Sunday, February 03, 2008

Meiko--Meiko (2007)


Artist-Meiko
Album-Meiko
Release Date-2007
Genre/Style-Indie Rock/Folk rock
Quality-256kbps

Official site-http://www.meikomusic.com/
Myspace-http://www.myspace.com/meiko

Biography-Meiko is one of the most promising singer-songwriters to emerge from the Los Angeles music scene in recent years. Counting among her influences artists as diverse as Patty Griffin, Sade, and Portishead, Meiko has managed to create songs of sweet disquiet that are all her own.

In early 2007, Meiko performed at the Sundance Film Festival and caught the ear of Paste Magazine editor Josh Jackson, who boldly declared her a "big success story" waiting to happen; predicting it was "only a matter of time" before she found her way onto Nic Harcourt's influential “Morning Becomes Eclectic” radio program on KCRW. It was a prognostication that proved especially prophetic, as just a few months later Meiko's music became a staple of the L.A. radio station's playlists.

Raised by her dad in their humble hometown of Roberta, Georgia (pop. 808), Meiko first stepped in front of an audience at the tender age of eight, singing “White Christmas” for parishioners of an all-Black Southern Baptist church. In the years that followed she performed everywhere from talent shows to Little League baseball parks. When she wasn't performing, she was practicing - spending countless hours singing into the family's clothes dryer. "Great acoustics," she insists.

Before long she found herself bitten by the songwriting bug and enlisted the help of her dad - a talented back-porch musician who taught her how to play guitar on his old Gibson six-string. When she was thirteen, he bought her one of her own. A flood of songs followed. "As soon I as I learned a new chord," she says, "I wrote a new song."

Meiko is a quarter-Japanese, on her maternal grandmother's side; in an attempt to get in touch with their Japanese heritage, she and her sister adopted the names Meiko and Keiko, pronounced "Mee-ko" and "Kee-ko." Alas, "We didn't know that we were misspelling them for quite some time," Meiko remembers. "That's why my name is pronounced 'Mee-ko,' though the proper pronunciation is 'May-ko'--I didn't have the heart to change the spelling."

Carried only by her "champagne dreams and beer pocketbook" (as her grandma used to say), Meiko lit out from Georgia at eighteen to make a name for herself. After a brief stop in Miami, she set down in Los Angeles and began her career in earnest - playing venues all over Southern California and writing at a prolific pace. Her powerful voice, well-crafted songs, and down-to-earth stage presence quickly made her a fan favorite wherever she played, including Hollywood's popular Hotel Café (where she still performs regularly).

"I ain't wastin' no more time, I got to take back what's mine," she sings on “Under My Bed”, a standout track from her long awaited, self-titled debut album. With the recent completion of her CD and a fan-base burgeoning from coast to coast, it seems certain that Meiko's time has come.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Meiko is an AMAZINGLY talented artist...her songs are personal and easy to relate to, and she's got a texture to her voice that's original, memorable, and timeless.

See her live if you can! A true Georgia peach.

Anonymous said...

I found her album on NovaTunes.com and fell in love with it so I downloaded there.

Anonymous said...

i really appreciate all the good tunes u supply

would b nice if u could make sure that the albums are tagged properly tho, this one wasnt