Maria Taylor at The Mohawk

Maria Taylor played at The Mohawk on January 22; Carrie and I had been watching her tour dates and songkick, but somehow we missed it until the afternoon of the show. I hadn’t seen her live, even though I’ve been listening to her since hearing Azure Ray’s November; I remember buying the EP at The Dirt record store in Las Cruces, NM, where I bought most of my music back then.

Indie folk singer PJ Bond opened the show, with electric guitar accompanist Marko Casso playing one fantastic song solo during PJ’s set. PJ played a great heartfelt set, and I would’ve loved to see more from Marko.

Maria played the first two songs on drums, moved to guitar, then electric piano, then back to guitar, then from guitar to drums during the closing song. It’s fun seeing other multi-instrumentalists play and trying to guess what they’ll do next. She was engaging and interactive, and seemed to be having fun on stage and with life in general.

She played two of my favorites, “Song Beneath the Song” and “Two of Those Too,” the latter as part of a two song encore for those of us who stuck around. Taking requests even though she wasn’t sure she remembered them, she said, “I write songs, I record them, then I don’t play them for a year.” I was happy to hear that, because I typically work that way, too, and I’m always nervous someone is going to request an obscure song that I can’t come close to playing.

Shortly after the show, and while Carrie and I were still debating whether we should stick around for a chance to meet Maria, she came out of the green room and chatted with us. We bonded about our writing/recording/forgetting process. It was great seeing that such a talented songwriter and musician was also so down to earth.

Carrie took this one. I’m not that good.