Bandcamp Artist of the Week: Gold Lion

Like a lot of these bands and artists, I have to give respect where it’s due. Del’s impeccable work on those Track Marks compilations keeps me finding new artists and sending me down tangential streams of music consciousness. Gold Lion is no exception. A two time Track Marks artist, Gold Lion’s cover of Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” make it onto my top ten songs of 2011. There is a dreamlike quality to that song as if Leah Hayes of Lindbergh Palace and Eric Clapton's hands lived happily ever after. Gold Lion is a 15-year old, gingeriffic beauty with a comfortable voice accompanied by playful, yet purposeful and skilled, guitar strumming.

Let’s recap: She freakin’ 15!!! (Who knows she might have had a birthday and is now allowed to drive mom’s van, but hey-zeus!) When I was fifteen it was the year 1992. Los Angeles was rioting and Dr. Dre was blazing the Chronic. The world was introduced to Snoop Dizzle, and the skill of lifting old raps and changing a few words to fit a narcissistically updated flow would never be the same. Kurt Cobain married Courtney Love and purchased a shotgun. Personally, I was in mid social-identity crisis, and would probably consider that one of my most awkward years. 10th grade! Did I want to be angsty and kick it with the skater punkers and write pseudo-dissident messages in sharpie marker on my plain white T? Or did I want to pound 40s, admit to the existence of females, and start playing football? It’s so lame to even type that, but at the time that was like crucial to my social destiny. Who was I? What kind of clothes was I gonna wear? What tape was I gonna steal ten bucks from my mom to buy at Music+? Gold Lion - while I have no direct experience with who she kicks it with eating school district-issued snacks while lounging around the quad, or whatever, she’s light years ahead of where I was. She's, you know, been hanging out, doing this and that, same of stuff... only like distilling crystal clear lyrics and finding and nurturing true talent. While the rest of us were popping pimples and making that sweet, sweet eye-contact with imaginary girlfriends, Gold Lion has released Begin, a sweet (if not mature) 7-track album that introduces us to her talents.

Her name is Mariah Mercedes. She goes by Gold Lion. Whatever the heck you want to call her, I was immediately drawn to the texture of her voice. Mercedes is a singer songwriter with the power to blow your eardrums but not necessarily the need to. Her soft, blues-tinged lyrics are visceral. I've said before that I know I love a record when I can imagine the video while I’m listening to it. The music makes the movie in my head. And this one involves sun dresses and cigarettes, beauties on lonely barstools, and maybe a bike ride or something - you know with like that stupid Corinne Baily Ray wind blowing your shitty scarf.

Anyway, Begin makes me want to celebrate innocence from the precipice of its loss. References to, “Go, Dog, Go,” author P.D. Eastman are like looking back through a window into simpler times – a celebration minus the longing. Begin has relistenability. (Will ‘relistenability’ be my truthiness?) I listened to it two times straight through upon downloading it. At seven songs it's digestibly delicious. Gold Lion rides that line between harking back and moving on. She seems bound and determined to do both.