When I listen to Miss Leo (née Lauren Williams) play live, I often wonder if her K-8 music students know how lucky they are to have such a talented teacher. She grew up in the Bay Area in a non-musical family that nonetheless nurtured her interests. She ended up on the Central Coast in 2015, and since then, she’s become an award-winning singer-songwriter fronting a terrific Americana band called Miss Leo & The Handsome Fellers.
On Monday, Feb. 17 (4 to 6 p.m.; all ages; free), Miss Leo will play Baywood’s Beerwood to celebrate the release of her new solo album, Middle Ridge, that was recorded at Parkfield’s Middle Ridge Studio. It was a lightning fast, microbudget operation that led to a collection of 13 acoustic songs, five of which were released in the past five weeks. The entire album will be available on Feb. 7.
“This idea came about because I had earned some free recording time up at Middle Ridge Studio when the Handsome Fellers and I played at the grand opening party a couple years ago,” she explained. “I hadn’t recorded anything new in a while, so on a whim I scheduled a day up there without much of a plan but to record as much as I could in one day. I knew the studio setting was gorgeous and super vibey, so I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone and bring my videographer friend along. This whole project has been done with practically zero budget and no real plan, so it’s kind of just a fun experiment and opportunity to highlight myself as a songwriter and solo artist.”
She ended up with covers of the Grateful Dead’s “Brokedown Palace,” Townes Van Zandt’s “To Live is To Fly,” George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass,” Fleetwood Mac’s “One Together,” and the traditional “Bury Beneath The Willow,” as well as eight originals including “Winter Frost” and “Sweet Cataviña.”
“The recording process was very simple and basic: one vocal mic and one guitar mic. I played all songs live and most only took a couple takes—some even were done in one! After the recording, we did minimal mixing or editing and didn’t add any overdubs or extra instruments, leaving all tracks sounding pretty raw and untouched. So, all in all, it was a very quick and simple process. After that, it just took me a while to decide what I wanted to do with all these songs and videos. I’m very much a fan of raw, live studio sounding records with minimal production, so that’s kind of the intentional vibe.”
You can see the videos and hear the songs on Miss Leo’s YouTube channel
@missleomusic. There’s an intimacy and immediacy to these songs that’s irresistible, and the overall tone is melancholic yet beautiful.
“The main theme of the originals is loss and grief. I’ve endured devastating losses and some pretty hard times over the past few years, and that’s very much reflected in my songwriting as well as my choice of cover songs. This collection of songs and covers is definitely the most raw and vulnerable project I’ve ever put out into the world. I also think that the stripped-down simplicity of the recordings lends itself well to the lyrical and emotional content of these songs, along with the studio setting in a one-room log cabin way out in the country. It all has a very vintage, hard times, folk singer, country aesthetic.”
This album was clearly a labor of love, and Miss Leo noted that she had no budget for the DIY project, and hence no plans to press CDs or vinyl. If you want to support it, buy the music on Bandcamp (missleomusic.bandcamp.com) and follow Miss Leo on Instagram
@missleomusic for upcoming shows.
Old-timey fun
Is it possible to listen to a string band and not have a good time? There’s just something infectiously upbeat about old-time string music, and one of the area’s best purveyors of this classic American sound is ready to strum, pick, and bow your ears to happy town.
The SLO County Stumblers play the Historic Octagon Barn Center this Friday, Feb. 7 (6 p.m. jam, 7 p.m. show; all ages; $20 plus fees presale at eventbrite.com or $25 at the door). The band features fiddler Casy Meikle, guitarist David Baine, bassist Jerry James, and banjo player Daniel Bohlman, who explained that the band formed in 2018 when James hosted an old-time music festival at Pozo Saloon.
“Jerry really wanted to have a kind of welcome band on the front porch of the saloon that would play really ripping fiddle tunes, so he assembled a core group of players to hold it down out front. It just so happens that right around that time, Central Coast native turned Nashville resident and one hell of an old-time fiddler, Casy Meikle, was back in town and was down to help us hold it down out front. At some point during the three days of that festival, it became clear that there was some mojo amongst us. That core group of four would later become the SLO County Stumblers.”
How does Bohlman attest for the enduring popularity of old-time music?
“Well, first and foremost, I think it’s because it is dance music. This music was designed to restore people’s spirits at the end of a hard week. The work may have changed in the last 100 years, but the need to unwind certainly hasn’t. Like all good dance music, old-time music has a steady, driving, rhythm behind it. Even if you can’t hear the words, you can always feel the beat. That drive combined with the acoustic nature of the music makes it feel very familiar and rooted in something very fundamentally human.”
Buckle up and get ready for a batch of hard-driving old-time fiddle tunes and songs, influenced by the golden-era string bands of the 1920s and ’30s.
Witty AF
A Steve Poltz show is an event, a wild ride, verbal acrobatics without a net. His songs and music are amazing, but I’m there for the stage banter too. And his mantra, what keeps him going show after show, is his steadfast belief that the show he’s doing right at that moment is the best show of his life.
“I started doing it years ago, because I feel grateful to still be alive,” he noted in press materials. “Even today, I still do it, and I believe my own bullshit. I convinced myself that every show is the greatest show I’ve ever played. They’re all different, and it depends on my mood each day, but I know I’m there to entertain people. It always cracks me up when I stumble into some sort of weird thing that’s handed to me like a gift from the freaky deadly heavens above.”
Good Medicine, Numbskull, and KCBX present Steve Poltz at The Siren on Saturday, Feb. 8 (7 p.m.; 21-and-older; $30.59 at goodmedicinepresents.com).
“I travel from town to town and fool people,” he added. “I sing them songs and tell them stories and somehow they decide to pay money to obtain some merch and witness the spectacle. Then I return a year later and fool them again.
“I have no rhyme or reason for what I do. It’s all magic. I go by instinct. It just felt right, so I went with it.”
Numbskull and Good Medicine also host English singer-songwriter Alain Whyte at SLO’s Libertine on Saturday, Feb. 8 (8 p.m.; 21-and-older; $24.41 at goodmedicinepresents.com). Whyte is best known for his co-writing partnership with gloom rock icon Morrissey.
Get Mad
Solvang ska, punk, reggae, and pop kingpins the Mad Caddies return to the area with a show at The Siren this Friday, Feb. 7 (7 p.m.; 21-and-older; $30.12 at tixr.com), with Fooser and Paper Boats opening. The Caddies boast a phat horn section and tons of energy, and they’re currently touring in support of their eighth studio album, Arrows Room 117, written during the pandemic but just released last year.
“This album is very personal for me,” frontman Chuck Robertson said in press materials. “It represents three years of hard work back in the woodshed, while half the world stood still. During these strange times, I tapped into a new source of creativity and shared new experiences with new friends and great musicians. This body of work and these songs showcase pain and betrayal, love and loss, and the bright light of new beginnings.”
You can’t stop The Beat
I confess that The English Beat is absolutely one of my all-time favorite bands. They’re just a freaking party every time they play. I still have my original vinyl records I bought in the early-’80s of I Just Can’t Stop It, Wha’ppen?, and Special Beat Service. The band still features original frontman Dave Wakeling, who sounds just as good as he always has.
See for yourself when they play the Fremont Theater on Friday, Feb. 7 (8 p.m.; all ages; $39.37 at prekindle.com). They usually play their hits. A recent set list included “Twist & Crawl,” “Hands Off … She’s Mine,” and a medley of “Ranking Full Stop / Mirror in the Bathroom,” as well as some of their well-known covers like Prince Buster’s “Rough Rider,” The Staple Singers’ “I’ll Take You There,” and Andy Williams’ “Can’t Get Used to Losing You.”
Chameleon
David Bowie was an expert at reinventing himself. Through his four-and-a-half-decade-long career, he went from a band member named Davy Jones in acts like The Lower Third to the King Bees, took on the name David Bowie for his 1967 self-titled debut, release Space Oddity, embraced androgyny, became Ziggy Stardust, then Pierrot, then Jareth the Goblin King.
Bowie died of cancer in 2016 at 69, but you can still get a taste when David Brighton’s Space Oddity: The Quintessential David Bowie Tribute Experience comes to the Clark Center on Friday, Feb. 7 (7:30 p.m.; all ages; $45 to $69 plus fees at clarkcenter.org). Expect a “live, theatrically staged, multi-media spectacle that transports audiences on a musical journey through the constantly metamorphosing career of David Bowie,” organizers announced.
Latin rhythms
The Alfredo Rodriguez Trio plays Cal Poly’s Spanos Theatre on Friday, Feb. 7 (7:30 p.m.; all ages; $47 plus fees at pacslo.org). The ensemble fuses Latin, pop, timba, jazz, tango, and funk “that will transport you straight to the heart of Havana,” according to Cal Poly Arts. “Their collective music chops will leave you breathless as you dance the night away at this pulsating fiesta of culture and sound. Don’t miss this extraordinary celebration of music and dance.” Δ
Contact Arts Editor Glen Starkey at gstarkey@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Feb 6-16, 2025.