Hotel Café Tour: Meiko

By Naila Francis
Published: October 10th, 2008 | 12:30pm

"One bus, one band and a bunch of friends on the road." It's the tag line to what has become one of the most successful singer-songwriter tours of the last few years. And this time around, the Hotel Café Tour is giving it up to the women. Launched by that now venerable Hollywood venue with a reputation for breaking new talent, the tour has been throwing together headliners and local emerging singer-songwriters for the last four years, showcasing their music as much as the convivial atmosphere that the café is known for on jaunts across the United States and the United Kingdom. This year's tour, kicking off October 9 in Santa Barbara, California, features 18 of the most promising new female voices (including a few familiar favorites) to hit their stage in recent times.

"There are so many tours where it's a bunch of guys and this was an opportunity to show an area where females are dominating the current market," says tour co-founder Josh Neuman. "We wanted to bring diverse artists together from many different cultural and musical backgrounds. It's always exciting to see how people will get along out there and what collaborations come from it."

In this series running throughout the duration of the tour, which concludes November 18 in Los Angeles (check thehotelcafetour.com for dates, tickets, and more on the featured artists at each venue), Venuszine.com puts the spotlight on the women who've caught our ear and the reasons we think you should tune in to them, too.

Meiko

Age: 26

Hometown: Los Angeles

Pick up: Her self-titled album, which she released herself in 2007, and was re-released this fall on MySpace Records/DGC

Sound: “Frustrated love songs” wrapped in disarmingly lush melodies of acoustic folk-pop

Baby steps: Meiko, who is a small-town Georgia native (hailing from Roberta, population 808), landed one of her first jobs in Los Angeles at the famed Hotel Café, where she became captivated by the nightly talent on stage — and encouraged to pursue her own music career. “The intention was just to see something different and figure myself out,” she says of moving to L.A.straight out of high school with her sister, Keiko, who she credits with pushing her toward a music career. “She always made me get up in front of people to play …. I didn’t pursue a full-time music career until about three years into living in L.A. It took that much time for me to build up the courage to play open mic nights,” says Meiko. “I eventually started enjoying it and thought about taking it seriously.”

Career jump start: Once Meiko, who began performing with touring musicians on the Hotel Café stage, amassed enough songs of her own to make an album, she found a producer in the café’s sound engineer, the man who would also land her her first solo gig there. Her independently released album eventually became the No. 1 Folk Album on iTunes, with her music winding its way onto Grey’s Anatomy and even a Slim-Fast commercial. “It’s always personal. It’s hard for me to write about things I haven’t experienced,” says Meiko of the album’s songs of earthy elegance. If themes of loss and loneliness weigh heavily, it’s because “when I’m happy, I’m too busy being happy,” she says. “When I’m sad or confused, I have nothing else to do but play guitar and write.”

Defining moment: “I sang “Run to You” by Whitney Houston in a middle-school talent show. The whole school gave me a standing ovation. I remember how proud I felt; that was the bug that bit me,” says Meiko, who among influences that include her guitar-playing dad, Patty Griffin, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, recalls a similarly potent moment with Mazzy Star. “I remember first hearing (“Fade Into You”) one summer at 4-H camp. There was a dance going on and I was outside with my camp boyfriend. “Fade Into You” started and I ran inside to ask the DJ who it was,” she says. “She gave me the CD, and I listened to it all night long on my Discman.”

Extra-sweet deal: Given that the Hotel Café staff and management have always been among her biggest cheerleaders, Meiko, who retired from waitressing earlier this year, feels especially honored to be on the tour. “I think it’s going to be really cool. I know most of the girls on board,” she says. “I’m sure there’ll be lots of giggling and pillow fights.”

—

Meiko's MySpace:http://www.myspace.com/meiko

Meiko's iTunes