Jenny Owen Youngs, Live at Maxwells, Hoboken, NY 8/24/07

I have a confession to make—at times, I have a tendency to make hasty and superficial assumptions about artists before I have even heard them. In this case it was the three names. For some reason, it ended up being a shortcut for what I expected would be a cloying earnestness and earthy repertoire. Maybe it’s the sarcastic Midwesterner in me, but when I first heard the name Jenny Owen Youngs, all I could think of was 60s folk festival stalwart, Jesse Owen Young and I couldn’t get past it.

I have been completely dispelled of this notion, first by hearing Jenny’s album, Batten Down the Hatches (Nettwork) and seeing her live at Maxwell’s last night. I couldn’t have been more off the mark.

Don’t get me wrong, because Jenny Owen Youngs puts her heart on her sleeve to be sure, but she does it in such a visceral and manic way and with such a confident yet self-deprecating manner, that at times it leaves the listener uncomfortable. In fact, Jenny Owen Youngs goes further and actually takes this to a physical level…bringing an audience member up onto the state and SITTING ON HER as she sings one of her more poignant songs, the tender ballad Fuck Was I —a bittersweet song that is really more sweet than bitter, like a lullaby for the heartbroken and a nod to those of us who have shared her propensity to ruin a perfectly good relationship. It’s the kind of song that makes you want to sway in time to it’s gorgeous melody, drink in hand, and sing along with the chorus “What the fuck was I thinking?”

And drink she did. J.O.Y. was in comfortable territory with a hometown crowd* so she imbibed with impunity. Three sheets to the wind, she effortlessly plowed through her set with an increasingly personal (yet not overly obnoxious) stage banter. As far as I could tell, musically she didn’t miss a step. And she’s funny as hell. She closed with a cover of Nelly’s It’s Getting Hot in Here which is amazing.

She’s an artist who seems most comfortable with extremes, whether it’s the use of her unrestrained and tuneful voice in a joyful howl that can calm down to an intimate whisper at the drop of a hat or the edginess of her between-song confessional ramblings which were on the verge of going over the edge as the set progressed and the whiskey continued to flow…it left me wondering if she would go too far, and I must admit this was another fascinating aspect of her music—and maybe even says a bit about her as a person—a risk-taking, headlong fearlessness. Her life and art on a pendulum.

It is no wonder that perhaps those of us who have experienced sliding down the razor blade of life with a little more intensity than is healthy (Aimee Mann is also a big fan), can find a kindred spirit in her music and persona, and a well-articulated one at that.

*The single downside to this show was that her friends in the crowd chattered non-stop at full volume through her whole set, which REALLY destroyed the vibe.

Download: Jenny Owen Youngs at eMusic

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