One More Time

Women in Rock

Lucky Lounge, Saturday, March 15 Granted, observing two and a half hours of a 12-hour event -- in this case the Women in Rock showcase at Lucky Lounge on Saturday -- is not enough to gauge the success of the entire affair. But if the talent, or rather the relative lack of it, on display during that time was any indicator of what preceded or followed it, this event was not something to be proud of. It was billed as a free show featuring female acts of all stripes from New York, L.A., Japan, Austin, and places in between. The afternoon began with a singer-songwriter set that featured two "folk singers" that exhibited everything that's wrong with the genre. Both Carolyn Marks, from New York, and Theresa Andersson, from New Orleans, had pleasant enough voices, but their music was virtually indistinguishable from one another, even though Andersson occasionally accompanied herself on the violin. Singing as if they'd studied Shawn Colvin's Singer-Songwriters for Dummies, their subject matter was clichéd and the presentation, while not offensive, rarely engrossing. Sis Deville, billed as "Austin's All-Girl Supergroup," followed. Considering it was composed of Floramay Holiday, Shelley King, Carolyn Wonderland, and others, it had potential. But they started off with a blooze number that was nothing more than bluster and went downhill from there. Wonderland is a fine guitarist, and King has demonstrated she can both write and sing with some of Austin's best, but this was overdone. Luckily, Anne McCue made up for almost all that had come before her. Originally from Australia and now based in L.A., McCue has figured out how to go beyond the cliché in both her guitar playing, which recalled early Jimmy Page at times, and songwriting, which echoed Lucinda Williams and Kim Richey, and brought a lot of charisma to the stage as well.