3rd & Lindsley Parts 1 & 2

The video for this Canadian singer-songwriter’s current single, “A Little Love,” pays homage to early Walt Disney, complete with a cute black-and-white mouse gallivanting about as Smith lounges and snaps her fingers. It’s a perfect setting for a newcomer whose songs pair bright, spare melodies with clever, breezy lyrics. They’re the kinds of songs a Jiminy Cricket or a dancing bear named Baloo would have sung in a more innocent time. Smith recently released an EP, The Cricket’s Quartet, a precursor to her full-length major-label debut The Cricket’s Orchestra (which arrives on Sire Records in early 2009). When a lazy whistle provides the melody of “I Know,” from the Quartet album, you know Smith is a gal after Uncle Walt’s heart. There was a day not so long ago when Warner Bros. dumped Eric Hutchinson. But all it took for the label to see the pop singer-songwriter in a new light was celebrity-gossip blogger Perez Hilton fawning over how catchy his music is. Hutchinson got his deal back, but not before he’d recorded his hooky pop-R&B album Sounds Like This independently. (As for Hilton, he was eventually rewarded with a cameo in Hutchinson’s video for the sunny single “Rock and Roll”—which, despite its title, is more like the perfect soundtrack for a laid-back stroll.) Hutchinson’s sound lands on the lighter side of Stevie Wonder and Ben Folds; he sings with earnest white-boy soul akin to Gavin DeGraw and doesn’t take himself too seriously, as proven by his spot-on VH1 infomercial spoof. It’s hard not to like somebody so agreeable.
Sun., Nov. 23, 7 p.m., 2008