PEG SIMONE

Peg Simone's first guitar was a cool plastic electric. All she wanted to do was rock. She already had a sound all her own then, but had some trouble putting a band together. She was four.
At the age of six, sitting in her mother’s car in Pittsburgh, Lou Reed’s Walk On The Wild Side comes on the radio. She is fascinated. Can’t seem to get it out of her head.
Piano lessons begin at the age of eight. She enjoys it for a few years, but piano isn’t really her thing.
Her guitar at age eleven is a nice little acoustic from Sears. She carries it proudly in a cardboard box. She joins the music club at her Catholic school, which is really just her and two other kids her age with acoustic guitars. Her first public performance is at the children’s mass at church.
At thirteen she develops a few of the vices typical to a girl of that age: Cigarettes, a vaguely unruly attitude, and a relatively intense obsession with the music of Led Zeppelin and Hendrix. Her ten year old brother has been given a drum kit, so she teaches him to accompany her playing Wipeout. They play it over and over and over again. The neighbors are not pleased.
As the result of a calmly relentless campaign of none-too-subtle hinting, she is given a real electric guitar for her 15th birthday. A Vantage Gibson SG knockoff. And that was it.
Her new full length album The Deeper You Get? Pretty fucking great. Her voice is true, and her swampy slide guitar just speaks. Gorgeously quirky, by turns noirish and wistful, and full of sneak-up-behind-you perfect moments.
Pay special attention to the sweeping beauty of In The Park, the coyly rocking Spellbound, and the wryly mesmerizing I’m Calling.
A real voice singing timeless tunes well written. We don’t get much of that around here these days.
Just listen.
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The Deeper You Get was recorded at Studio G in Brooklyn, produced by Peg with the multi-talented Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu, Frank Black, Jon Langford), and features Swoon drummer and producer James Murray (Reid Paley Trio).
Look:
Live video of Peg Simone playing Dancer at the Night & Day in Manchester, UK on YouTube.
Peg Simone’s video New Orleans on YouTube.