Kendra Morris w/ The Silvertone

This is a 21+ event w/ valid ID at Soda Bar - San Diego.

There’s something undeniably out-of-time about both Kendra Morris and her indelibly cool new album I Am What I’m Waiting For (Karma Chief Records). It combines rough-hewn powerhouse vocals with arrangements that betray both an extensive record collection and a whimsical instinct for joyous noises — think Dusty Springfield fronting Spoon circa Kill The Moonlight or a 60s girl group creative directed by Nick Lowe and PeeWee Herman. It’s vibrant and varied and packed with personality.

“How do you put yourself into a record? Torbitt and I wanted to make it feel like you cracked open the ooze in my head,” Morris says, referring to her co-writer and producer Torbitt Schwartz AKA Little Shalimar (Run The Jewels). Morris is an accomplished visual artist and stop-motion animator, so it’s appropriate that I Am What I’m Waiting For takes a collagist approach, mischievously recombining all sorts of rock and roll ingredients — the sass and swagger of Ronnie Spector, the more acid-fried corners of the Nuggets compilations, post-modern interpolations of mid-century exotica music, the cracking snares and sugary urbanity of ESG — while offering moments of vulnerable insight from a life spent in pursuit of creativity.

Morris was a musically precocious child and, after playing in Florida bar bands, moved to New York to chase the dream. Thus began a formative 13-year stint bartending at the beloved Lower East Side dive The Library, which thrust Morris directly into the heart of Manhattan’s fertile post-Strokes creative scene. Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe lived upstairs, music journalist Marc Spitz was a regular, and touring acts would come through to carouse after playing Bowery Ballroom. During those moments, Morris yearned to join the rarefied air of the musicians on the other side of the bar.