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Armed with powerful and soulful vocals coupled with funky, percussive guitar riffs, Isul Kim is bringing more than just a Korean-American face to the music scene, with her own brand of bluesy urban pop/rock with an edge. Born and bred in New York City by a hard-working yellow cab driver and a dedicated night-shift nurse, Isul writes songs that tell provocative stories through colorful & manic alteregos, bringing us a distinctly new American voice. At once alarming and amusing, she amplifies her experiences, dipping them in a healthy dose of wit and satire. Isul's guitar chops are the rough love-child of Ani DiFranco and G.Love and her voice lies somewhere between Gwen Stefani, Sheryl Crow, Melissa Etheridge and Sarah McLachlan. Isul’s love affair with music is influenced by blues, hip-hop, jazz, rock and pop and colored by an ecclectic mix of musical experiences. After 15 years of classical piano and choirs, Isul stole her brother's guitar at age 15 and wrote songs as birthday gifts. In high school, she left her classical roots, danced to hip-hop and swing, and went to ska & punk shows. In college she fronted an alternative rock band, where she learned to "rock with the boys". Rolling up all of these encounters, and setting aside her Harvard degree, Isul has come into her own as a songstress who makes you a little more streetwise and brings you closer to the groove. In less than a year of performing live in the Bay Area, Isul has already begun turning heads from San Francisco to Berkeley, from Mountain View to Davis – sharing the stage with Bay Area favorites including Megan Slankard and Garrin Benfield. Back east Isul performed in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts at popular music venues including Club Passim where she shared the stage with emerging artists such as Mieka Pauley. Isul's dynamic performance on stage delivers a big sound, whether playing solo with her trusty Everly Brothers Gibson acoustic and a loop station or with a dynamic 3-piece band. Isul's music is now taking her to venues in cities such as New York City, Las Vegas, Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles, including distribution in Australia via a compilaton CD series featuring artists like Beth Orton and Corinne Rae Bailey. Isul will also soon be presented in a 10-minute feature on a TV show called "Quick Digs", airing in Winter 2006/2007 on the ABS-CBNI Channel with upwards of 100,000 viewers nationwide. Her new self-titled EP, with 6 original songs, demonstrates her versatility in delivering across genres. Working with producer Joe Morishige of Uber Records (Planet Asia, Alkaholiks), along with drummer/percussionist Zach Michels (corpus callosum) and keyboardist Dan Zemelman (John Lee Hooker, Plum Crazy), Isul's EP puts forth the best in capturing a polished yet organic live sound that's hard to find in pop music today. | |
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Other artists from San Francisco, CA Fojimoto Lisa Alice Jean Mazzei | ||
Uncommon Ground Past Show Dates | ||
| 2006-11-19 (594 days) | Cynthia Lin | |
| April Smith | ||
| Isul Kim | ||
