After a 2,000+ mile drive from Nashville this past weekend, Josh Hoge (vocals) and Jordan Jameson (guitar) rocked the Hotel Café stage on Monday to kickoff their 7-week nationwide tour with LA-native Ernie Halter.
Hoge was also celebrating his new record agreement with Blackledge, a new division of Atlanta for which he is the first artist. If you hear Hoge live, you will understand why he is an appropriate artist to define a label’s new branch; he is unapologetically unique and unforgettable. Stylistically, I attempt to describe Hoge’s music as Southern rock crashed into groove-worthy R&B and sensual whiskey-sipping soul. One of his defining philosophies is that apologizing for your experiences or the person they have created is wasted time that could have been better used to create great music.
Starting the set with “Take It or Leave It,” which Hoge wrote with Ryan Tedder of One Republic, Hoge sang “I don’t pretend to be pretty- Sometimes I tend to talk dirty- I can be country or city” to an excited toe-tapping and hip-shaking crowd. With “360,” the theme song for relationships gone wrong (and also karma), Hoge showed the range and strength of his vocal abilities. He has incredible control over every sound that comes out of his mouth and how it will hook the listener (also, to the crowd’s enjoyment, little control over the profanity of his story-telling.)
Later in the set, Ernie Halter (co-writer) joined Hoge on stage to perform Try,” a song about being on the road away from someone you love. Eric Robinson and Caitlin Crosby also joined to debut “Space,” a song about needing time with one’s own silence. A cover of “Aint No Sunshine” let Hoge mix his modern style and personality into a classic to brilliantly reinvent it. As with many of his songs, listeners needed to close their eyes to really appreciate the quality of his voice, which, even at its highest notes, is potent.
With an unpolished appeal and daringly forward humor, Hoge makes friends and creates fans wherever he goes. Even before the start of his tour (and a full four months before the release of his first album), he had the LA music community buzzing; add this type of support to Hoge’s exciting collaborations with musicians of many genres and you have an artist with versatility and staying power. Hoge is the type of artist who needs to be behind the mic for the rest of his life- he comes alive there. Still, he is also the type of artist who would never be deterred by the absence of a mic; it would simply give him a reason to sing a little louder, stand on something taller and let a little more of himself out.
Learn more about Josh and hear music samples at www.myspace.com/joshhoge
Review written by Bre Goldsmith ( www.bregoldsmith.com )
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