Seth's Sojourn

There’s a short anecdote I won’t tell about Seth Glier (rhymes with HERE, not HIGHER), but suffice to say we did get in to take a look around The Living Room space while others were across Ludlow street waiting for their crepes.

Seth is younger than he’d like to be at the moment, but time will take care of that soon enough, as it does for all of us. And time will only let this talented singer/songwriter develop his considerable skills and allow him to outpace his current self. There are impressive and amazing things to come – but you’d be forgiven for thinking that he’s been playing the piano in coffeehouses and bars for over 20 years straight, to get to the level of sophistication he’s at.

Seth Glier is mainly a piano man, and you will hear hints of Billy Joel in some of his more muscularly-arranged songs. You’ll also hear traces of Diana Krall, when he lays down a few quiet jazz chords as some songs get underway. Live, you’ll see him reach for the keys with a passion and a fervor one usually reserves for lovers. And there's that lovely tenor voice, high and pure enough to not sound false when he moves into falsetto.

He will pull out a guitar from time to time, as in “Someone Else To Crown” on the new CD, The Trouble With People (“The trouble with people is they drive me nuts/Feet on the gas and hands on the clutch/But nobody knows how to take the wheel/The mind has forgotten what the heart can feel”). This is his third full CD (plus an EP called “Sojourn”).

The newer songs have more production going on – like on “Naia” which is engineered to sound like vinyl (the singer singing how he is standing by the stereo to make sure the right song is playing when “you arrive”).

Some nice turns of phrase as well --- “She’s a warm sensation/Like a Mexico vacation”

Seth is often joined by guitarist Ryan Hommel, his friend and side man. Ryan “sides” with other people, and has some sweetly laid-back solo tracks on his MySpace. He has a couple of Seth's songs as well, as Ryan acted as producer and arranger in addition to playing guitar, bass and other instruments (so while it's Seth singing and playing in the foreground, you can hear Ryan's work all over the place).

You may have read about Seth recently – his home-state paper, the Boston Globe (he’s from Western MA) had an article about how he financed much of his tour through fan donations. This is in keeping with artists having to do much more fan interaction in this MySpace age of ten thousand artists.

You may have missed him this time around. He’s come to the end of a US tour, and is now going to do mostly New England dates for the Spring, and he’s off to the UK in the Summer. I’d keep an eye out for the fall when he starts to get to the rest of the US again.

For now, you can hit his website and his MySpace (as well as Ryan’s) and make yourself acquainted. Next year, you might even be able to buy him a drink.