Seven & Six - Trendy Women's Fashion Apparel & Accessories | Stylish Outfits for Casual, Work & Special Occasions

Any time I'm doing music sharing or burning an alt country CD for friends, Bellwether's "7&6" songs will be on there. This band is originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota where the winters are cold and the music is bold. I believe they are now disbanded as of 2006 or so but man, their music is something to behold. I discovered them through some chance downloading but the songs I have off of 7&6 are all solid with track 1, Half Life, track 2 Miss You Twice, and especially track 6, Catalina reaching sublime ear candy country folk chill status.These guys know how to write songs and know how to execute on the delivery. Think Wilco, Ryan Adams acoustic, maybe a little Gin Blossoms and Toad the Wet Sprocket thrown in there for good measure. The lyrics from Jimmy Peterson's Half Life stick in troubled times, "A Half life and anything better is alright my dear / And I know your only half pretending in love I fear / Let's mix words with water, so they don't sound so hard / and let's paint some fifty million colors and now it's not so dark / And I've got 5 minutes to convince you over the din of drums five hundred minutes ain't long." Great vocal effects in this song with a reverb delay echo that comes across haunting and pure Americana. Anyone who's struggled in a relationship that seems challenged will relate.Catalina starts out with a faint piano and toss in some french horns maybe, very subtle. And a faint spoken vocal track, "Sin after sin, drinking, carousing, I was coming to a certain end. I was at the mercy of the devil," to lead us into the cool laid back guitar strum and great slightly gravelly vocals. Musical bliss. Catalina is an island off the coast of California down LA way where a more fitting juxtapose from the glamour and glitz onshore can be found...nature and ocean and peace. The Minnesota boys, Bellwether are talking about a woman though and thank goodness they are because her visit to cold Minnesota spurned this song...a gem. "I'll be going back the way I came / It'll probably take an hour with the darkness and the rainBy then you'll be above the Great Divide / You can't really see it, but it's somewhere in the night." Lyrically, that's Springsteen-esque.This band went so under the radar that I think it will be fun for you to claim them as your own discovery and share it with all your friends. They will look at you differently and nod...there's a person with some sublime tastes in all things auditory. That man knows his music. Bellwether is a music group. Bellwether is the sheep that wears a bell that leads the herd. A leader. A movement. Be the Bellwether and listen to 7&6's. You won't be sorry you did. --mmw