***A CD Release party will be held as part of Flaherty's performance at Cafe 939 on Wednesday, July 20th, opening for national artists The Chapin Sisters and Rebecca Loebe (recently seen on NBC's hit show The Voice).***

Lauren Flaherty began 2011 snowed in with Imogen Heap. Well, not really. It’s more accurate to say she started the year hiding from the back-to-back snowstorms clobbering Boston since Boxing Day. Like any good New Englander, she grabbed some Bailey’s, then curled up to watch a documentary detailing Heap’s latest album. Scenes of Heap recording independently in her remodeled childhood playroom inspired her to attempt her own home recording. If it worked, she would have a new release in her hands made on a shoe-string budget. If it failed, she'd at least stave off Winter Madness for a week or two.

Half a year later, Flaherty brings us the results: a six song EP titled "The Southie Chanteuse", a nickname given to her by Hilary Hughes, Music and Arts Editor of The Weekly Dig. The eclectic half album combines the intimacy of ballads recorded in her own childhood bedroom and the raw aggression of live bass and drums recorded at Cambridge's New Alliance Studios. The EP was mixed by Lainey SchoolTree (Producer and First Engineer of Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys' "Steam Ship Killers"), and features a guest appearance by guitar shredder and friend Greg Massi
(Baliset, ex Kayo Dot).

Well-known in the Boston music scene, Flaherty has been performing live for over a decade and has previously self-released two full-length albums: 2009's "You Don't Know Me" and 2006's "What Makes An Angel". She grew up in Southie and graduated from Berklee, later founding the Vocal Program at The Club Passim School of Music and becoming a graduate student at The New England Conservatory. Yet Rock and Roll is always where this hometown girl's heart lies. She counts two of her biggest accomplishments as playing an encore at CBGB's before it closed and performing in Boston Band Crush's One Night Band group 10 Hours of Chaos, helping her pull off a "Mid East Hat Trick"- playing all rooms of the popular club... in one year.