Press & Reviews

Good Times
SANTA CRUZ COUNTY‚S NEWS & ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
February 6, 1997
Night Moves
by Steve Palopoli
Intense Blockage

So what has New York singer-songwriter Jamie Block been up to since his first swing through Santa Cruz last year? Well, last weekend "I almost got arrested at this gig in North Carolina," he says. That would be Murfreesboro, North Carolina, where a local cop decided he didn‚t like the sound of Block's new song "Cigarettes, Prozac and Scotch." "He said, That's offensive. This is a Christian town,‚" says Block. The cop then proceeded to shut down the show, before he was chased away by the irate club owner and Block returned to the stage. "I didn‚t know places like that still existed," says Block, who was just happy to get out of there unchained, I think. He‚ll find a much different environment in Santa Cruz this weekend, where some people may demand to hear "Cigarettes, Prozac and Scotch," especially because he‚s playing with the Austin Lounge Lizard at Kuumbwa Saturday night.

In other Block news, his album Lead Me Not Into Penn Station, which to my mind was one of the best of ‚96, is getting play on college stations across the country, and the video for "Rhinoceros" is being played on MTV spinoff M2˜you know, the music channel that actually plays videos. And the Santa Cruz leg of his Northern California tour is pretty right on˜he‚ll be up at KZSC Friday for an interview on the supercool show Nova, which runs from 2 to 4:30 p.m. The same day, he plays the Porter Dining Hall at 5:30 p.m., a good showcase for Block‚s indie-rock style and sound, which mixes the playfulness of Beck with the lyric crafting of Mark Eitzel or Michael Penn. Then his two shows opening for the Austin Lounge Lizards Saturday will drop him in front of a crowd that appreciates sharp songwriting and an even sharper attitude. They may also give him more space for a full range of his material (his folkier influences include Dylan and Woody Guthrie.)