Category: Entertainment

Sam Nobles and Katie Dill of Mean Lady, though busy with other projects at opposite sides of the country, find time for their new album

Landscapes, wildlife, human emotion: these were the inspiration for Mean Lady’s newest, aptly-named album, Nature. In February, duo Sam Nobles and Katie Dill released the nine-part album on Bandcamp, keeping pace with their previous pop/hip-hop/psychedelic-meets-rock-and-roll recordings.

“I think Delaware has the most beautiful forests and creeks, and those ideas came through in all the songs, so the title seemed fitting. Don’t even get me started on the butterflies,” says vocalist and musician Dill.

Nobles—keyboardist/bassist/producer—and Dill had been talking about releasing the album for a while, but Nobles says there were instrumentation and production elements that needed to be further developed—and they were on opposite sides of the country.

Dill has lived in Los Angeles since 2014, pursuing improv through comedy school Upright Citizens Brigade (think Kate McKinnon, Delaware’s own Aubrey Plaza, Aziz Ansari, Amy Poehler). Nobles, back home in Delaware, performs with jazz artist Bruce Anthony every Wednesday at Home Grown Café in Newark and Sundays at Wilmington’s 8th & Union Kitchen, among other locations. He’s also composing for season two of truTV’s Adam Ruins Everything.

So the pair has been occupied with other projects. But since the vocals and early versions of the tracks of what would become Nature had already been recorded before Dill left, in mid-2016 they decided to polish the album. What ensued was a six-month process, but Nobles says sending edited tracks back and forth from Delaware to California wasn’t as complicated as might be assumed.

“I think we both share such a similar music taste, from genres to melody in general, and so we’ve always been on the same page,” he says. “Sometimes when we’re writing, we’ll show each other a three- or four-chord progression and there’s just a mutual feeling and understanding of ‘yeah, that really triggers something,’ We’ve also just been super good buds for a long time.”

They met at a party as teenagers, and began writing and performing together almost 10 years ago as members of folk-rock-bossa—nova group Diego Paulo, which garnered a cult following in Newark. They also played together in the University of Delaware Big Band Jazz Ensemble for four years.

“With both groups, we’d often stick around after rehearsal and share ideas with each other, writing snippets of songs, which eventually turned into Mean Lady,” says Nobles.

The duo signed with Fat Possum Records in 2013 for a one-album stint with a recording of Love Now, and Mean Lady received positive reviews from Rolling Stone and Pitchfork Magazine. Any subsequent releases, such as Nature, are self-released. As of now, the duo doesn’t have any additional recordings in the works; they’re just hoping the new album serves as a soundtrack to a good time with friends and even a sense of nostalgia, says Nobles.

When Nature’s songs were originally written, Dill still lived in Delaware, where she spent a “ton of time” in the woods.

“I wrote ‘Walking Flower’ in the forest, and ‘The Woods’ came from the idea that a relationship or friendship isn’t solidified for me until we have gone on a nature walk,” she says. “I feel most myself in the woods and I want the people I love to experience the beauty of nature with me. It expanded into an idea about how all humans yearn for a connection to nature. I’ve had friends who said the album made them cry. Another said you should listen to it on a sunny day. Glean whatever you want; all art is meant for you to experience it and own it for yourself. I do hope you listen to it on a sunny day, though. I think that person was right.”
Visit meanlady.bandcamp.com to listen to the album.

Young and prolific Pat Kane is a growing presence on the local scene. His most recent EP, What If The Stars Are Satellites, was released in January.

Every second Wednesday of the month around 9 p.m., Pat Kane, guitar in hand, walks into Wilmington’s Nomad Bar, takes up a position in the corner of the room, and begins playing his music. Regulars at The Nomad know Kane and his work, but so does almost everyone in the Wilmington music scene.

At the tender age of 26, he has more than 50 songs and nine EPs to his credit, and having just wrapped up his second year in a row playing the Shine A Light On The Queen concert, his fame is sure to grow. But ask him what he thinks about playing music, and the first thing he will tell you is, “It should never be about getting famous.”

As a teen growing up in Wilmington, Kane was inspired to pick up a guitar by a friend who had just started playing. At the time, Kane liked heavy metal music, and the image associated with that genre. Metallica was his favorite band; he liked how aggressive they were. For him, they personified rock and roll.

Then Eric Clapton changed his life.

“I can remember going to a Clapton concert for the first time and just saying, ‘holy shit, this guy gets it!’ Clapton kind of got me to find more music, music with a soul,” says Kane, “I began to dive deep into blues and music associated with blues.”

Since then, he has worked toward finding that sound and transforming it into his own. He started playing as much as possible and learning everything he could. He recalls being a freshman at Brandywine High School and playing gigs five nights a week.

“My music was young back then; I was young,” he says. “It’s changed a lot since I first started playing, since I released my first EP, and so have I.”

As he grew older Kane traveled—as far as San Francisco and even Thailand—and played live gigs. As he did, his music evolved.

He’s a musician who lives in the present through his music. “It reflects whatever I’m dealing with at the time that I write and record,” he says. “I draw from what I know and feel.” He describes his music as “psych, blues, and then folk, always in that order. That’s the kind of music that I love to make.”

Since Kane is a solo act—most of the time—so he has complete control over the music he loves to make.
But that also means when he’s recording he has to play all the instruments and record them separately for each song.

He’s not shy about explaining why he doesn’t have a band behind him: “I love playing with other musicians, but I also love having creative control over my music and the more musicians you add the harder it is to keep that same style.”

Kane has an unconventional way of marketing his work. He releases all his songs online via Bandcamp and has yet to ask for money for them. “I just want people to listen to my music,” he says, adding, “if they want to make a donation that’s cool, but just listening to my songs is enough.”

His most recent EP, What If The Stars Are Satellites, was released online in January and beautifully complements his singing, song writing, and guitar playing abilities. The first track, “Be Here Now,” is insanely psychedelic and feels as if Kane is guiding you down the rabbit hole while The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane dance beside you.

His albums are an experience, and Kane suggest a way to get the most out of that experience: “Put some headphones on, smoke some weed and relax,” he smiles. “Listen front to back. Go for a ride.”

Pat Kane plays at The Nomad Bar, 905 N. Orange St. in Wilmington, every second Wednesday of the month. His music can be found at patkane.bandcamp.com.