Amanda Jo Williams at Tom Tom Magazine issue #5 release party photo by Dylan Gordon

Last month, Tom Tom Magazine celebrated its 5th issue with a release party at the Alexandria Hotel in Los Angeles. See photos from the party, here.

Tom Tom Magazine, for those who don’t know, is dedicated to female drummers and beat makers, which is very cool. Since it’s based in New York, founder Mindy Abovitz enlisted Swahili Blonde’s Nicole Turley to give them the lowdown on L.A. women who beat things well, so issue #5 featured Tearist’s Yasmine Kittles, Voices Voices’ Nico Turner & Janean Farris, Danielle Devincenzo of Jeffertitti’s Nile, Laena Myers-Ionita of Swahili Blonde, The Like, & Dante Vs Zombies, Rainbow Arabia’s Tiffany Preston, Cheryl Caddick of Silver Phial, Erica Garcia, formerly of Fool’s Gold, and Amanda Jo Williams.

Amanda Jo Williams, Swahili Blonde, and Crooked Cowboy & The Freshwater Indians played the release party in town. And though technically Crooked Cowboy doesn’t have female percussionists, he has those amazing singers that take “ooh ooh ooh” to a whole ‘nother level. Incredible. I guess that’s vocal percussion—Michael Jackson might say so. He’s the king of that. Anyway, today, a video of Amanda Jo Williams performing “Sunlight” at the party  appeared on a literary magazine’s website. Perhaps it was Tarpaulin Sky Press’s way of celebrating St. Paddy’s? We agree that “Sunlight” is a great song, uplifting, starting at the toes, and reaching up, up, up, until our fingertips sway high above our heads like blades of grass at dawn. And it only takes a minute or so.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q–ynA-Klpc&feature=player_embedded

But it just so happens that Williams helped us celebrate St. Paddy’s on last year’s mixtape, and she did a fine job of that as well. Here is a drinking song by Amanda Jo Williams, “All Is Love In Oral Things We Do.”

MP3: Amanda Jo Williams “All Is Love In Oral Things We Do”
[audio:https://larecord.com/wp-content/audio/amandajowilliams_allisloveinoralthingswedo.mp3
]

Amanda Jo Williams has got an album coming out at the end of April, called Mary’s Big Feet, on a new local label called Nocturnal Sol. It features many of her great home recordings, including some guest appearances by her son, Jack, who turned 4 years old today! Gosh, we’ve got a lot of celebrating going on! You’ll hear Jack on the song “Blue Toy Airplane,” which you can check out in advance because it kicks in at 1:54 during one of Amanda’s playdate videos, Playdate World Cup DNA Activation.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqBKXLlMsJg

Last but not least, we’re excited to co-present AJW’s Monday night residency at the Echo all April. Have a nice day.