You Heard It First In Salt Lake

It's not super trendy or even particularly upscale. In fact it's a little bit of a dive. Welcome, to the Urban Lounge in Salt Lake City, Utah. Yet, according Cody Derrick, founder of City Home Collective and the expert on all great happenings in Salt Lake, the Urban Lounge has been host to numerous bands, before they made it big. Derrick point out, "Salt Lake is pretty much the only major city in this part of the country other then Denver. It's a great test market for bands to hit before heading east."

The Urban is basically a medium sized rectangle room with a few booths towards the back. It's more or less standing room only, there aren't many places to sit and hang out. The bar towards the back of the room is reasonably stocked, there are generally 6-8 beers on tap and a solid selection of bottled imports. Even with the reasonable selection of beers the Urban clearly isn't intended to be a hang out, type of bar. It's a concert venue, and that's what the location excels at. The sound is excellent, nice and loud without becoming completely overpowering. The stage feels up close and personal from almost any corner of the room. Up front you can easily reach out and touch the artists.

Most importantly of all, Cody Derrick isn't too far off the mark in saying the Urban frequently hosts the up and comers. Certainly, many terrific and well known indie bands have done shows at the Urban Lounge. "Once we were at this super crazy concert. The woman playing was just completely wild, climbing from the rafters. A few months later we realized it was Peaches," Derrick said.

Peaches, who's sound has sometimes been described as "electroclash" played at the Urban in 2006. Though her name may not be known in the same way as artists like Madonna; Peaches really has 'made it' in the music world. Her work has been featured in movies, on TV and she has also been asked to preform guest vocals for artists like Pink and Christina Aguilera. Did this sometimes raunchy performance artist and musician make it big before, or after her visit to Salt Lake? Does Salt Lake City really hear the best, of the best, in music first? Come catch a show and then you decide.