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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Tiana Gregg’s Talent Shines With Gritty, Acoustic Sound

She may be a woman with an acoustic guitar, but please don’t lump her with all the female pop-folk-rockers lined up at the Lilith Fair this summer.

Sure, it’s cool these days to dig women artists like Jewel, Sarah McLachlan, etc., but Tiana Gregg hopes you like her music because it’s good - not because it’s the in thing.

“I want to be my own person,” she says. “I don’t want to be trendy.”

No matter the reason folks like her sound, one thing is for sure: Gregg is good.

A 26-year-old who has spent 3-1/2 years paying her dues at Spokane’s various open mike nights, coffee shops and street corners, Gregg is an often-overlooked gem in the Inland Northwest music scene.

Her fare is a gritty, introspective rock reminiscent of her influences - Joni Mitchell and James Taylor - and wrapped in a voice at once powerful, biting and lovely. These days she’s accompanied by superb slide guitarist Hidde Hanenburg.

Raised in Chewelah, Gregg used to plead with her dad to let her attend his band’s practice sessions.

“I was in third grade and I wanted to sing for their band - I was always making up songs,” she says. A music junkie from a young age, she memorized all the tunes and wrote out all the lyrics from her “Solid Gold” album.

“I wanted to be a rock star,” she confesses. “I still want to be a rock star. I’ve just always loved music.”

In grade school she would begin writing lyrics - in the form of poetry. But it wasn’t until four years ago that she took on the guitar. And it came to her almost like a revelation.

“It was so easy for me. I wanted to do this so badly. I would practice all day; I would write songs every day,” she says. She was performing in public six months later.

But being a woman with an acoustic guitar has made it tough, at times, to get good gigs in Spokane. An artist who just wants to get on stage, she’s taken shows in restaurants (although she’s not food music) and at the recent opening of the Spokane Valley Mall (although she’s not shopping music).

Imagine the stares this tough-looking imp with an arm tattoo, boots and black dress drew as she played among the legions of mall-zombies.

They turned her volume down. “So I sang as loud as I could,” she says.

Still, Gregg says things are getting easier - possibly because of the growing acceptance of other women artists in her vein and (we’d like to think) because people are waking up to her talent.

Last year Gregg released a tape full of sometimes achingly inward-looking songs - songs that drew from her mother’s death of cancer when she was 18, and her father’s suicide four years later.

Don’t get the wrong impression. Gregg is not a brooding woman who carries a shoulder-load of angst.

“I think I got most of the angst out,” she says with a laugh that surfaces often. “I still write serious songs, but how many times can you write about suicide or my family, or how it was so hard growing up and I was so depressed. I mean you can only write about all that so many times and then people are like OK.”

Certainly Gregg’s songs still have an edge - one she approaches with a good bit of humor these days.

One newer tune tells of a sailor who meets a woman and then dumps her. The woman puts a curse on the guy and he dies.

It’s probably not so funny unless you realize that it’s a story-turned-song built around the ex-boyfriend of one of Gregg’s good friends. (No, the guy didn’t die in real life.)

“When I sing that song I usually get a big smile on my face,” Gregg says with a wicked laugh. Meanwhile, “guys in the audience are going ‘I don’t think I like that song.”’

Gregg had been playing with a full band until the bassist and drummer recently moved to Seattle. Tonight she appears with Hanenburg. She plans to expand her playing circuit to Seattle and hopes to release her first CD in December.

As for other future plans: “I want to be on David Letterman,” she says. “Most bands never get to talk with David, but I want to talk with him.”

Gregg opens at Ichabod’s North tonight and plays Thursday at Moon Time in Coeur d’Alene.

Later in the night

Former Inland Northwest band Shoveljerk headlines at Ichabod’s tonight.

But if you miss the show and decide to catch them in their new hometown of Seattle, don’t go looking for them under the name Shoveljerk. Two Way TV is the moniker they use nowadays in most places other than Spokane.

It’s a new name for a new sound, new management, new players and what the guys hope will be a fresh start in general.

“These days it’s just hit after hit and we’re trying to figure out what it means,” guitarist Greg Hjort says.

Since forming from the remnants of Black Happy in 1995, Shoveljerk has been signed to Capricorn Records and then unsigned. (It was a mutual parting due to mutual unhappiness with the arrangement, Hjort says.)

They have gone through several band members and, most recently, watched bassist Jeff Rouse bail on them. (Former Black Happy/Shoveljerk bassist Mark Hemenway will rejoin them until they find a permanent bassist.)

On a brighter note, the band has new management and is talking with labels about a new record deal.

Most importantly, they’re working on new songs - songs that take them in a better direction, Hjort says.

“As silly as it sounds, we’re trying to do something different,” he says, explaining that they are dabbling with bits of trip hop, techno and brit-pop.

With so many changes, so comes the new name - Two Way TV.

“We started writing a lot of new songs and they started going in a different direction and we kind of went ‘Hey, let’s switch this thing.”’ Tonight some of the favorite Shoveljerk sounds will mix with new Two Way TV tunes. Flourish and SDM open along with Tiana Gregg. Cover is $5. Show starts at 9:30 p.m.

On a heavier note

Straight from Orlando, Fla., comes heavy-duty rockers LYME - Lose Your Mind Experience.

These guys sound somewhere in the realm of Soundgarden and Alice In Chains. You know the markers: weighty guitar dirges, plaintive vocals, somber melodies - all set to a beat straight from the primal jungle.

LYME headlines at Outback Jack’s tonight. Spokane’s Worm Drive and Wenatchee’s Duke open. Show starts at 9:30 p.m. Cover is $4.

Give it a try

For lighter fare, head to Romeo’s Cafe tonight. Simple Logic, a trio from Spokane, will perform a gentle acoustic rock swathed in blues and jazz. Catch Janet Burnett on guitar and mandolin, Chris Blair on guitar and Tom Miller on rhythm instruments. All three sing.

Show starts at 7 p.m. and is free. You can also see them at a free show Sunday in Coeur d’Alene City Park. They join a bevy of bands performing there from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Also for our friends in Idaho, El Chicano makes a stop at The Edge in Coeur d’Alene tonight and Saturday.

This Latin rock band from L.A., first formed in the 1960s under the name V.I.P. They made their biggest splash in the 1970s with Top 40 hits “Viva Tirado” and “Tell Her She’s Lovely.”

The Edge is at 4720 Seltice Way. Show starts at 9 p.m. Cover is $3.

Fans of Too Slim and the Taildraggers can catch the threesome at the Fort Spokane Brewery Thursday playing under the name Muthapluckas. Rather than their rockabilly blues, they’ll be dishing out surf-pop tunes for our enjoyment.

The Paper Boys, a Celtic rock band from Vancouver, B.C., headline. Show starts at 9:30 p.m. Cover is $4.

Catch the Dead Casuals and BeeCraft at Outback Jack’s Tuesday. The Dead Casuals are a five-piece hailing from the netherworld of the Palouse. They play a mix of hip hop, funk, rock and blues. And if you don’t know BeeCraft - Spokane’s own rockin’ jazz band - it’s time you come out and heard them.

Show starts at 9 p.m. Cover is $3.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MEMO: Send nightclub news to Winda Benedetti at The Spokesman-Review, 999 W. Riverside, Spokane, WA 99201 or fax it to (509) 459-5098. She can be reached by phone at (509) 459-5089 or by e-mail at windab@spokesman.com. Deadline for Friday publication is the previous Friday.

Send nightclub news to Winda Benedetti at The Spokesman-Review, 999 W. Riverside, Spokane, WA 99201 or fax it to (509) 459-5098. She can be reached by phone at (509) 459-5089 or by e-mail at windab@spokesman.com. Deadline for Friday publication is the previous Friday.