Mountain Times: Press for NC this weekend!

Biddies from the City
Cocktail Pop Quartet the Lascivious Biddies at the Hayes Center July 21
From Mountain Times

By Jeff Eason

Deidre Rodman, Ila Cantor, Lee Ann Westover and Saskia Lane make up the fab four known collectively as The Lascivious Biddies.

The Washington Post has called them “Manhattan’s Hippest Girl Group” and their music has been featured on the CBS Evening News, The Food Network and the Discovery Channel. They have even starred in their own commercial for Chili’s Restaurants. Now they are coming to the High Country.

They are New York City’s super-smooth female cocktail pop quartet The Lascivious Biddies. And they are performing at the Hayes Center in Blowing Rock on Monday, July 21st at 8 p.m. Tickets are on sale now.

Formed eight years ago, the Lascivious Biddies specialize in original pop-jazz songs that showcase their songwriting, special brand of humor and soaring three and four-part vocal harmonies. The band includes Deidre Rodman on keyboards and melodica, Ila Cantor on guitar, Lee Ann Westover on lead vocals and glockenspiel, and Saskia Lane on double bass. All four band-members sing.

The Biddies are known for their tight ensemble playing and playful banter with the audience between songs. This past year the band has been working steadily, playing at theaters and festivals throughout the country as well as maintaining a regular gig at Jones’ Pub in New York City.

“I think this is a really good time for the Biddies,” said Deidre Rodman. “It used to be a problem because we didn’t have a drummer…people thought that would keep us from getting booked or getting airplay. Now I think people really like that we cut across a lot of genres. We tell people that our setlist is like the weather in the South. If you don’t like it wait five minutes and you’ll have something different.”

That diversity of sound used to be hurdle in gaining an audience, but today’s music lovers are sophisticated enough to expect their favorite artists to branch out into new territory. The New York scene is particularly vibrant these days with Broadway-esque songwriter Nellie McKay and retro soul shakers The Sweet Divines, joining the Biddies among the leading female-dominated acts in town.

“We used to tell people that we were a jazz-pop-lounge-cabaret quartet, which is quite a mouthful,” said Rodman. “Then I read the phrase ‘cocktail pop’ in a magazine and thought, ‘That’s perfect!’ It sums up in two words what we’re all about when people ask us what kind of music we play.”

So far, the Lascivious Biddies have released an EP and two full-length albums: Get Lucky from 2004 and last year’s Love You Mean It. The band has also released a DVD of live performances and are planning to film Monday’s show in Blowing Rock with the help of a western North Carolina video company. The videos continue a trend that the Biddies helped develop on the Internet when they began posting free videos on their website in the early 2000s.

“We started pod-casting years ago when it first came out,” said Rodman. “We got some stories in the press for that. We believe that giving away music to your fans can only help spread the word about what we do.”

It’s not only the group’s fans who are spreading the word about the Biddies’ uniquely cool vibe. Time Out NY called them “The cast of Sex and the City transformed into a modern jazz quartet,” and the CBS Evening News raved, “The Lascivious Biddies could teach us all a thing or two.”

Music lovers who see the Lascivious Biddies today might be surprised to learn that they started out as an 80s cover band.

“We originally formed as a Go-Go’s cover band,” said Rodman. “Then as we started getting together and playing, we realized that our hearts were more with the original material we were writing. We still play one Go-Go’s tune, ‘Head Over Heels,’ but we do it with a distinctive bossa nova beat. All of our cover tunes are done in our own style.

“As for our original songs, we write a lot of songs about the characters, some that are fictional and some based on our own experiences.”

Rodman added that for the first time this year, the band has begun writing collaboratively, with the individual members contributing to each other’s songs in terms of vocal harmony parts and arrangements.

“It’s taken us eight years to fee brave enough to write together,” said Rodman. “I feel like we are reinventing ourselves.”

Tickets

Tickets for the Lascivious Biddies show at the Mariam and Robert Hayes Performing Arts Center in Blowing Rock are $20 and $26. They may be purchased by calling (828) 295-9627 or by visiting www.hayescenter.org.