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Sometymes Why

Sat., Dec. 9, 7:30 p.m., World Café Live, 3025 Chestnut St.,


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Published: Dec 6, 2006

Rock/pop

A would-be groupie fantasizes about fucking her favorite bluegrass singer, but she's heard too many murder ballads to believe it'll end well. Of course, all she's missing out on is a good time. "Too Repressed" is as racy as Sometymes Why gets, but it's a good indicator of their sense of irony. Aoife O'Donovan, Ruth Ungar and Kristin Andreassen were already up to their necks in folk groups when they started their trio for fun; on a whim, they recorded six songs before dinner one night and four more before dawn the next morning. Their resulting self-titled debut has all the intimacy you'd expect from three friends with a fiddle and a bunch of ukeleles, and none of the sloppiness. Ungar, a vocal double for Danielle Howle, breathes some soul into "Let Down." She does even better with the funny and bittersweet "I'm Tryin' to Remember What City I Know You From," by session engineer Michael Merenda, who's also her bandmate in The Mammals. Andreassen's impressive emotional range comes out in a bastard lullaby ("Hush Child") and a dark comic mystery ("Rearview Mirror"), but O'Donovan's "Too Repressed" is the one that'll win or lose them listeners.

Sat., Dec. 9, 7:30 p.m., $24-$34, with The Alejandro Escovedo String Quartet, World Café Live, 3025 Chestnut St., 215-222-1400, www.worldcafelive.com.