Jamie Lidell & Twin Shadow

I put on my brand spanking white Nikes, called up my sister-in-law and jetted up to Asheville last night for a great concert.

Jamie Lidell is all the modern blue-eyed British ElectroSoulFunk you'll ever need in this life. His last album, "Jim," reached classic status in my house, and now that the retro-Motown sound has just about been done to death, he comes back with "Compass," which sounds completely different-- the only common denominator being his amazing voice.

He's known for his ability to be a live sampling one-man band during his shows, but he had a full band with him last night and they were super funky, especially on the Prince-inspired "I Wanna Be Your Telephone."



Prior to the show, I hadn't heard of the opening act, Twin Shadow, but he was cool.

I say "he," because "Twin Shadow" is really just George Lewis Jr. His given name sounds like he should be challenging for the heavyweight title, but he's just a transplanted Brooklyn hipster doing cool new wavey songs, so he's (say it in a whisper) "Twin Shadow."

That's the latest trend, solo artists giving themselves band names. As far as I know, it started with Bright Eyes. That's just one dude, really. Sam Beam is a drink your grandpa would order, but then again, so is his stage name, "Iron and Wine." Conor J. O'Brien sounds like your Catholic bishop, so instead he's "Villagers."

I don't know. Look for it on Stuff White People Like soon.

Anyway, I like Twin Shadow. He didn't seem as pretentious as his name would suggest. You can get a free song here. This video makes me uncomfortable, though.