Artist of the Day: Lady Lamb the Beekeeper

In today’s burgeoning indie folk scene, artists must endlessly struggle to keep their heads up if they want to make any kind of dent in the eyes of the music listening public. A good place to start is authenticity. Aly Spaltro (alias Lady Lamb the Beekeeper. I don’t know what it means, figure it out yourself!) has that part down pat. Her story stands as the polar opposite of the Bon Iver-style broken hearted Neo-Walden mountain man myth. Instead of exiling herself to a harsh cabin life, Spaltro put her music to tape after hours in the video rental store where she was employed working eight hours a day, seven days a week. She would play and experiment until the sun rose, then, presumably, go home and sleep until it was time to loan out DVD’s again. Sure, it’s kind of melodramatic self-punishment just like Vernon’s tale, but it’s more populist. In the public imagination, anyone behind a cash register (yes, even you) could be Lady Lamb the Beekeeper. That’s the genius of Spaltro’s narrative.