Dimes and dreams in her pocket
Singer-songwriter Dafni works a Billie Holiday vibe at Bean Town
By Bliss 03/27/2008
The image of a female singer-songwriter wielding an acoustic guitar has generated a prevalent (if unfair) cultural stereotype of self-absorbed, folky confessions over gentle strumming. But LA-based singer-songwriter Dafni upturns expectations with a lightly jazzy touch.
A first-generation Greek American, Dafni was a chemistry geek who played guitar, organ, bass and most any other instrument she could get her hands on, growing up in Wisconsin. She displayed a penchant for productive multitasking early on. “My parents actually yelled at me for doing too much,” she says, giggling.
After migrating to LA to attend grad school, she worked up confidence at Hollywood open mic nights and started playing solo acoustic shows in 1999. Then she decided it would be fun to play with a band. There was just one problem.
“When I was doing my post-doc, I got together with two people I knew in grad school and we formed a band called Stay at Home, sort of a folk-punk band. We had potential but we needed to rehearse more,” she recalls with a laugh. “It was fun, and I learned a lot from it.”
She wrote her first song while still a teen, but it wasn’t until last year that she recorded and released “Charlie’s Lonely Sunday,” an unassuming album whose lo-fi sound, snappy syncopation and instrumentation (guitar, upright bass, drums, accordion, violin, pedal steel) owe obvious debts to Billie Holiday and Madeleine Peyroux. Live, she harks back to bygone eras with her dreamy soprano and sweetly romantic songs like “Lonely Sunday,” “Angeleno” and “Dimes” (“I’ve got dimes in my pocket, I hope they’re gonna get me home tonight/ … everything is gonna be all right”). Having decided she wants to “get more serious and see if I can play as much as I can,” she’s now performing two to three times a month around Southern California.
When Dafni isn’t racing from work on the Westside to a gig or rehearsal, she’s also coordinating a tribute night to Randy Weeks, a former Angeleno who relocated to Austin. (“I really like to be busy,” she explains.) The Weeks tribute will take place May 25, with roughly three dozen artists crowding onto the stage at Culver City’s Cinema Bar. Details can be found at www.myspace.com/dafni.
This Saturday, Dafni will play an acoustic show at Bean Town. It will reportedly be the last night of music there until summer, when the coffeehouse anticipates launching an Art Night that will combine music and art. (Owner Matthew Krantz has announced he’s placing music on hiatus while he focuses on “restructuring the business,” or at least the musical end of it, due in part to ASCAP fees and regulations.)
Dafni and Gwendolyn return to Bean Town, 45 N. Baldwin Ave., Sierra Madre, 8 p.m. Saturday. No charge for admission. Call (626) 355-1596 for more info. www.dafni.us.
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT