A pair of new discoveries last night which showed both the best and worst sides of playing someone else's music. At Barbes, Pierre de Gaillende sang the songs of French chanson master Georges Brassens, who rose around the same time as Jacques Brel but never achieved his same fame outside of France. Mostly, that had to do with the frank, literary nature of Brassens' lyrics, which cover everything from pornography to paranoia. (One indie hero commented: "Brassens' lyrics were more subversive than Dylan or the Sex Pistols, and he wrote better tunes than either.") de Gaillende, who also leads local indie outfit Melomane, sang from his own translations and seemed to be enjoying Brassens' wit at least as much as we were. You can catch de Gaillende at Barbes the first Thursday of every month (billed as "Bad Reputation")
Then, over at Bar 4, the cute and charming Katie Costello sang sweet indie pop at the piano with lilt and flair, even if she did sound a lot like Feist and Zooey Deschanel. Unfortunately, the 19 year old Costello also seems to be something of a plagiarist: the title track off her debut album Kaleidoscope Machine is a carbon copy of Montreal band Malajube's "Ton plat favori." How in this digital world did she ever think she'd get away with that? Next time, give credit where credit's due, girl. Noone will hold it against you. (More pics below.) 
