Holly Golightly Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda

When finally we connect by telephone, Holly Golightly is in transit somewhere in Minneapolis, recovering from two weeks of road flu. The conversation is abbreviated by random bouts of coughing. The Brokeoffs — two people, really, her and a bearded guitarist-slash-multi-instrumentalist-singer who calls himself Lawyer Dave — are the best cover band you’ll ever hear. I say that because so much of the stuff the two perform (along with Holly’s originals) is culled deep from recorded Americana. You wouldn’t spot the cover unless you were equally obsessed with cool old tunes. And yes — Holly Golightly is (mostly) her real name, her given surname being Smith. Born in 1966, in England, Golightly’s mom was infatuated with a character in the film version of Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

There’s a local connection: Rocket From the Crypt. “I did some singing for them on one of their albums. No, I don’t remember which. It was what, 1998? Three, maybe four tracks. And after that, I went out with them on their European tour as a backup singer.” Ditto for the White Stripes. Holly played opening dates for that duo and later worked on a track with them. A few years ago, Golightly relocated to Georgia. “Topographically, it’s a lot like where I grew up. I’m a country girl.”

But those originals — you can hear Brit garage rock nested in what is borderline singer/songwriter music. What’s Holly’s songwriting process look like? “A bit of everything, really. I don’t sit down with a guitar and work out something. It’s not that structured. I’ll come up with a melody, or a line. I’ve used pianos for writing. A banjo.” She laughs. By the time she gets to San Diego, her latest Brokeoffs album, Shoulda Woulda Coulda (number 15, since her debut in 1995), will have been released. “Yeah,” she says. “I expect we’ll dig deep, and we’ll play a lot of stuff from the new album.”

The Loons, Dani Bell and the Tarantist, and Madly also perform.