People often ask, "So, how did you guys discover Vicky?" I often say, "Well, we didn't really discover Vicky... she discovered us." Back in October of 1995 when she was touring to promote her debut CD Blue Apples, she sent a cassette to Insight Bookstore. Insight called us and as soon as we heard the tape, we knew we had a very original artist on the rise. Wishing to share our "discovery" we invited her to our town and booked her at City of New Orleans, Channing-Murray Foundation, the Blind Pig and Periscope Records.

In the four or five times this Virginia singer-songwriter has graced our town, everyone who has seen her live has fallen in love with her ethereal brand of music and nonchalant chatty stage manner. For her next gig on Monday night, she specifically asked to play The Whole Life Center, where she played for the first time in Champaign to an (almost) private audience of 25. It was from there that word spread of her special brand of ethereal and obtuse songs. Keating enjoys a small yet devoted group of fans in town. Her music has touched many of us deeply with its emotional honesty.

Her latest self-produced CD This Guardian At Noon (available at Periscope and at her show) contains some of our favorites as well as several new pieces. As always, her songs are about signs and miracles, UFOs and other planets, the mysteries of life and the spirit, dreams and other realities. Vicky's live performances are not so much about her music as they are about her energy, which is pure in spirit and magnetic in nature. As sweet as she looks -- that's the way she sounds.

Perhaps she's just a girl and her acoustic guitar travelling the country in her station wagon singing her songs. Or perhaps she's the next Suzanne Vega or Enya about to be discovered by the rest of the world. Either way, every time I hear her music, it gives me tingles all the way up and down my spine and a deep swelling in my chest. As Vicky sings in one of her songs, "all this music is a feast for my insides."