Jay Brannan "Rob Me Blind" Album Release Party March 23, 2012

Jay is a New Yorker by way of Texas and California, with several stops in between. A (severely) failed Southern Baptist, he moved to L.A. to pursue acting at the turn of the century. He picked up his first guitar at age 20, just as he put down an alcohol addiction. This new, healthier dependency took hold, and a few failed attempts at romance later, Brannan found himself in New York City auditioning for John Cameron Mitchell’s experimental film Shortbus. Landing the part, he fell into a world of performers who made him feel comfortable as a creative professional for the first time. Jay’s song “Soda Shop” became the most downloaded track from the movie’s soundtrack album, released on Conor Obersts’ (“Bright Eyes”) indie label Team Love. He began performing his music at events surrounding the film, allowing him an international platform to showcase his music.

As Jay’s fan base has steadily grown, so has his catalog of musical releases. His bare-bones, 2007 self-released EP Unmastered saw over 30,000 downloads on iTunes. He used the proceeds in 2008 to fund production of his first full-length album, goddamned, which debuted at No. 25 on iTunes’ overall albums chart. Brannan’s tenor voice combined with painfully honest lyrics surrounding taboo subjects caught the attention of critics at such influential outlets as Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, which proclaimed that Brannan “makes even the saddest lyrics easy on the ear.” In the Summer of 2009, Brannan released In Living Cover, a covers album consisting of 7 cover songs book-ended by 2 originals, which he recorded in a friend’s bedroom-studio in Brooklyn. It topped the Singer/Songwriter chart on iTunes and reached No. 10 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart.

Recorded over nine months, Rob Me Blind showcases Kahne’s thoughtful production abilities, while maintaining the signature qualities of a Jay Brannan album: brutal honesty, sharp wit, and sparkling melodies. Lyrically, the album documents the singer through states of loneliness, anger, rejection, and yearning, while somehow offering a glimpse of hope and self-acceptance, as in the first single “Greatest Hits,” where the singer discovers his failures and shortcomings are in some ways his best offerings. Forging across borders both physical and lingual, “The Spanglish Song” recounts a failed transcontinental romance—in both English and Spanish.

has spent the past few years touring multiple times around the globe, including the USA, Canada, the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, Greece, Brazil, South Africa, Israel, and Australia. While usually performing alone with guitar, he can occasionally be found onstage with cello or violin, and maybe even jumping on a piano for a song or two. Each show is peppered with a healthy amount of commentary, often expounding on the observations, adventures, and frustrations of his daily life.

18+

6:30pm Doors // 7:30pm Show

Official Website: http://lepoissonrouge.com/events/view/3086