Julie Meckler

She did a Free Monday at Empty Bottle about a month ago. The EP Julie has available and is on her myspace page, has just three songs. And I like them all for the music and the message. Well, I can't help but read a message, especially with "Deportation Blues" and "Mexico". I can't help but read an affinity for Mexicans and undocumented immigrants in general. I don't always meet people that put that sympathy so out there, if they have it at all. It's always very impressive to see immigrants support each other's struggle because indeed we are the same. Anti-immigrant campaigns always have Mexicans as the poster children of what you don't want crossing the border. We have Minutemen in Illinois as if we were a border state. So back we are at the Empty Bottle with Julie. I don't want to overemphasize that message/affinity while forsaking the fact that Ms Julie rocks like a French PJ Harvey, feminine and dominant. What I emphasized earlier does not make her music sound bleeding-heart-whiney. I can't help but see what I do because I don't believe that music is escapist entertainment. The very act of escaping is a reaction to the world around you. You don't run and not leave tracks. You don't call something "blues" for nothing. The blues is the very edge of the blade that Julie forges and wields. "Deportation" has muscle even without the lyrics. People in the front were all over this. The crowd that Monday night would easily over-crowd the sweet little closet that is The Whistler. The rest of her awesome set still has yet to be committed to CD. I think that is what they will be doing this winter. So, I don't recall what I heard so much as recalling how I liked it. There's a folk element to her music as well. Her music can easily work acoustic. She left behind an acting career in France to play the blues in Chicago. That statement sits in my head a certain way. You gave up all that for us? Damn....thank you Ms Julie! She has played as far as I know five gigs here and I have been to at least three of them and she is amassing an audience. Parking around Empty Bottle was indeed difficult that Monday night.

Zig