DOES YOU IPOD KNOW: SABRA AND THE BIG BROTHERS

It’s hard to beef on a free festival with five stages all within a block of each other sporting almost 50 acts. But if there’s any performer whose timeslot and stage is out of place at saturday's Westheimer Block Party, it would probably have to be Sabra and the Big Brothers noon appearance outside Numbers. Granted, we have some concern that performing so early in the day might set them up for the sort of audience Satin Hooks was misfortuned with in Austin last week, but more than that, Sabra’s music evokes nothing involving open blue skies above.

MP3: Sabra and the Big Brothers - Gentle Man

'Gentle Man', admittedly the only piece of her music that we have ever heard, really should only be performed at dusk. When the last few shades of white have already been stained grey, and you have to take the long walk alone past the Boo Radley house – the rotting wood palace with no lights inside and a towering ancient oak in the front-yard so immovable that God himself uses it as a foothold to pull the night ever westward. There, on the porch in an old wicker chair, the tip of her boot alone visible through the murk, Sabra plays guitar with only a ghost-rustle of bending leaves as accompaniment.

Is it a lullaby to calm the beasts in the walls behind her? Is it a siren song to lure you to them? Is it both? Can such a mystery ever be pierced without peril? It can, we guess, if she’s playing in the sun – but of all the acts we are looking forward to this weekend, Sabra and the Big Brothers may be the only one where we sit in the alley, back to the fence in listening bliss, and hoping that she and Boo don't see us.