Picnic music: One Less Karen

I decided to attend the Wednesday noon concert in the Picnic in the Park series to hear what the band One Less Karen sounded like.

I was close to arriving on time. Does a few minutes after the concert started count?

One Less Karen consists of husband and wife, Jim and Robin Layton, playing acoustic guitars to their prerecorded backing tracks with percussion and bass. The recording worked as it gave their music a fuller sound than just two guitars and their voices.

Here is One Less Karen's web site with more info and a number of downloadable complete songs.

Robin on stage reminded me of my friend Sarah (though in the photos on their web site she loses this similarity). This makes two concerts in a row where a musician reminded me of a good friend. What's up with that?

Both sang lead vocals with the other harmonizing. Both had good voices and played well. They write their own songs and except for two cover songs, played their original songs during the concert.

One cover song was "The First Cut is the Deepest". They had a contest and gave away one of their CDs to the first person who correctly identified the author of the song. Parents would tell their kids an answer and the kids would go to the stage and tell Robin. No, the answer was not Sheryl Crow or Rod Stewart. Click here to learn the answer. After the answer was revealed, I knew that - I just forgot.

The other cover song was their "lucky" song, as they called it. It was "Fisherman Blues" by The Waterboys. Wow! That used to be a favorite song and album of mine back in the late 1980s. I loved that CD and played it often. I haven't heard that song in ages!! I need to find that CD and play it again. It impressed me that they knew and liked this song as it was never a hit song.

Generally their songs were upbeat and fun songs. Their music fits perfectly in a coffee shop. It reminded me a little of the Indigo Girls but without having a "message".

One song, about Emily Dickinson, reading and time travel, was an example of how their lyrics are a little more complicated than, "Boy meets girl, etc."

One song was a country reggae song. Interesting.

They claimed one song could have been a hit country song except they mentioned "PHD: in the song. This being Montana they said PHD could also stand for "post hole digger" so picture that when the PHD lyric came up.

The audience was mainly women: mothers and their children and office workers on their lunch break. The lunch crowd was not as large as the evening crowd the previous night. I was able to easily find a bench up close to sit on in the shade.

A short time later two women came in front of me, spread a blanket on the grass, and sat down to snack on a purchased lunch while they chatted. I am not sure how much of the concert they heard. One woman was very attractive to me. She appeared to be in her mid to late 30s. Trim and dressed in short jean shorts for the summer heat. Tan, without being dark. She had a thick brunette mane of hair. An attractive face, a mature face with the start of a few lines around her eyes that added character. I didn't see her eyes really head on, but from the side they looked nice. She had a furrowed brow for some reason that gave her a vulnerable appearance. That added to her attraction as it brought out a "protective" instinct in me.

But she had a ring on her ring finger.

Once I saw the ring the problem was that she was in the line of sight to watch the band. So close, yet so far away. Distracting. But there could be worse distractions.



Hey! She was right there. And I was already thinking about mentioning her in my blog, so I took the photo. That's the only reason.

I was thinking how different the outdoor summer concert series in the Flathead is from the Rochester, MN's (where I had lived for many years) outdoor summer concert series. In Rochester there really weren't local musical acts - they usually moved to the Twin Cities. Also Rochester tried to get minor national acts as part of their concert series. Usually somebody who formerly was part of a big group a decade or two prior. The music was good, but did not have a local flavor. Which sums up Rochester... I can't really think of a local culture other than business and making money.

Out here in the Flathead music and the arts exist more and add a local flavor. Tuesday and Wednesdays are Kalispell's concert series days. Thursday is Columbia Falls concerts. Friday is Whitefish and Big Mountain's concerts. I think Sunday is Bigfork's concerts. Then most Saturday's in the summer there are concerts or festivals. This Saturday is the Somer's Cajun street dance. Whitefish has an art and music festival also this weekend.

After the concert was over I wandered over to a "fish" statue in the park. The remaining "dancing" kids had congregated around the statue and went around and around on the rocks that encircled the statue. I had to wait and wait for their parents to call them and leave before I could take photos of the statues without them in it.

I haven't a clue as to the reason for this statue. If the statue was in Whitefish I would understand, but Kalispell?