Winner of the 2006 Williamsburg Live Songwriter Competition November Feature 2006 Nick Ogawa Feature Show Slideshow Photo by Judith Levitt

Feature Article by Ben Krieger

Back in late September, a songwriter named Nick Ogawa stepped up to the mic, cello in hand, and proceeded to blow the audience away on three separate evenings, plowing his way to the First Place podium. His unique choice of axe may have brightened the spotlight a bit, but the past few months have shown us that the win was no fluke. In fact, Ogawa won another songwriting contest while he was on the West Coast. The artist has been rapidly embraced by the Brooklyn songwriting community, earning the respect and camaraderie of many fellow WLSC contestants. Nick is a genuine talent and having been in NYC for 4 months, he still has plenty of boxes to unpack, all of them labeled "Musical Ambition."

In hindsight, Ogawa's WLSC performances were a bit misleading. While the songwriter can clearly hold his own solo, like a modern day Robert Johnson, his heart lies in the complex, orchestral arrangements that Sufjan Stevens is so fond of. Ogawa acknowledges that critics' darling as a major influence, and adds Zeppelin, Radiohead and Simon as other favorites. In other words, Ogawa thinks big and prefers to execute his ideas on a grand scale. Listening to his recordings- the fondness for overdubbed vocals, complex polyrhythmic layering, reverb galore - one gets a sense that this writer is just getting warmed up. Indeed, Thursday's feature show will introduce Ogawa's new band and more fully-realized arrangements of his material.

Photo by Judith Levitt

Like the rest of us, Ogawa has a MySpace page, but NickOgawa.com is a better place to start. The layout doesn't make it easy for a quick sampling of music and that’s part of what makes it so appealing. Each song gets its own page, complete with photographs and comments that attempt to place the tunes within a particular context. The "Neverland" page, for example, describes Ogawa's encounters with subtle cultural differences while living in Vancouver. The lyrics are a bit cryptic, but the focus is on the arrangement, which depicts the songwriter's frustration aggressively. "Midnight Man," the song that helped Ogawa clench the WLSC win, is also featured on this site... it is the first song he ever wrote on the cello.

Since his arrival on the scene, Ogawa has found many opportunities as a sideman ("Everyone seems to have that one song that they need a cello on.") and he's paying as much attention to peers as they are of him (the songwriter is a fan of WLSC 2nd Placer Bryan Dunn). At the moment, Ogawa's primary focus is his band: getting them in shape for live shows and making a CD. The recordings on his site were done at home. If they sound a gazillion steps up from the average bedroom jamming, it is probably because of the Neumann microphone that the WLSC champ was finally able to pay off with his contest winnings. The impressive performances and fidelity suggest that the new project will be nothing short of astounding. Unlike Sufjan Stevens, Ogawa does not seem keen on throwing his gifts away on lyrics that resemble high school internet research projects. His songs spring from personal experience and careful reflection on his daily encounters with the outside world. Ogawa's inside world (his apartment) is where the songwriter keeps busy writing and rehearsing during the weekdays, paying the bills as a waiter on the weekends.

Jezebel Music's Featured Artists tend to be warhorses of the music scene, seasoned, anchored in, and sporting an arsenal of amassed material. Nick Ogawa is a bit different in that he's just starting out and getting sense of the NYC scene for the first time. The Alchemist talks about how the universe conspires to help people achieve their dreams, particularly at the beginning. Fortune has helped Ogawa hit the ground running, and it will be interesting for us to follow along with him as he gives the Big Apple his best shot.

http://nickogawa.com/