Hotel Café Tour: Thao Nguyen

By Naila Francis
Published: October 24th, 2008 | 12:10pm

"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.

Thao Nguyen

Age: 24

Home base: San Francisco, California

Pick up: We Brave Bee Stings and All, her sophomore album released on self-proclaimed feminist indie label Kill Rock Stars

Sound: “It’s sincere — dirty pop, and I mean pop in the more ’60s sense than the right-now sense,” says Nguyen of her woozy, roots-driven acoustic pop, which these days has been ramped up to a buoyant melodic cacophony thanks to the muscle of her band the Get Down Stay Down.

A dark underlining: Nguyen has a knack for putting a sweetly shimmering patina to otherwise somber subjects, like betrayal, familial dysfunction, and personal revelations of guilt and insecurity. Having grown up with a single mother in Falls Church, Virginia, she has openly shared that her songwriting is often sparked by a deep depression, many of her tunes informed by her father’s leaving when she was just 12. “It’s true,” she insists of her penchant for lyrical brooding. “I think that I’m better, and more productive, and more involved when something bad is going on. It’s a way to process things. When I’m in a good mood, I don’t even try to write songs.”

Toward feminism: With much of her time as a youngster spent helping her mom out in the family’s Laundromat, Nguyen gained an early appreciation for the strength and resilience of women. It’s partly what inspired her to pursue a degree in Sociology and Women’s Studies from the College of William & Mary, and what has led several to cite a feminist leaning in her music. “That’s only because that’s an element of my personality,” says Nguyen. “Growing up with (my mom) was incredibly enlightening and heartbreaking. We just witnessed her battling the world on our behalf. I think my mom gave me my humanity, and I think I saw things that make me very sensitive to relationships, to the way people treat each other.”

Guitar as an escape: “I wrote songs and played guitar to try to create some distance between me and my home life,” says Nguyen, who at age 12 picked up a guitar sitting in the attic out of boredom, loneliness, and inspired by the women she’d seen playing on TV. While she initially began writing songs to accompany the TV shows she loved, Lilith Fair served as a powerful impetus for her to take music more seriously. “To see women play music, it was invaluable,” she says. “You need to know that it’s possible and accessible.” Today, she’s determined to be known as much for her guitar prowess as she is her vocals and lyrics, which may explain her reputation for some pretty impressive picking — with a toothbrush. “At live shows, people are starting to bring me toothbrushes, which is my dream,” says Nguyen. “I may never have to buy a toothbrushing instrument again.”

Tip of the hat: While she often draws comparisons to Cat Power, Nguyen notes that We Brave Bee Stings and All bears more of a Neko Case imprint. “I’m a really big fan,” she says. “I think that we are similar as far as our bands and the actual music that’s behind the songs, which is more country and rock influenced. And I think her voice is amazing.”

Movin’ on up: “I think the fact that we’re all riding around on a bus is spectacular,” says Nguyen about the Hotel Café Tour. “I come from small potatoes, and we’ve toured in mini vans and one-passenger vans. I can’t wait to come back and tell my band how it was. I just hope I don’t fall out of my bunk.”

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Thao Nguyen MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/thaomusic