Matt Costa

So I’m sitting on a plane from SLC to PHX and I’ve never been happier to own an iPod. One row in front, and on the opposite side of the aisle, sits perhaps the most heinous woman I have ever laid eyes on. She’s wearing black leggings, an impossibly ugly silver sweater and stupidly thin, “I’m trying to be trendy and young” style glasses to not only look plain retarded, but are probably impossible to read through. Her fat hands keep turning the pages of her book which she is not reading as she gestures wildly and speaks loudly to the lady across the aisle about how stylish and fashionable and rich she thinks she is. She spent 20 minutes making fun of the crap in the in-flight magazine, pretending that she’s so much better than that. (And if her sweater is any indication, she isn’t.) Since sitting in the airport bar near her, and then ending up on the same plane as her, I’ve seen her absolutely decimate at least 5 glasses of scotch and the volume of her voice is adjusting accordingly.

It’s this intro that I use to introduce you to Matt Costa. I’ve been pretending to know him for a little while now, but the last few days have been the first time I’ve had a chance to really dwell on and investigate his album, “Songs We Sing.” It takes a few listens to really get a good feel for a CD and I’m probably not even there yet, but I like to start writing a few listens in and then narrow down and sharpen my original thoughts as I get a better understanding of it.

In my dreams -- the ones where I’m a talented musician with a strong unapologetic voice and some serious guitar chops and I’m sitting at a campfire in the mountains of Colorado with many beautiful women gazing at me adoringly as I entertain the group with songs of tragedy and triumph that simultaneously paint me as a strong yet sensitive renaissance man who never wastes a minute of his precious time and always gets what he wants -- I am Matt Costa.

The guitar is the first thing you notice – and it’s track one and it’s the same chord being strummed repeatedly for about 30 seconds, but it’s good and it draws you in and there’s something about it that once his voice comes in, you just get the feeling that for the next 13 songs, something good is going to happen. And it’s good enough to drown out the most annoying of people. Thank god.

Costa ranges from some of the simplest bar sing-a-longs like “Sunshine” to some more complex tunes like “Sweet Thursday”. But if you’re in a basic mood and just want to hear some good, solid, unassuming, unpretentious tunes, then give Matt Costa a listen. He’s the kind of guy who should be playing Friday nights in a loud bar with a big dance floor, instead he has a CD, so put it on and swing your lady around the living room a few times (Behind the Moon, especially).

There isn’t much else to say, so I’ll wrap up by saying that eventually I’ll pick a CD I don’t like and just skewer it. But for now, I’m having fun listening to music I actually like, so I may stick with that for a while.