Also this issue: Underdog Night DJ Cosmo Baker's hip-hop Remedy night turns 5. -Sean O’Neal Indie Blastoff -Ainé Ardron-Doley Beat Box -Ainé Ardron-Doley Very Emergency Facing illness and boredom, The Promise Ring changes its pace. -Chris Parker Billy Bob Thornton -A.D. Amorosi

May 23-29, 2002

musicpicks

A Simple Plan

Shannon McNally had a vision for her acclaimed debut album, Jukebox Sparrows (Capitol), one that was downright radical. "I wanted a tone that was calm and simple. I wanted the songs to have a sense of ease," the 27-year-old New Yorker says by phone. "I wanted the opposite of ranting and raving, which was all the rage at the time."

McNally, whose earthy Sheryl Crow-meets-Michelle Shocked voice is an ideal match for her winsome, twangy pop, says there were detractors during the recording process nearly three years ago: "Plenty of people were quick to tell me that it wouldn't work, that it needed to be edgier."

"But I didn't want to sound more like Alanis Morissette," she recalls. "I wanted to sound like J.J. Cale." McNally fought hard to make the record she wanted: "No one could have had higher standards or expectations than myself. I just dug my heels in."

While she considers Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Tom Petty her primary major influences, McNally says she gets "compared all the time to other women who I don't think I'm anything like -- but rarely to a male artist, which I find interesting." Her organic-sounding songs "clearly reference the blues," but she's not happy being billed as the second coming of Bonnie Raitt. "What I do is different. It's roots pop, roots rock."

From the sexy opening track, "Down and Dirty," to the Zen lyricism of 'XPN favorite "Now That I Know," the songs on Jukebox Sparrows highlight both McNally's keen sense for lyrical and musical detail as well as her vocal flexibility. She can dig deep (the eerie "It Could've Been Me" is riveting in its realism) or keep things a little lighter, as on "Bury My Heart on the Jersey Shore."

"I'm a storyteller," she says. "No fluff."

Shannon Mc Nally, Sat., May 25, 10 p.m., with Debra Stilwell, $10 advance, $12 day of show, The North Star, 27th and Poplar Sts., 215-922-LIVE.