Wesley Cook

Two Shows!

originally published October 18, 2006

Wesley Cook Band, Lindsay Rakers Band, Mullinix & Vickery

Wednesday, October 18, Tasty World

Wesley Cook

Friday, October 20, Starbucks Downtown

Songwriter and guitar guy Wesley Cook has slowly been making ripples in town, playing almost anywhere that would have him. He swung by the Flagpole office in the fall of 2004 to drop off some demo CD-Rs of songs he'd been working on, and played his first local show almost exactly two years ago at DT's Down Under. The songs and the performances were shaky but showed promise, and that promise showed up again in fuller form on Cook's debut album We’ve Been Here Before, released in late 2005. An affable collection of forcefully bluesy, soulful songs that owe a minor debt to Dave Matthews, Paul Simon and Nick Drake, the album was the product of a year of non-stop performing, and showed Cook's growing comfort with his self-taught instrument.

This week's Tasty World show sees the debut of Cook's new trio. He recruited drummer Mike Carthy and Beyond Tomorrow bassist Alec Wooden; Cook knew Wooden as a fellow performer at open-mic events, and Carthy was an audience member who struck up a conversation following a show earlier this year. "The decision to go for a full band was simple mathematics from my biggest fans," says Cook. "If it sounds great solo, imagine it with a couple of other parts to really fill out the sound and add depth."

The three haven't written any new songs together yet, but Cook says he's eager to fill out his existing songs. "I hear how other instruments can be used," he says. "Some of my incomplete songs are just bursting with possibility now. We'll have to see what happens in the future." Cook says he plans to record with the band, but that the first recordings may come in the form of a live performance set to tape; "I think that the live show will be so electric and full of personality and life," says Cook, who's also performing solo upstairs at the downtown Starbucks at 8 p.m. this Friday.

Chris Hassiotis