Yes, Little Steven’s Underground Garage and Kitten Robot records brought us this wonderful evening to the infamous Redwood Bar!!  First, there’s nothing you can say against Josie Cotton!  Excellent songwriter, excellent voice, really great stage presence and she’s quite humorous, well, she gave me the giggles with her wit!  She opened the show with “School Is In”.  She already had the audience in her hand.  She really touched me with her song “Boulevard” and then full tilt into “Secret Agent Man”!  Josie is a lot of fun and you just can’t help but adore her.  man, and the band supporting her was too much.  You have Melanie Vammen on keyboards.  She has that Question Mark and The Mysterians keyboard sound that cooly creeps through each song, she very tasteful on where she places her notes.  Then, along with Melanie you have Marcus Watkins ripping through each song with some great rock n roll riffs and the sound coming through his Supra amp.  Natalie Sweet pounded along with some sweet bass lines that kept it swinging and Charlie Paxson, man, such a cool drummer, loved what he was throwing down on them skins.  Great backup vocals making each song fun and totally alive.  I Loved Josie’s “License To Dance” tune and her “Get Off The Road (Maneaters)” song along with her hilarious banter about these songs.  Coming to an end of this thrilling night Josie playfully threw out a guessing game on what was the B side to Johnny Are You Queer.  It was “(Let’s Do) The Blackout”.  The crowd danced and quite dedicated fans has our girl Josie.  Then she gave us the hit “Johnny Are You Queer”, the  crowd was quite excited as was myself.  AND she ended the night with “Sheena Is A Punk Rocker”.  Wow!!!!! Really fun show.  They’re were some technical difficulties but Josie handled them, kept her cool and humor.  You get a chance to see our girl Josie, TAKE IT!!!!!

Now, let’s talk about Soraia!  Man O Man, ZouZou Mansour gave us her all from the minute she walked on stage to the very end of her rip-roaring, dripping sweat set.  The crowd was mesmerized, danced in a way that the world may come to end tonight!  Starting off her set was “Dangerous” and my foot started stomping, hearts bulging from my eyes, the girl had me whipped.  That band of hers drove her enigmatic energy that kept the crowd asking “what’s happening to us!!!”   Whatever it was they DUG IT!  Moving, grinding, bumping was the crowd.  Man, I had just earlier that afternoon heard “I Seek Fire” on Palmyra Delran’s Trash Pop Shindig Little Steven’s Underground Garage and anticipation was welling in my blood to see Soraia!  ZouZou didn’t let us down.  ZouZou gave, then she gave followed by giving it her all on tunes such “Jokers, Thieves, Liars”, “Hammer And TheAnvil” to “Je Ne Sais Quoi”  That band of hers, WOO HOO, a tight, organically dirty raw sound ala Stooges.  Do yourself a favor, give ZouZou Mansour’s band Soraia a listen!  Find her on YouTube and she has a new release I believe coming out in November!  I say YAYYYYYYYY to Soraia!!!  SORAIAROCKS!!!!