“Fade to Black” is packed with 11 original songs in styles from folkish to upbeat to sizzling rock and moods from sweet to straightforward to snarling. They’re all captured in a versatile and evocative voice that can croon shyly but harden to deliver when it needs to.
Accompanied by Oakland guitarist Sean Griffin and Fairfax resident Peter McConnell on electric violin, LizAnah will hold her CD release party on Friday, Feb. 5 at the Make-Out Room at 3225 22nd St. in San Francisco. The show will open at 7:30 p.m. with bluesy Pacifica songwriter Nomi Harper with Kevy Nova; LizAnah and her band take over at 8:30 p.m.
 Moss Beach singer/songwriter LizAnah will hold a release party for her CD, "Fade to Black," in San Francisco on Friday. |
Her lyrics speak her mind straightforwardly with occasional dips into noir edginess. “I’m not shy,” she said, “so some lyrics show feistiness or anger or a little of the dark side.”
Her musical roots did not foreshadow “Fade to Black:” As a child growing up in New Jersey, she studied piano and clarinet. She veered away from music while in high school but returned to it with guitar studies in college.
After graduation from the University of Michigan she followed friends to California and liked what she saw. She has lived in Moss Beach for six years.
She counts the 1990s “Lilith” movement in music, icons like Sarah McLachlan, the Indigo Girls, Ani DiFranco, Sheryl Crow, Tom Petty and Chrissie Hynde as influences in her trademark songwriting style of pairing message with ear-catching melody enriched by harmonic and chordal colors.
“I’m really into lyric-based music, catchy and sing-along, but has meaning,” she said. “Everyone can relate to it.”
By day she works as an acupuncturist. It’s a professional life that supports but is distinct from her musical one. “They’re actually quite separate,” she said. Music “is more my creative side … It’s almost a form of therapy.”
Her CD will be available at the release party as well as through lizanah.com. The Make-Out Room can be reached at (415) 647-2888.
w