Last week I had the pleasure of working with an amazing Irish artist and singer/songwriter composer, Julie Feeney. She’s Fabulous, a truly talented lady with an eye for fashion to rival the most inventive fashionistas. Now before Julie arrived in DC I did a little reconnaissance, I had heard tell of her fashion forward ways, and I knew she had a dress made out of composition paper, but I was unprepared for the ease at which this fashion flowed. It was effortless. I picked Julie up from the Train station on Monday night and checked her into her hotel. Scheduled for 4 performances throughout DC. Julie’s first performance was at The Gibson Guitar Showroom in Chinatown, a beautiful and intimate venue, with what may be the most gorgeous Gibson guitars hanging on the walls. Julie was fantastic and the audience loved every minute of it.
Wednesday night The Pinkline Project hosted a Salon Contra with Julie. We arrived at Pinkline HQ 2 hours before showtime in order to get Julie into her ‘Pages’ dress. A garment fashioned out of the pages of her 2nd album ‘Pages.’ The pages are hand-stitched together with gold thread, the bodice is tied together in the back with gold ribbon. Once in the dress, and with her multi-colored House Hat placed strategically atop her head, Julie was ready to step out in front of the anxious salon contra patrons. Performing a primarily a cappella set, her vocals were flawless. As pointed out by Ryan Holladay, of BlueBrain, it is the sign of a truly talented musician when they can walk away from the piano, sing a cappella, and return to the piano not having wavered in pitch in the slightest. As expected the audience was mesmerized by her to the final note.
and did I mention her shoes, I think I may have fallen in love with them.
Thursday night found Julie back in her ‘Pages’ dress delivering a short performance for audience members awaiting entry into the Flashpoint theatre for the 3 play production of Project Brand New. As she wandered the gallery, her vocals filled the space. Seriously if you haven’t clicked over to her page yet, and listened to at least a few of her tracks you should do it right now, and then of course come back to finish reading this post. 
Julie’s last DC performance was at Kulturas Books, a local second hand book/sort of vintage clothing shop. I’ve walked past the storefront a few times on my way up Connecticut and stepped in for the first time friday night to start setting up for the much anticipated storefront performance. A quaint shop window with just enough room for a keyboard and a mic. It created the perfect atmosphere. Julie brought out her Attack On Humans “Cloud” dress for the evening, complete with House hat (also designed by Attack on Humans), and Ruby Red heels with black socks underneath. We tweeted the location a fews hours before the show, but a majority of our audience were those who happened to walk down Connecticut and find, to their surprise, a woman in a cloud dress, with a house on her head singing her lungs out. She surprised even us at Solas Nua by stepping out from behind the window and performing ‘Myth’ which, for those of you who were at the Gibson show know, requires Julie to get up close and personal with the audience as she whispers the songs lyrics into their ears. This was perhaps my favorite performance of the week, and a fantastic final performance in DC. Can’t wait to have her back in the Spring.
Dreaming Eyes of Wonder 