High-Hat Club is very excited for the first installment of Diana and the Dishesf their first Wednesdays of the month show at the High-Hat Club!

You can always count on Chicago band DIANA & THE DISHES to deliver an eclectic, clever, and infectiously tuneful musical package. What’s more, they wrap it in such a sonic power punch that you’ll never know what hit you. Since forming in late 2008 around pianist/singer/songwriter, Diana Lawrence, the band has played a slew of Chicago hot spots, including Martyrs’, Subterranean, the Abbey Pub and the Green Mill. Garnering comparisons to Ben Folds and Fiona Apple, as well as the Beatles and the Gershwins, Diana & the Dishes presents a unique, high-energy recipe of rock, jazz, folk, cabaret, tight musicianship, sharp songwriting, and contagious fun.

It’s no wonder that this band is so on-point: all five members of Diana & the Dishes are professional Chicago musicians. Bassist Dan Thatcher gigs regularly as a jazz upright bass player. Drummer Bob Parlier (who recently replaced founding drummer, Joe Chellman) spent many years touring with the band, Strange Arrangement, and is now gigging and teaching locally. Guitarist Dave Saenger and cellist David Keller play in pit bands for musicals. Frontwoman Diana Lawrence works regularly as a singer, pianist and music director for organizations including the Second City and the Chicago Symphony Chorus. Though the members of this band take music very seriously, the band’s persona is hardly one mired in seriousness. Humor and silliness are regular components of any Diana & the Dishes endeavor, and the band has no qualms with gleefully engaging their audiences.

Diana & the Dishes’ latest seriously fun project was creating their debut album, “Take A Picture,” which was released in August 2010. Produced by Mike Przygoda (the Pawns, Rego, Devin and the Straights) and engineered/mixed at Strobe Recording, the thirteen-track album features the core band supported by additional strings and horns (as well as the occasional vibraphone, glockenspiel, banjo, and rad 80’s synthesizer.) Creative production is hardly the only highlight of this ambitious debut: reviewer Matt Hartgering (www.midbynorthwest.com) described the album as having “songwriting and lyrics… so strong and rich that they nearly become visual.” An auspicious release from a band undoubtedly has a lot to offer, onstage and in the studio.

“Diana and The Dishes is a group that has found a legitimate way to straddle jazz and rock so effortlessly that genres rightfully cease importance.”
– Mike Przygoda, producer, “Take A Picture”

Drawing on styles as wide-ranging as pop, blues, folk, jazz and cabaret, Diana has been compared to Ben Folds, Fiona Apple and Regina Spektor. She has performed her original songs at venues ranging from Uncommon Ground to the Green Mill to the Double Door, and her band, Diana & the Dishes, will be releasing their debut album in the summer of 2010.

“Diana Lawrence… has worked her way around the Chicago music scene… and she’s got an eclectic style to show for it. Her songs mix flavors of jazz, blues, cabaret, folk, pop, and even her classical music roots. As comfortable jamming out on the piano as she is busting out her voice, Diana makes herself into a one-woman wall of sound.”
–Kat Fitzgerald, host of Four Women Only and the Windy City Open Mic

Show starts at 8:30.  No reservations.