by Steve Leggett Boasting a powerful, slightly raspy singing voice and the stage presence to spotlight it, guitarist/songwriter Amie Miriello also has the rock and pop smarts to be more than just another pretty face in some video. Based out of Stanford, CN, Miriello started writing song lyrics when she was in the fourth grade and regularly participated in high-school and local musical productions as she was growing up. She became friends one summer with guitarist Jay Dmuchowski, and the two developed a close bond while jointly writing music. Miriello moved to New York at 17, but soon dropped out of the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in order to concentrate fully on her songwriting. She and Dmuchowski joined the band Dirtie Blonde, which released a self-titled album on Jive Records in 2006, a project that yielded the infectious single "Walk Over Me." In spite of positive press and a fair amount of airplay, the band didn't last long and Miriello and Dmuchowski returned to playing acoustic sets as a duo. Jive Records wisely picked up her contract as a solo artist, and the title track from her debut album, I Came Around, was released as a single in 2008.