Artist Spotlight: Surf Rocker Tristan Prettyman

If you're attacking the CD aisles like a redneck at a yard sale for a good find, then look no further. A sweet, freckled faced sensation by the name of Tristan Prettyman is here to make love to your eardrums and provide the soundtrack to your life.

I actually heard about Tristan one day when I was in the local Best Buy searching for a DVD. Between songs over the speakers a voice introduced Tristan as a surfer girl that is friends with and is heavily influenced by surf rock hero Jack Johnson. This immediately perked my interest, being that Jack Johnson has had a permanent place in my CD player for over three years. I left the DVD section, walked over to the CD section and hunted the P's for Prettyman.

I found her CD, entitled Twenty Three, and right from the beginning I knew that I liked her. She was a beautiful, tanned brunette with freckles all over her face and a very mysterious look about her. I bought it, took twenty minutes to unwrap the seven layers of plastic from the CD package, and popped in Miss Prettyman's creative collection of songs.

Before I review her music I need to give you a brief history of this talented songstress. Tristan was born and raise in Southern California, and oddly enough was exposed to the likes of Bobby Brown, Janet Jackson, Debbie Gibson, and an arsenal of other 80's artists. Her life was altered, however, when she got her hands on a copy of Ani DiFranco's, "Puddle Dive." It was clear early on that her infatuation with Ani DiFranco is what ultimately led her to her father's bedroom where she borrowed his guitar. She had never previously had any musical training, she slowly learned the fretboard and the basics from a Bob Dylan guitar book.

She eventually worked enough nerve up to play for friends, and they urged to continue song-writing. Everything changed when she was discovered at a local coffee shop by Joe Guglielmino, an employee of the collective group from The Moonshine Conspiracy. For those of you not familiar, The Moonshine Conspiracy is a film-making duo specializing in surf films, and here is your ultimate link from Tristan Prettyman to Jack Johnson. Before long, Prettyman was becoming a regular performer around North County's bars and in the summer of 2003 she went to the studio to record "The Love EP."

That fall she was invited on a tour with Jason Mraz, whom she dated for two years after the tour, and it was that tour where she really gained significant exposure. Her fanbase grew and in winter of 2004 she went to New York City to record the CD that now owns my car stereo, "Twenty Three" or "t w e n t y t h r e e" as Miss Prettyman likes to so cleverly spell it. Prettyman will tell you that 23 has special significance to her. She turned 23 on the 23rd, the year she put the record out.

Though the album is acoustic based, it features a very down to earth, uncut texture which serves as testament to Prettyman's honest songs. The songs are effortless, almost as if they wrote themselves inside out. The overall album has an unpolished, live-sounding quality where the straight acoustic approach compliments the uncomplicated, yet clear emotional meaning behind the words and lyrics. Prettyman seems to miss all the mistakes that normal, younger artists make by refusing to conform to modern pop and simply writing songs just to sell records.

In fact, most of the songs are first takes, recorded live to tape. Prettyman has openly confessed that she insisted on making a record that didn't sound like modern music or a sound that made her fans think she sold out. She didn't want to sound like anything else on the radio, and well, she did a pretty good job at just that.

Her fresh and upbeat perspective is evident in "Love Love Love" or the positive "Always Feel This Way." The best song on the record, in my opinion, is "Simple As It Should Be." And the song is just that, simple. It's an intoxicating back porch melody that reminds me of lounging on lazy Sundays with a glass of lemonade in my hand and the sun extending its warm hand on my face. The track, "Shy That Way" is a duet with ex-boyfriend Jason Mraz, and if there were any song on the CD that's ready for air play on modern ready then it's this one.

"The way you keep your distance is keeping my interest so I keep it persistent," Mraz sings on the track. The entire CD is worth the twenty dollars you pay for it, and in return you'll a collection of emotional, unpolished tracks that are a refresher from the virus that has taken over modern radio.

Here are a few places you can find the beautiful Tristan Prettyman's music. You can also find a list of her upcoming dates on the tour with Ray Lamontagne, as well as some of her featured blogs where she keeps in close contact with all of her fans. She has an audio feature where you can listen to some of her tracks. Do me a favor and listen. You'll thank me later.

www.TristanPrettyman.com
www.Myspace.com/TristanPrettyman