours and sets went on through the night, it became completely packed. By the time Jenny hit the stage with bassist Mike Tuccillo and drummer Elliot Jacobson, the room was full and ready to rock out to Jenny’s visceral yet often quite literary songs.

Now, Jenny’s studio albums are certainly wondrous things, but she kills it in her live performances and her voice was particularly strong this evening. Many of the songs from her 2009 release Transmitter Failure truly shine with new arrangements that will, quite frankly, melt your face off. Elliot Jacobson helps add new dimensions to these songs with his masterful drumming that can be fragile and delicate in one song and beautifully frenetic in the next. In fact, some of the song introductions are barely recognizable to their studio counterparts, but it all works so well.

In her recent performances, Jenny has been playing songs from her upcoming Kickstarter backed album, and they too are perfect. If these few songs are an indication of the rest of the album, it is sure to be amazing and I am eagerly looking forward it.

Jenny Owen Youngs – Clean Break

I also got to see Jenny show off her acoustic skills recently at a book signing for Leslie Simon’s Geek Girls Unite at the NYU bookstore. The three song set featured geek references galore. There were audible squees from the audience as Jenny connected her song “Clean Break” with an episode of The X-Files. Besides this tune about vivisection and relationships, Jenny also referenced Jurassic Park and pirates during the rest of her set.

If you ever have a chance to see JOY – DO IT. Besides her musical brilliance, she also gives phenomenal (complimentary) high fives.

Decision made.

[Check out the video that our friend Josh Massie took of Jenny performing "Last Person" at CMJ.]

Jen Ray once carried a typewriter home on the subway after finding it on the streets of Manhattan. She writes haikus when she is stuck in boring meetings. She enjoys bookstores, tea, and puppies. Writing about herself in the third person makes her incredibly anxious. Sometimes she tweets here: @jensmallwords.