Joining a Fan Club

Sometimes, ladies and gents, I am reduced to helpless gushing. Resistance is futile. I just have to gush until I'm all gushed out. When I like someone or something, my effusiveness can be embarrassing for all involved, especially me.

Those of you who know me at all know this about me.

So at the risk of becoming a walking caricature of myself, here's a quick little post for no good reason other than that it gives me joy to do it:

If you've read my profile, you know that I am, among other things, a musician, and you further know that the only halfway-current musical artist on my list of faves is Nikka Costa. This is no accident. Nikka Costa, 33, is what you would get if you rolled Tina Turner, Janis Joplin and Chaka Khan in beignet dough, flash-fried the tiny, delectable result, drizzled it in caramel, and set it down on a stage in front of a stack of Marshalls. She evokes new ways of spelling the word "tasty," not to mention pronouncing it. She is the only young female singer-songwriter-performer-knockout of international stature who seems not only to love rock, blues and funk but to want to take them to new places. I have yet to see her perform live, but I hear it's a religious experience and I don't plan to make the mistake of missing her the next time she's in town...

Which should be soon. May 22, to be exact.

If you haven't heard la bellisima Costa's first album, Everybody Got Their Something, then rundon'twalk your little fingertips over to Amazon or iTunes and get to work. If you have, you will rejoice with me to hear that her long-delayed second album, cantneverdidnothin, has been given a firm release date of May 24, 2005. The first single, "Till I Get to You," can be heard on her newly revamped website, and it's a funky harbinger of things to come. And if you're into it, the tour dates are listed there as well.

I love this woman. I love her so much that I'm writing a screenplay for the express purpose of giving her a cinematic vehicle for her fabulosity. If you are mired in Death Cab for Cutie, she might not be your thing. But if you love Tina and Janis and Prince and Chaka Khan and Zeppelin... well, you'll be in bluesy-funk-rock nirvana.

Which, in my humble opinion, is a fine place to be.

Music