The Like

[johnfoyle]

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/36/music-rogers.php

JULY 29 - AUG. 4, 2005

September Girls
The Like�s debut LP delivers hazy, wistful intoxication
by PAUL ROGERS


Don�t hate them because they�re
young, rich and well connected:
the Like (Charlotte Froom,
Tennessee Thomas and Z Berg)
are good.


It�s easy to dislike The Like: three comely young girls practically born into music careers (all daughters of prominent biz figures), spinning in the same comfy orbit as silver-spooned L.A. guitar acts Phantom Planet and Rooney. (Members of all three are schoolmates from chi-chi Crossroads.)

But an hour alone with The Like�s debut album, Are You Thinking What I�m Thinking? (due September 13), and even cynics can surrender to its soft-focus nostalgia snapshots. Wistful Sunday-afternoon journal entries float amongst uncluttered guitar, bass and drums, recalling a less jangly Bangles, flavored by Z Berg�s generally glacial, occasionally throaty, detached Debbie Harry�isms.

Far from a Blackberry-distracted, boho Paris Hilton, the 18-year-old Berg (daughter of A&R exec and Beck/Squeeze producer Tony Berg) is vividly present, focused and utterly in touch with her art. Since The Like � completed by bassist Charlotte Froom, 18 (daughter of Elvis Costello/Sheryl Crow producer Mitchell Froom), and English drummer Tennessee Thomas, 20 (whose dad is Elvis Costello drummer Pete Thomas) � formed in 2001, they�ve exploited family and social connections. They�ve opened for Costello, Phantom Planet and Maroon 5, while releasing three self-produced EPs independently; last year, almost inevitably, they signed to a major label (Geffen).

But no amount of nepotism could make Are You Thinking What I�m Thinking? the hazily insular intoxication it is. Producer Wendy Melvoin (ex�Prince and the Revolution) and co-producer John Goodmason (Blonde Redhead, Bikini Kill) wring perkier performances and memory-staining harmonies from The Like without shunning the lo-fi appeal of their earlier recordings.

�We didn�t want anything too slick or ostentatious,� says Berg. �While the pitch may be bad in some of those EP vocal tracks, and some of them were done when we were 15 years old, we hopefully managed to retain the charm and rawness of those recordings.�

The disc begins optimistically, with the beat-pop boom-chick and rotund, descending progression of �June Gloom,� but that title says it all: What should be a celebratory, summery thing is glum-tinted by Berg�s just-done-crying vocal and the gauzy harmony that shades the end of a surprisingly weighty chorus (witness The Like�s love of late-�80s amp abusers the Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine).

�I have the �songwriter�s curse,�� admits Berg. �We all love ballads! The high points [of the album] to me are �June Gloom,� �cause that song is just really exciting to me and the lyrics are really sad. After that, �Once Things Look Up� is also one of my favorites.�

Good gawd, girl � �Once Things Look Up� is the sound in your head immediately post breakup call: a hypnotized vocal delving into Berg�s lower register, buoyed by Froom�s signature, effortlessly effective few-note bass motifs.

�I am not a tortured artist,� stresses Berg. �I�ve always been a pretty happy kid, so it�s funny that I became a songwriter � it seems wrong in a way. But I guess it�s because the way I deal with things in my life, logically, is to deal with them immediately ... but then the long, lingering problems that I don�t dwell on logically find their way out of me in my songs.�

Are You Thinking What I�m Thinking? displays both classic influences (Beatles, Kinks, Stones) and unlikely turn-of-the-�90s stimuli (the Sundays, Ride, Stone Roses, MBV and JAMC), while repeatedly evoking Blondie�s pulsing/pensive pop. The Like�s lack of technical chops (all were instrumental novices when the band began) is a boon, putting songs and singing before shredding.

Big budget and name producers aside, Are You Thinking also benefits from The Like�s newfound coherence as a touring act. Sharing a van for weeks at a time has only cemented their bond: Berg shows not just respect and admiration for her bandmates, but a continuing fascination with them. (�Charlotte�s funny because she hates people but she loves all animals�; �Tennessee is like Alice in Wonderland.�)

The Like�s superstatic live show makes their shoegazer heroes look like Kiss, but they have the tunes and coy physical presence to hold a crowd. Yet far from trading on photogenic blessings, their EPs were packaged in deliberately spartan, photo-free sleeves, and their album art is a downright unflattering caricature.

The title is a reference to The Like�s band/fan interaction: �I have a problem with arts in general being too passive, and I think that�s why I like music so much: Because I think it�s the most interactive of all the arts, particularly in live music. The audience really dictates what the show is going to be like ... it�s not just like looking at a painting in a sterile gallery and whispering about it � you�re a part of the artwork. I don�t like to print out the lyrics ... so on our message board we have multiple threads of people making up what they think the lyrics are and I really like that, because then it sort of becomes their song as much as it is mine.�

THE LIKE | Are You Thinking What I�m Thinking? (Geffen)

The Like play the Troubadour on Tuesday, August 2.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... ce&s=music

Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking
Like

Audio CD (September 13, 2005)

Label: Geffen Records
ASIN: B000ALM4FS

[BlueChair]

Pete's daughter is named TENNESSEE? What was he thinking???

[mood swung]

that he loves memphis?

it's way better than brooklyn. or apple.

signed,

an almost native Tennessean.

[migdd]

Tenessee Williams never seemed to mind.

Signed,

Another almost native Tenessean.

[migdd]

Niether, for that matter, did Tennessee Tuxedo!

[johnfoyle]

http://www.drownedinsound.com/articles/13171

( extract)

CMJ is a devilish collection of industry narcs, two-bit bar band bozos and chili hot dog vendors, all hoping to stand close enough to 2005's collection of great white hopes to trade it in for sexual favours and popularity back home. There is much murmur of myth and manic dashes across the long, cavernous city to attend a variety of trophy shows and dancing queen competitions. The Kentucky Derby, this is not.


Also dreaming of all the men they can get their hands on are Elvis Costello's surrogate daughters and their band of teenage delinquents, The Like. They look like demure Californian starlets, a rock product endorsed by marykateandashleyolsen before they got old and ugly. Sonically, it's Joni Mitchell meets Echo and the Bonnie Rait; a retro folk singing lolita troupe giving out messy, Russian approved blowjobs.

[miss buenos aires]

Sonically, it's Joni Mitchell meets Echo and the Bonnie Rait; a retro folk singing lolita troupe giving out messy, Russian approved blowjobs.

Do you think the guy who wrote this has any idea what it means?

[Who Shot Sam?]

a retro folk singing lolita troupe giving out messy, Russian approved blowjobs.

I wasn't aware that blowjobs required Russian approval. Is this some new UN Security Council directive?

[mood swung]

I heard one of their songs and I can honestly say that I did not think of blowjobs, messy, russian-approved or otherwise. Maybe I just didn't listen hard enough.

[selfmademug]

Sonically, it's Joni Mitchell meets Echo and the Bonnie Rait; a retro folk singing lolita troupe giving out messy, Russian approved blowjobs.

Do you think the guy who wrote this has any idea what it means?

Either way he needs to go wank off over his hipster's dictionary; it'd be a much more direct way of pleasuring himself.

[BlueChair]

Good to see Cope Fan finally made it into music journalism.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Pete's daughter is named TENNESSEE? What was he thinking???

The same as the Beckhams when they named their first boy Brooklyn?

[verbal gymnastics]

It's not as bad as Moon Unit or Dweezil though.

[martinfoyle]

Hopefully these kids wont be struck by the Curse of Costello too soon.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/ ... 55,00.html

Pop: New Kids in Town: The Like
DAN CAIRNS



Who are they? Tennessee Thomas (drums), Charlotte Froom (bass) and Z Berg (guitar/vocals) are the teenage daughters of Elvis Costello’s drummer, Pete Thomas, the producer Mitchell Froom and the A&R honcho Tony Berg. After releasing three EPs, they signed to Geffen. Their debut album, Are You Thinking What I’m Thinking? (produced by the former Prince guitarist Wendy Melvoin), earned rave reviews in America. If they were rubbish, their parentage might occasion nudge-nudge bitching. But, as their debut British EP, What I Say and What I Mean, shows, the Like do candy-coated indie angst-pop brilliantly, and Berg’s wonderfully jaded voice (Björk meets Harriet Wheeler), together with a knack for blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em radio-rock smash-and-grabs, make them ones to watch.



When’s the EP out? Tomorrow.


Can I see them live? At Barfly: London (tonight), Manchester (Mon), Liverpool (Wed), York (Sat).

[Masterpiece?]

My roommate gave me a copy not knowing the connection, and I listened to it not knowing the connection either and liked it, and now I came across this thread...who'da thunk?

[johnfoyle]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/stor ... 60,00.html

Flash-forward

The Like's punk-pop sensibility should land them a huge audience. And, says Kitty Empire, they don't need any help from their famous fathers

Sunday November 20, 2005
The Observer

The like are not like most bands. Their first impromptu practice, for instance, smelled really nice. 'Charlotte and Tennessee showed up onmy doorstep with their instruments in hand,' reminisces Z Berg, singer, guitarist and Californian wit, when asked how the hard-edged, soft-centred LA three-piece first got together. 'We jammed all night, had a sleepover, listened to Nico, baked a Bundt cake. It was great. You know, like all bands start, right?'

That was over three years ago, when the Like were still in high school. The teenagers were music-mad misfits who didn't go to their classmates' parties, but stayed in listening to records - something you can hear in their precociously polished, tensile pop songs. Their debut single, 'What I Say and What I Mean', sounds like Nirvana refracted through the Bangles, while Berg's velveteen voice recalls the Pretenders.

Their debut album, Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking?, will be released in the UK in the new year. Produced by former Prince guitarist Wendy Melvoin and art-punk maestro John Goodmanson, it represents three music-loving lifetimes fused into one coyly commercial whole.

'Charlotte and Tennessee have known each other since they were five and six. They were always into music,' says Berg. 'I begged for piano lessons when I was three,' laughs whip-thin bassist Charlotte Froom, who, if the Like had not been signed, would probably be pursuing maths or zoology at university. 'My parents finally gave in when I was five.'

'Tennessee played drums in her school jazz ensemble, Stuck In My Blazer, at this strict all-girls Catholic school,' Berg continues. 'They disbanded, and so she coerced Charlotte into learning how to play bass. And then they found me two weeks later.' 'We'd heard about Z,' adds British-born Tennessee Thomas, who drums barefoot ('Shoes just seem to get in the way, between me and the beat'). 'She'd been in her room for two years, writing songs, and didn't really have any friends. Nor did we.'

'It was like, "OK, wow, there are other people in the world who only listen to the Beatles and the Stones and the Kinks and Pulp and Blur and Oasis and the Strokes,"' says Berg. 'This was before the Strokes changed culture for ever and created the popularisation of indie culture into the mainstream. So at that point, we were total outcasts for our music taste. To meet other people that I actually had things in common with was pretty crazy for me.'

Being girls who were seriously into rock music was one bond. Being the daughters of musicians and music industry professionals was another. Berg's father is Tony Berg, producer and A&R man. Tennessee was taught by her father, Pete Thomas, Elvis Costello's drummer. Charlotte is the daughter of producer Mitch Froom. The Like are proud of the good musical taste their fathers instilled in them, but greet concerns that their band might have had their professional path smoothed, just a little, with disdain.

'Anyone who says that can fucking blow me,' erupts Berg. 'They said the same thing about the Strokes. It was always really important for us that we kept our parents out of it. We never asked for any favours from anybody, not only our parents. It was important for us that everything began by ourselves, organically.'

Indeed the Like recorded and released three EPs ('I Like The Like', '...And The Like', 'Like It Or Not') in three years before finally signing to Geffen (where Tony Berg has worked).

It's a double jeopardy, really: being this well connected, as well as being female in an industry which regards female rock musicians as you might regard a blue giraffe - an exotic oddity, at best.

'No one has said, "Oh you're really great for girls,"' says Berg. 'People always come up to us after a show and say "Dude! I saw the poster and I was like, Oh God, look at these little girls, it's going to be such a gimmick. But then I saw you guys play and it was amazing!"

'As far as being a girl is concerned,' continues Berg, 'it's important for me that there can exist in pop culture a band of female musicians that isn't some slutty pop creation. It's important for there to exist real girls playing real music, like, our own songs. We are just musicians.'

[johnfoyle]

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/music/art ... ndard&ct=5




07/03/06 - Music section

Like are hard to love
By David Smyth, Evening Standard

The Like, the all-girl trio presumably named after the most popular word in their native Los Angeles, are, like, still struggling to find their feet in the UK music scene.

Having released their debut album in the US last September and had an appropriate fuss made over their stunning looks and impeccable musical pedigrees, they played last night in a room that had room for plenty more fans.

As with The Strokes, an air of suspicion surrounds their doe eyes and famous fathers - bassist Charlotte Froom and singer/guitarist Z Berg are the daughters of respected music producers Mitch Froom and Tony Berg, while drummer Tennessee Thomas's dad Pete was the sticks man in Elvis Costello's Attractions. Are they here because of talent, nepotism or some attractions of their own?

A glance at their background reveals that this has been far from an easy ride. Having formed the band while still at school, they released three EPs independently over three years before they secured their major label deal. The album, Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking?, will be released here on Monday.

Here they seemed grateful for their opportunities. "Thank you so much for coming, it's really, really nice of you," said Berg. An elementary guitarist, she sang with a seductive catch in her voice on Mrs Actually, although she was too cool to lose any inhibitions on faster songs such as first single What I Say and What I Mean.

Froom nodded her head sedately in denim hotpants, while Thomas was more watchable, drumming blind from behind a veil of hair and at one point looking mortified when she accidentally sent a drumstick flying into the audience.

The sound, thinner live than on record, was most akin to the shapeless shimmering of the early Nineties shoegazing bands, although the vibrant Under the Paving Stones had hints of The Clash's London Calling in its urgent, staccato guitars. There is undeniable talent underneath the eyeliner, but a genuinely great song eludes them so far. Until they write one, The Like will remain hard to love.

[johnfoyle]

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/reviews/stor ... 54,00.html

The Like

3 stars King's College, London

Caroline Sullivan

Wednesday March 8, 2006

Guardian

You normally have to go to a Rolling Stones concert to find a lot of old gents at a pop gig. But at this one, they're in the audience rather than on stage. The objects of their attention are three 20-year-old California girls, who, on a grim winter night, have optimistically worn as few clothes as possible. You'd like to believe that the chaps applauding this show of legginess are related to the band - perhaps their fathers, themselves musicians and producers - but something in their body language says the interest is more than paternal.

So that's settled, anyway - the not-yet-famous the Like can pull a crowd in the depths of freezing March, and, having pulled them, hold their attention over a frisky, hook-heavy set. But can they consolidate the ripples of interest, and prove they have the stuff to become a significant power-pop outfit that happens to be female?

Singer Elizabeth "Z" Berg (whose dad produced Beck), bassist Charlotte Froom (hers produced Paul McCartney) and drummer Tennessee Thomas (who learned her thing from Elvis Costello's drummer, Pete Thomas) make an appealing enough noise, but haven't quite found a unique sound. It's hard to describe them without mentioning the Bangles, whose sunny-melancholy imprint is stamped on this show. Z sounds enough like Susannah Hoffs to make it remiss not to point it out, and, consequently, there's not much evidence of their professed fondness for Primal Scream and Pulp.

On the credit side, though, they're clearly being themselves; the classic girl-group harmonies on What I Say and What I Mean come naturally, and Z's whizzy guitar work on June Gloom is the essence of teenage kicks.

They don't try to rock out, and exult in their femininity in a way that has the crowd's camera-phones clicking madly. It's a bit pedestrian, but the Like have years in which to grow.

· At the Academy, Manchester (0161-832 1111), tomorrow

[johnfoyle]

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/musi ... 351675.ece


The Like: The latest indie popstrels

They all have dads in the music business, but don't mention the fact to them, says James McNair

Published: 17 March 2006


In a west London hotel, Tennessee Thomas, the drummer with The Like, is literally spitting feathers. Together with the singer/guitarist Z Berg and the bassist Charlotte Froom, she has just engaged in a cotton-ripping pillow-fight for the benefit of a NME snapper. The frivolous mood evaporates somewhat when I ask the barefoot, mini-skirted, similarly feather-strewn Froom about the bandmates' famous fathers. "Boring territory", she snaps, her nasal Californian whine cutting me off mid-sentence. "I'm sick of being asked about our stupid parents."

For the record, The Like are the progeny of the A&R man Tony Berg, the record producer Mitchell Froom and Elvis Costello's drummer Pete Thomas. When the trio formed in Los Angeles in 2001, their average age was 16. Well-connected they may be, but mere nepotism doesn't explain the quality of The Like's indie-pop debut, Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking? Berg's dreamy, "boys and books"-obsessed songs join the dots between The Bangles and The Sundays with some style, and for all her brattish demeanour, Froom has a McCartney-esque way with a melodic bass-line.

"Our dads do know each other, it's true", concedes the more amiable and enthused Thomas when pressed, "but we didn't really form the group through them. Charlotte and I were in a school-band together, and friends had told us about this strange songwriter-girl they called 'The Letter'. We thought, 'Ooh! How mysterious! She's just called Z!'

"After we'd tracked her down we all hooked up on Instant Messenger", Thomas continues, "and a few days later me and Charlotte turned up on Z's doorstep all giggly and everything. When Z sat down on her bed with her guitar and played us "Twenty-Seven Days", we were like, 'Wow! That's a real song! Let's set up our instruments!' We were there until midnight, I think. It was incredibly exciting to know that we'd finally found the right person."

Sleepover rehearsals at Berg's house became a regular fixture at weekends. Soon came tentative local gigs, and, when those went well, The Like played further shows in New York during their Christmas holidays. A year older than her bandmates, Thomas had by now started a fine art degree at university, but with record company interest growing, she opted to put her studies on hold. A deal with Geffen Records materialised soon after. Which was nice. Better yet, The Like's debut album was to be co-produced by Wendy Melvoin, the singer/guitarist best known for playing on Prince and the Revolution albums such as Purple Rain and Parade.

"Wendy was only 18 when she joined Prince's band", says Thomas, "so she can relate to how we feel. Her dad, Mike, was a session guy [for The Beach Boys, among others], so she's got that musical family thing going on, too. In the studio she's really energetic and inspiring, and she'd be like, 'Come on chicks! Let's take it up a bit!' She even took us to Prince's house for a party after the Oscars last year. Ashlee Simpson and Paris Hilton were refused entry, but we got in."

Quizzed as to which of the album's recording sessions were most memorable, The Like's rhythm section responds as follows:

Froom: "For me it was when I did my bass parts and I brought in my black cat Cleveland. That was right after I got her. She was so tiny and cute."

Thomas: "My cat died during the making of the record. Pickle, her name was."

Froom: "You should have called her Chutney."

Thomas: "Or Chunky. She was huge... Unfortunately Z's allergic to cats, though, so it was a bit traumatic for her."

Interviewed separately, thank goodness, the 21-year-old Z Berg proves to be a charismatic, unmistakably bright character. The Like's front-woman and songwriter describes herself as "a loser" who spent her fifth-grade year reading the complete works of Shakespeare, and says that, prior to meeting Thomas and Froom, she only had one close friend. "I think that people tend to be slightly intimidated when they first meet me", she explains. "I'm a bit weird and they think I'm being sarcastic when I'm actually being sincere.'"

Musically, Berg cites such varied influences as The Sundays, Snoop Dogg, Erik Satie and Norwegian black metal. Lyrically, she claims to draw inspiration from situationist literature. "Take a song like "You Bring Me Down" ", she says. "It's a love song, and in my favourite love song style it's called "You Bring Me Down"! My boyfriend is in a band, you see, and I'm using the situationist project's concept of radical situations to describe our relationship as star-crossed lovers. When he comes home, it's like waking up, and when he goes it's like going back to sleep and living with this horrible grey hue over everything."

But now it's Berg who is on tour and her boyfriend is at home. How does she cope with the itinerant lifestyle? "By reading, mostly. Right now I'm on Swann's Way, and that floating, creative punctuation thing translates quite nicely into the touring life. Trapped in a Proustian run-on sentence: that's me in a nutshell!"

Once Berg gets started on literature there's no stopping her. Nabokov's Speak, Memory is a favourite read, and suddenly remembering a passage within it, she leans forward excitedly before taking our conversation down an unexpected path. "I'm a synaesthete. You know what that is, right? I think 'synaesthesia' literally means 'a confusion of the senses.' Anyway, there's this great bit in Speak, Memory where Nabokov starts describing letters of the alphabet and the colours they evoke, and I loved that.

"Tennessee is orange and yellow and she's a six and kind of a three. Charlotte is black and sometimes pink and an eight. You're forest green and an eight or a nine."

Back with the band's rhythm section, I ask them about other career highlights. Froom cites a recent support tour with Kings Of Leon ("They were perfect Southern gentlemen; they bought all the drinks"), while Thomas talks of shooting the video for "What I Say And What I Mean." It involved a troupe of Busby-Berkeley-style synchronised swimmers performing at a pool in Long Beach while The Like performed their debut single on an island stage above.

Despite The Like's burgeoning success, Froom and Thomas say that their famous dads have thus far resisted any temptation to get hands-on with the project. "We wouldn't let them anyway", adds Froom. "As a teenager you want to rebel against your parents, and from the moment we got together we had a policy that our dads wouldn't be involved."

But hasn't Tennessee's old man given her a few pointers on drums? "Not really," she says. "I get frustrated because I can't do what he does. He always ends up saying, 'You're doing it wrong', and I'm like, 'Leave me alone - I'm going shopping.'"

'Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking?' is out now on Geffen

[johnfoyle]

Just saw a poster for this show -

http://www.ticketmaster.ie/event/18003C ... norcatid=1

The Like
Crawdaddy, Dublin, IE
Mon 28 Aug 2006, 18:00

Should be fun ; I'll tell all afterwards!

[lostdog]

Is that a 6pm start? My God!

[johnfoyle]

Is that a 6pm start? My God!

The ticket says doors 8PM. What with support , the Like probably won't be on until 10..........which means I don't have to leave the house until after University Challenge at 8.30..........yes, I am that sad..........

[johnfoyle]

The Like delivered a show with energy and zest. Doing, mainly, songs from their album ( much better live) they engaged with the audience and enjoyed themselves. The tiny venue ( capacity 300) , standing downstairs , seats in balcony, was , for a Monday, surprisingly full. The girls were surprised at how familiar we were with the songs and appreciated it.

For a trio they made a very big sound. Ms Berg drew all kinds of sounds out of her guitar and Ms Thomas was scarily similar to her Dad , attacking the drums but with awesome control , the sound picture being completed by Ms Froom's bass fills. The audience was young , with elder lemons like myself resting our weary bones in the balcony as they cavorted below. A gaggle of girlies were holding hands and swaying together at the stage-front, much to Berg's amusement.

Leaving , I saw Ms Thomas with people in the bar. I said hi, shook her hand and, meaning it, told her she was nearly as good as her Da. She laughed that of, saying something like 'no way!'.

The support , two Dublin bands , were Butterfly Explosion (competent, dull) and Queen Kong ( 5 piece, interesting combination of sax.'n drum machine 'n synth 'n guitar 'n confident vocal).

[johnfoyle]

http://www.unison.ie/entertainment/musi ... si=1679265

It's like, three beauties and the beast of indie rock . . . like

The Like

The Irish Independent

Wednesday August 30th 2006

THE Like are a trio of Los Angeles college girls who look as though they took a wrong turn en route to an audition for 'America's Next Top Model.'

All three are unfeasibly tall and wispy and wear their hair, 60s style, to their waists. One can imagine them spending the entire day at the mall, trying on tie-dye skirts and paisley headscarves.

As soon as they crank up their guitars, however, it is apparent that their presence on stage is no mistake.

Growling indie rock is The Like's forte; they deliver their brusque anthems with a palpable snarl.

Leery audience members busy blowing wolf whistles since the band came on to tune their instruments take a step back, as if afraid of being scalded.

Angry and ardent, the performance will surprise those who know The Like from their recent, debut, album, 'Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking?' Far from seeking to ape Nirvana, the record was a glossy excursion into mainstream LA rock, full of dreamy hooks and soft metal riffs.

Quite what three 20-nothing women were doing with what was essentially a spiky Fleetwood Mac record was a question that occurred to many when the LP hit the shelves.

Maybe they were trying to impress their parents. Frontwoman Elizabeth Berg, after all, is daughter of legendary Hollywood A&R man Tony Berg; drummer Tennessee Thomas's dad played with Elvis Costello; bassist Charlotte Froom owes her chops to her father, the producer Mitchell Froom.

Of the three, it is clear that Berg is the brightest talent. She writes the songs; her voice, honeyed yet with hints of danger, is The Like's strongest suit.

As already noted, the hair is rather fantastic too. One wonders if, in the long term, indie rock might not prove too small a stage for her.

ED POWER

[johnfoyle]

Tennessee Thomas appears to have a blog/journal here -

http://ten.greatestjournal.com/