By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON August 13, 2012 She has a sweet, almost pretty sound. It’s light, lyrical – evocative at times. Give her a chance though and she can get as raunchy as the best of them – but music for Lisa Nicole is about being happy and having fun.
Waiting for their call to the stage. Lisa Nicole and Daren Swanson
She and her husband take to the stage at the Central Park Band shell Wednesday evening as part of the city’s summer program. The two of them work very well together – they own the stage the moment they get on it and while there is just the two of them they do each have their own guitar – so there is a chance for Burlington to once again show the world that eight million is just a drop in the bucket when it comes to getting hits with social media.
The last time Burlington did this, when introducing Walk off the Earth to the rest of the world. That group was made up of five people and the one guitar – OK so that group had a bit of help from a BIG name, but if we do this right and the Burlington Olympians (we have five of them and right now Olympians are hot) get on this band wagon we just might manage to skyrocket these two to a whole new level.
How do you do that? Well first – listen to the sound. They will be playing at the band shell in Central Park on Wednesday, the 15th from 7:30 to 9:00 pm.
The two, Lisa and Daren refer to themselves as Alchemy Unplugged, a duo that was formed in 2002.
Lisa Nicole and Daren Swanson will take the Central Park band shell Wednesday the 15th
Daren wrote a piece about a homeless guy he passed on the streets of Toronto. As I listened to the lyrics I realized – I know that man. He sits on a cushion almost every day of the week selling cheap ball point pens out of a tin cup and telling the women they look like Marilyn Monroe and they should be in Hollywood. The men get told that they look like Robert Redford. He isn’t a beggar – he is selling you a ball point pen.
When I asked Daren – do you remember the man’s name – he said – I never asked – neither had I but if you bump into him on the street – buy a pen and say hello for Daren and me.
What makes this man, who looks homeless, unique is that twice a week he goes to the hospital and gets plugged into a dialysis machine to have his blood cleaned.
Listen to the music about this man. It’s what’s in store for you if you happen to spend part of a summer evening at the band shell in Central Park.
