As difficult as it was to brave Friday’s blizzard to attend the second night of New Brunswick, NJ-based Don Giovanni Records’ three-day annual showcase at Music Hall of Williamsburg, we wouldn’t have seriously considered missing it. The lineup was stacked – from opener Hilly Eye, who just released their debut album and started off the evening on an emotional and cathartic note, to Laura Stevenson and the Cans, a band that manages to blow us away every time we see them, the showcase was the perfect thing to make us forget about the winter storm outside. A particular highlight was Jeffrey Lewis, whose special talent is to be depressing and hilarious all at once. This time, his self-deprecating style found its outlet in a spoken piece riffing on Lou Reed’s interpretation of The Raven, in which the raven was a pigeon and the narrator was an old Jewish West Sider. Although her band got stuck in the snow and couldn’t make it, Waxahatchee brought the songs on her lo-fi debut to appropriately gut-wrenching life as she played them solo on guitar. … Read More