Moondog, Erik Satie, Harry Partch, Davy Graham, Compostela, Teodoro Anzellotti, Kronos Quartet, Pentangle, L. Cohen, Erik Friedlander, Johan ludwig Trepulka, Bert Jansch, T. Waits, Guiseppe Di Stefano
CHECK OUT THE VIDEO FOR "PREACHER" DIRECTED BY ROLAND BECERRA
CHECK OUT THE VIDEO FOR "RAGGEDY ANNE" DIRECTED BY JASCHA EPHRAIM
BOB BOILEN, NPR
“If you like like great pop music, the type of music you may hear Elliot Smith or Jeff Buckley write, you should listen to J DiMenna. Dimenna’s made a CD that’s infectious. Its the kind of infectious music that took time to grab me, the kind of infectious music that I find myself singing and not realizing what it is or how it even crept into my subconscious.”
NASHVILLE SCENE
"J DiMenna is skilled at understatement… His sonic palette is often hushed and vaudevillian, with fine layers of resonating guitars, wispy keyboards, strings and xylophone and subtle, sleepily intoxicating melodies.”
JOHN JAMES / Syndicated POSITIVELY YEAH YEAH YEAH
“Terrific debut from this talented, multi-instrumental songwriter.”
BILL EVANS, XM Radio
“Brilliant... I expect great things from him for a long time.”
TIME OUT NEW YORK
“On J DiMenna’s subtle singer-songwriter disc Awkward Buildings (Exotic), well-wrought lyrics and intricate writing provide a bridge between diverse styles, from Beatlesque to Waitsian.”
JONATHAN TAKIFF, Philadelphia Daily News "J. DiMenna, a subtle North Carolina craftsman is making his national debut with "Awkward Buildings". DiMenna sings in a high, sweet voice evocative of Ray Davies and Elliot Smith in their respective primes. And his graceful, strings-endowed art pop is as richly endowed in atmospherics as it is in metaphoric meaning."
FLAGPOLE, Athens, GA One of "Seven Bands I Learned to Love at SXSW".
THE WEEKLY ALIBI, Albuquerque, NM "Plays music that falls somewhere between M. Ward, Django Reinhardt and Tom Waits... Very beautiful songs."
THE CHATANOOGA PULSE, Chattanooga, TN "Terrific debut".
LATITUDE 44.2N
Elliott Smith, Archer Prewitt, and Jeff Buckley sitting in a cabaret having a drink with Leonard Cohen.
my cat brandy spilled water all over my phone and it died. i'm getting a new one on may first when my upgrade comes through. if you need to get in touch you can email me or send me a smoke signal or a carrier pigeon. i will have the same phone number on the new phone but no contacts so call me on thursday so have your number.
im currently splitting my time between park slope and bushwick. three miles, two worlds. let me know if you come thru the city so i can try to hear you play if im in town!
i had a dream last night that you had started a new band for a new album you had made and you were playing drums along with three other drummers, all on drum sets, and the bass player from the deadbeats (a grateful dead cover band in albany) and you had done all of this unbeknownst to me, and i had just somehow stumbled into this room where you were playing salsa music. needless to say i was appalled.
writing a second movement to Lorca. I think you'd like it. I couldn't write or play it without studying your music and playing keys for you for that year.
Hey J did you know that in the 1400's a law was set forth that a man was not allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. Hence we have "the rule of thumb".
Hello! It's down to the last minute. So, for those of you who haven't voted yet, we hope you will kindly take a moment & vote to help us get on a Paste Magazine (dream) cruise opening for Lyle Lovett, Patti Griffin, Emmylou Harris and our other big musical heroes...
awww, you are sweet. somewhere paul was looking down and grumbling...
i've been thinking about you lately, i have worked out a wilcox version of "too young to die, morphine..." but i really would love a recording of it. It is nothing without your velveteen pipes.
hangin in palo alto still, inventing and building toys. way cool work, good weed, sweet weather, awesome people. but no little lady, she's staying behind for now
the future's so bright tho dude the trike is going to take off soon and hopefully take me with it back to the little lady and beyond, through the crazy musings of fate and all the way home
sorry, i'm new to this voyeuristic world of website-personality design. i don't really have a myspace (just got it to see a friend's hard work--these things suck your time and life away like nothing else i know) i've been trying to put a facebook together. it's cool though--i've really found a lot of people--particularly from high school. so i just got your message. i'm not trying to be a pain in the ass, but you've been popping up in my life in weird ways lately. just wanted to find you in the world. hope you're good. c ..and by the way, you had better remember me.