Thu–July 2–Fast Times ’80’s Night
$5
10 p.m.
Fri–July 3–Club of the Sons CD Release Party with Kid Midi plus Bad Chad and The Good Girls
Club of the Sons is a locally based rock band. Their experimental glam/soul is awesome. They are releasing their new album, Young Quintana.
Kid Midi is a house/big beat artist from Lafayette.
Bad Chad and The Good Girls is a group from Lafayette that describe their music as “wonder blown wavy babys. crazy n smooth heavy grooves beaten with lazer stamina jamin he punk into crunk pop. unique dance floor madness to expand the god Dam… too cool for school, too fresh for death, too cute to poot… sincerely so”
$8
Doors at 9
Sun–July 5–A movie screening of Trouble The Water plus a performance by Black Kold Madina
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, this astonishingly powerful documentary is at once horrifying and exhilarating. Directed and produced by Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine producers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, Trouble the Water takes you inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never before seen on screen. The film opens the day before the storm makes landfall—just blocks away from the French Quarter but far from the New Orleans that most tourists knew. Kimberly Rivers Roberts, an aspiring rap artist, is turning her new video camera on herself and her 9th Ward neighbors trapped in the city. “It’s going to be a day to remember,” Kim declares. As the hurricane begins to rage and the floodwaters fill their world and the screen, Kim and her husband Scott continue to film their harrowing retreat to higher ground and the dramatic rescues of friends and neighbors. Lessin and Deal document the couple’s return to New Orleans, the devastation of their neighborhood and the appalling repeated failures of government. Weaving an insider’s view of Katrina with a mix of verité and in-your-face filmmaking, Trouble the Water is a redemptive tale of self-described street hustlers who become heroes—two unforgettable people who survive the storm and then seize a chance for a new beginning.
Click here to view the trailer
Click here to watch a feature on the film
Trouble the Water tells Black Kold Madina(Kimberly Roberts)’s triumphant story and highlights her music.
Click here to learn more about the film’s music
Click here to listen to Trouble The Water, the song
Tix are $15 in advance and $20 at the door
VIP tix(which include an open bar at The El Matador Lounge) are $40.
Screening at 8:30
Black Kold Madina at 10:30
Wed–July 8–The Germs with Moral Decline
THE GERMS REUNITE!
A scenario in which L.A. punk pioneers the Germs reunited and toured a quarter-century after the suicide of lead singer Darby Crash never entered Pat Smear’s head. Even in his wildest imagination.
“No. Never could have thought of it. Never thought I’d play with those guys again,” the band’s guitarist admits.
Or that Darby Crash would be revived by an actor who plays an emergency room doctor on television.
When the Germs reunite on their upcmong tour, Shane West — best known as “ER” intern Ray Barnett — will stand in for Crash, as he does in the 2007 biopic “What We Do Is Secret,” whose title comes from the hyperkinetic 42-second opening track on the Germs’ only full-length album, 1979’s “GI.”
A synopsis of Germs history necessarily races by as fast, and as chaotically, as most of the band’s tunes, beginning in the late ’70s, when punk first roared in London, New York and Los Angeles. That’s where pals-since-high-school Georg Ruthenberg and Jan Paul Beahm — soon reborn as Pat Smear and Darby Crash — formed the Germs with bassist Lorna Doom and just-for-a-minute drummer Dottie Danger, who, as Belinda Carlisle, went on to front the Go-Gos. She was replaced by Don Bolles.
In 1977 came “Forming/Sexboy,” one of the first American punk singles, and a debut at Los Angeles’ Whiskey, quickly followed by an exile from other local venues because of vandalism off- and onstage; the seminal “GI,” produced by Joan Jett; the increasingly erratic behavior of the drug-addicted Crash and his departure from the band for a brief, unsuccessful solo career; Crash’s suicide by heroin overdose four days later — just one day before John Lennon was fatally shot in New York.
Crash was 22.
“It was shocking, but it wasn’t a surprise,” Smear says of Crash’s suicide. “He’d been talking about it for years: ‘This is my [five-year] plan, this is what I’m doing . . . and then I’m going to kill myself.’ Then it was oh, [expletive], he really did what he said he was going to do! That was the surprise.”
And the stuff of legend. Just look at Sex Pistol Sid Vicious, who had followed the same path a year earlier.
The Germs, the first Hollywood punk band to veer into hardcore, made aggressive, technically uncomplicated music that would inspire scores of bands, including Nirvana. Kurt Cobain invited Smear to join that band the year before his own suicide in 1994. Drummer Dave Grohl’s post-Nirvana band, Foo Fighters, also featured Smear in its original incarnation.
A decade ago, filmmaker Rodger Grossman began work on “What We Do Is Secret.” After years of interviews and preparation, shooting finally took place last year. The film is in postproduction, targeted for next year’s film festivals. Made for Rhino Films, it features Rick Gonzalez as Smear, Bijou Phillips as Doom, Noah Segan as Bolles and West in a performance that gives the 28-year-old, best known for family dramas such as ABC’s “Once and Again” and such films as “A Walk to Remember” and “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” the opportunity to reinvent himself as an actor.
He already has one fan.
“I loved Shane the minute I met him, thought he was perfect,” Smear says.
West does bear an uncanny resemblance to Crash, underscored (in the movie) by a copycat panther tattoo, blue contact lens and prosthetic crooked teeth so strongly affixed to his own that they had to be chipped off. Deeper is the actor’s affinity for the music as both a lifelong punk fan and the leader of his own punk band, Jonny Was.
West says that when he met with Grossman and producer-writer Michelle Baer Ghaffari(the drummer in a pre-Germs band with Crash and the gay rocker’s “PR” housemate in “The Decline of Western Civilization,” Penelope Spheeris’s legendary 1981 documentary on the early L.A. punk scene), “we got along very well, and they realized they were talking to someone who knew about punk. It had always been my favorite type of music when I was little — my dad was in a punk band. It was something that not everybody knows about, but I knew about it, and I was a fan of the Germs and of the scene. I practiced with Pat and Don, started learning the songs, and it just kind of grew from there.”
“It was good that Shane already knew how to be a singer, but it wasn’t the same thing,” Smear says. “I’m not sure how much was in character when he was doing it. Because it seemed too natural for him, I never questioned it — he was singing for the Germs.” Smear admits that the actor’s transformation “was kind of weird to watch. It was cool but kinda scary, too. I wasn’t around that much on the set, but when I went, I was always blown away. At first, it kinda shocked me, gave me chills, but after that I got used to it.”
West didn’t just facilitate an external likeness; he also sought the internal Crash, starting with Brendan Mullen’s 2002 oral history, “Lexicon Devil: The Fast Times and Short Life of Darby Crash and the Germs” (the source for an upcoming documentary). He also read many of the same books Crash had read (”Introduction to Scientology Ethics,” “Helter Skelter,” “Season in Hell,” “Brave New World”) and listened to “GI” and David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” album, one of Crash’s key influences. West points out that that album’s first track is “Five Years,” and, he says, “it’s what Darby’s legacy was: I’ll be gone in five years, and I’m here to do whatever I want to do.”
Smear got the role he wanted: working on the music and training non-musician actors to play instruments, sort of. “My attitude was this is a punk rock band, anybody can learn to be a punk rock band,” Smear says with a laugh. “Most of the scenes are of the band live, and I didn’t want to try and fake this in the studio.” The film will mix Germs music with what Smear calls “Baby Germs” music, and Smear also produced the other faux bands, the Mae Shi as L.A. synth-punks the Screamers and the Bronx as hardcore legend Black Flag.
Smear had the actors play at a 2004 party “to have the experience of playing live as a band.” During that performance, the actors handed over their instruments to their Germs counterparts for an impromptu reunion. “We did one rehearsal the day of the show, and it just all came back, which was really weird,” Smear says. “Me and Don always played with a weird ESP anyways — and we’d played together since then — so it was more scary than emotional.”
But Smear says that when he asked Doom, who seemed a little tentative, when she had last touched a bass, she told him it was Dec. 3, 1980 — “Our last show!” he says. “Which I thought was really cool. Her intention was never to be a bass player in a band. It was: ‘I’m the bass player for the Germs. The Germs are over, I’m not a bass player.’ ”
Last year, the Germs and West (whom Bolles nicknamed Shane Wreck) began playing around the Los Angeles area. Smear says, “The more we did it, the more we liked doing it, so the more we booked — Chicago, New York, San Diego — mostly weekends because Shane was booked up Monday through Friday with ‘ER.’ ”
Saturday’s Black Cat show is one of nine concerts in 14 days, and West says he wants to make it clear that “no one is replacing or necessarily trying to be Darby. It’s getting the Germs music out there to people who haven’t been able to hear it and to people who did and want to enjoy it again.”
Still, this might be it for the actor-musician duality that dots West’s CV.
“I’m pretty much trying to stay away from that now,” says West, noting that in his second year on “ER,” he was “fired from the band after a practice because I didn’t want it to be about that anymore and didn’t want to cheapen the legacy of the show.” Even Jonny Was is on hiatus while West spends the summer in punk fantasy camp.
“This is the experience of a lifetime for me,” he says, “and in a weird way, kind of a dream come true: to be part of such a famous and infamous band in the scene that I loved and play with and meet people that I looked up to when I was growing up.” (The Germs have shared bills recently with Suicidal Tendencies, Fear and Flipper, among others.)
The role, West says, “was a big learning process, but I at least had some knowledge of the chaos that scene brought at that time. The bands that I’d been in growing up were all a little chaotic ourselves. . . . Nowhere near the Germs, obviously.”
And Smear thinks the end result is neither caricature nor mimicry.
“I’m not sure how much Shane was in character when he was doing it — it seemed too natural for him. I never questioned it — he was singing for the Germs! To me, it was his own thing. We sometimes get ‘He’s so Darby’ or ‘I wish he were more Darby.’ Shane does his thing, and we like the way he does it.”
Click here to listen to Moral Decline
Tickets are $13 in advance and $15 at the door
Doors at 9
Fri–July 10–The Public with The Tomatoes plus The Blackbelt Band
the public was formed in 2003 by drummer bryan besse and guitarist jack champagne with the singular goal of creating the band they wanted to listen to. singer/guitarist travis shuler soon joined the lineup and the trio began working on a few songs inspired by 60’s pop, 70’s glam, 80’s uk goth/postpunk, and 90’s britpop. a few months later, with the public’s first show already booked, bassist ryan plattsmeir joined just in time to complete the group before it hit the stage. an ep/demo (we are the public) was released soon afterward and the band has since played many successful shows in their hometown of New Orleans and around the U.S. The Public has independently produced and released an ep/demo, and a full length “saturn missile battery”. In August of 2007 they signed with NYC based indie Five03 records and their next recording, “No Love Is Permanent” is due 2009.
A lot has built up inside of Will Burdette, principal singer and songwriter for local rock band the Tomatoes since the release of the band’s second album, Trendy, roughly one year ago. Thankfully, he’s got an outlet for all of his pent up frustrations. Teeming with angst, abnegation, and a predisposition towards desolation, the group’s third album, Divisionism, finds them ruminating on the ethos of post-punk and grunge. “I think I’ll live and die in the city,” Burdette spews across the streaks of “Vendetta” before the angry noise-rocker meagerly transforms into a riff-heavy grunge chorale. The song, much like the album, is a herky-jerky ride that recollects such icons as the Pixies, the Afghan Whigs, Sonic Youth, and Pearl Jam. When Divisionism’s fragile emotions and frantic electricity converge, the results are both explosive and enigmatic (“Harvest,” “Automatik”). After burrowing through a mountain of emotional wreckage, Divisionism’s latter tunes surface to deliver a poignant catharsis. Following the ethereal instrumental, “M2M,” “The Futurist” unfolds from a lo-fi lament to a grandiose garage anthem highlighted by a gliding organ solo. “Death Ray Days,” the album’s final track, hits the bar with an intoxicating shot of Americana that rivals the antics of indie outlaws the Hold Steady. Erratic, emotional, and evocative, Divisionism captures the Tomatoes’ maturation as they come to terms with their sound and their existence as a band at a crucial juncture in their career. In the end, their mantra manifests itself: “Paranoia makes you stronger.” — Aaron Lafont, offBEAT Magazine
The Black Belt Band boasts a blend of acoustic, electric and electronic instrumentation. Traces of progressive/experimental rock, blues, post-punk, reggae, cinematic scoring, and about a hundred thousand other influences can show up at any given moment. Rather than hop around in and out of genres, these guys have instead smoothly combined all of these seemingly disparate elements into each song to create something entirely unique. As a live band, these guys are simply transcendent. The music is so rich, so multilateral, as each song unfolds its story. Each component plays wonderfully off the next. Individual musical lines converge and separate, weaving among themselves, producing a whole different atmosphere capable of lifting even the most jaded, apathetic heart.
doors at 9
Sat–July 11–Sick Like Sinatra CD Release Party with White Colla Crimes plus Kings of Happy Hour
Sick Like Sinatra is an awesomely theatrical local rock/dance group.
White Colla Crimes is a local hip hop group–just 11 nine-to-five soldias tryin to make it in these crazy corporate times.
A wise bartender once described Kings of Happy Hour as “the bastard love child of Iris May Tango and Morning 40 Federation,” their hip hop/funk/soul stylings infused with a cheap-beer-and-whiskey-tinged “We Don’t Give a F*ck” party vibe like no other.
Adjectives don’t begin to describe them, so they made their own: BALLS ON TOP.
Three of their six members grew up on the mean streets of Old Metairie, giving them instant street cred and a hard knock’s knowledge of the THUG LIFE.
They bring the Party that Rawks ya Body, from clubs as diverse as Circle Bar to One Eyed Jacks and Tipitina’s.
They sing about booze, loose women, and 8 bit nintendo because it’s what they know best.
They believe set lists are evil and refuse to use them.
They love early 80’s hip hop without any sense of irony, peppering their sets with beats and lyrics that would make even Kool Keith proud.
What more needs to be said?
Doors at 9
Fri–July 17–Simple Play Productions Presents Flow Tribe, The Gills, and Happy Jack Frequency
Boiled in the musical melting pot of New Orleans, simmered in Louisiana soul, the 6 childhood friends in Flow Tribe are transcending the traditional barriers of the music establishment with their unique style and sound. With the delicacy of a sledgehammer, Flow Tribe fuses psychedelic/blues and funk/rock to captivate any crowd within hearing distance. Age is irrelevant, anyone with functioning eardrums will be vibrating and salivating to the sweet sounds of Flow Tribe. From the Voodoo Music Experience to on top of a Mardi Gras float, the sound beast that is Flow Tribe guarantees a mind bending live performance by talented musicians who bring the crowd in contact with a higher musical power. Namely, the power that cracks yo backbone, flips your switch, and sends any event into the 4th Dimension.
The Gills are an indie rock/psych/folk band from Pensacola.
Click here to listen to Happy Jack Frequency
$9
doors at 9
Sat–July 18–We Landed on the Moon! with Silent Cinema
“If you like super energetic, angsty 1980s-style tunes about failed love affairs and unsatisfactory men, this is your ticket.”–Pop Matters
We Landed on the Moon! is John, Melissa, Josh, Jon and Spence.
In 2006, they made their first album, We Landed on the Moon! and then, by dumb luck or perhaps because of the tasty astronaut ice cream they gave with each record, radio stations across the country played it. People clapped and cheered and whistled at their Baton Rouge shows (those who could whistle)- enough that they decided to go play shows for far away people in a van that ran out of freon every hundred miles or so.
They became experts on convenience stores across the country. They sang and played and danced and drank, and learned things that you just don’t learn at home- that the cops in NYC’s Chinatown are surprisingly civil even if your host wants to throw a microwave out his front door at 4 am, and that there’s no tougher walk than dragging your equipment across the crowded sidewalks of SXSW. They got to play music in Toronto and DC and all sorts of cities they wanted to see, and they got to do it together.
And even more amazingly, people started showing up to sing their songs with them everywhere they went. This made the band want to make even more music.
And so they did.
We Landed on the Moon’s new album is These Little Wars. They are hard at work writing songs for another record, and you can catch them on another tour this Spring ‘09 with their friends, the toast of Champaign, IL Elsinore.
Indie Rock Sexy Party!
The metamorphosis of Micah McKee has been fun to watch. In 2003, I interviewed McKee and guitarist Matt Glynn, asking inane questions like “Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton?” and “Jeff Buckley or Elliott Smith?”, and they answered gamely. (Keaton and Buckley, for the record, although they were split on the latter.) Silent Cinema was a newish outfit, having just issued a debut record of folksy, frail indie rock, and the two railed against the dearth of nonfunky music in New Orleans. Five years later, with Glynn as part of a revamped seven-piece, McKee is prepping a new LP, Fins and Feathers, and as his songs have focused less on folk, they’ve likewise become less frail — quite sturdy, in fact. His wispy whisper has evolved into a throaty bellow, and the band behind him has fleshed out the skeletal acoustic melodies to include alt-country mood swings and barroom sing-alongs.— Noah Bonaparte Pais
Doors at 9
Sat–July 25–The Consortium of Genius presents an all-star guitar string release party featuring CROWBAR with special appearance by Yngwie Flattstein
The Consortium of Genius are on a quest to rock the world into oblivion. These mad scientists will stop at nothing to make you bow before the COG!
Click here to learn more at their website
Doors at 9
Sun–July 26–T Bird and The Breaks plus Good Enough for Good Times
The bassist and backup singers may look too young to vote, but newcomers T Bird & the Breaks are old souls bringing serious R&B heat. The 10-piece indulges the requisite Wilson Pickett and Sly & the Family Stone covers but is at its best pounding out originals by dynamic frontman Tim Crane, a slick-haired, gravel-voiced shouter in the mold of blue-eyed Texas soul sensation Roy Head.
Good Enough for Good Times started up as a band due to the lack of musicians in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. A lot of the club owners were calling around asking musicians to put something together to fill their empty stages. GEFGT came together to play for them, the New Orleans’ folks who came home after the storm and needed to hear some good music to get their minds off off the crazy SH*T that was going on around them. They had such a great time playing together that they just continued to do it.
Tix are $6 in advance and $9 at the door
Doors at 9
Mon–July 27–The Jim Rose Circus vs. Jake “The Snake” Roberts
“The absolute must-see act is the Seattle-based Jim Rose Show” –Rolling Stone
“The line in Salt Lake City stretched all the way to the Mormon Temple. They had to turn hundreds away” –Wall Street Journal
“His delivery is brutally comic. He plays the highly-strung audience like a violin” -The Independent, London
The Jim Rose Circus is a modern day sideshow. In 1994 The Jim Rose Circus was chosen to tour with Nine Inch Nails and a then-unknown Marilyn Manson, and later with KoRn and Godsmack. 1998 saw another world tour featuring women sumo wrestling,mexican transvestite wrestling and chain saw football.
In 2009 Jim Rose joins with professional wrestler Jake “The Snake” Roberts for The Legends Collide Tour, a forty city campaign heralded as “Jake Roberts conquering his troubled past” amidst ” pretty girls, wrestling, amazing circus stunts… and a fist fight.”
Click here for the Jim Rose MySpace page
Tix are $15
Doors at 9
Sat–August 1–The Legendary Shack Shakers plus Bobby Bare Jr.
The Legendary Shack Shakers’ hell-for-leather roadshow has earned quite a name for itself with its unique brand of Southern Gothic that is all-at-once irreverent, revisionist, dangerous, and fun. Led by their wildly charismatic, rail-thin frontman/blues-harpist, J.D. Wilkes, the Shack Shakers are a four-man wrecking crew from the South whose explosive interpretations of the blues, punk, rock and country have made fans, critics and legions of potential converts into true believers. With the recent addition of former Jesus Lizard guitarist Duane Denison (Hank III/Tomahawk) and drumming wunderkind, Brett Whitacre, the Legendary Shack Shakers have quickly become known for providing some of the best entertainment (live or otherwise) that you can get for your hard earned money.
As a budding filmmaker, “Colonel” J.D. has recently made his directorial debut with the indie documentary “Seven Signs.” The film depicts a struggling Appalachian and Delta culture that survives to this day, despite heavy modernization. The film has won both critical acclaim and even the “Best Featurette” trophy at Philadelphia’s Backseat Film Festival, before moving on to Cannes.
Described as “…the last great Rock and Roll frontman” by Jello Biafra (of the Dead Kennedys), Shack Shakers front man J.D. Wilkes began yelpin the blues through a ham radio microphone at his boyhood home of Paducah, Kentucky…a short farmer’s blow away from where his future bassist Mark Robertson was cutting his teeth on punk rock and gospel in Nashville, Tennessee. When their paths crossed a few years later in the lawless honky tonks of Music City’s Lower Broadway scene, they found their individuated styles and common interests meshed. That’s when the like-minded, red-headed musical misfits began their crusade.
For the uninitiated, the band’s debauched live show is the necessary counterpart to their hard-hitting recordings. Hillbilly royalty, Hank Williams III once said after touring with them that it was “like having SLAYER open up for you every night,” and called J.D. Wilkes and his crew, “the best damn front man and band in America.” On stage, J.D. Wilkes is like a mad southern preacher with a bible in one hand and a glass of strychnine in the other. Meshing Pentecostal themes with pained lyrics and show-stopping moves that draw comparisons to Tom Waits and the grotesque facial and bodily contortions of Iggy Pop, the band has developed a live show like none other.
Having toured both the U.S and Europe relentlessly for the past two years, the word of mouth on the live Shack Shakers experience is so strong that it reached the likes of Robert Plant, who made it a priority to see them at the 2005 SXSW Music Festival in Austin, TX. One performance was all it took for Plant to join the converted. After seeing the band’s show at SXSW, Plant invited the Shack*Shakers to support him on his recent European tour, which kicked off in Paris, France on November 9th. “It’s F***ing Great,” said Robert Plant on the Legendary Shack Shakers.
“We try to tap into basic primal instincts,” said Wilkes. “Rock ‘n’ roll is a cathartic release. Anything that doesn’t realize that bestial nature isn’t rock ‘n’ roll.”
The band is also well known for “The CB Song”, a.k.a: the soundbed for the long-running “Sunglasses” Geico commercial, featuring the famous gecko spokeslizard. The song was even listed by author Stephen King as one of his top five favorite tunes in a 2008 article in Entertainment Weekly.
In addition to his musical accolades, J.D. Wilkes has also been recognized as an accomplished illustrator and painter whose works further the band’s mission of celebrating and honoring the tradition of the American south. Alarm Magazine recently described him as the “Ambassador of Genuine Traditional Southern Culture” and compared his unique storytelling abilities to that of other Southern voices such as William Faulkner, Johnny Cash and Muddy Waters.
Some words about Bobby Bare Jr.–
“It’s as melancholy as anything Gram Parsons or The Stones ever attempted in the early ’70’s, as orchestrally-ambitious as Bowie’s most experimental work, and as groovin’ as any CCR hit.” - Charleston City Paper
“He’s forged a musical style that blends smoking country rock and dreamy ’80s Britpop in way that must leave Ryan Adams stricken with envy. Those who latch on to From the End… will likely find themselves returning to it for years.” - Performing Songwriter
“It is a thoughtful, funny, mournful, bittersweet CD full of haunting lyrics played with an almost psychedelic sentimentality…” - Exclaim
“The album paints him as a troubadour with a brawler’s mentality, a rough-and-tumble punk rocker and a Gen-Y soul shouter who’s not afraid to record a brooding, acoustic tune.” - Magnet
Tix are $10 in advance and $12 at the door
Doors at 9
Sat–August 15–Bowerbirds with Megafaun
“Bowerbirds, from Raleigh, North Carolina, come out of the same nature-worshipping circles as the Microphones, and are similarly understated: Undersung male-female harmonies, accordion and plucky acoustic guitar, brushed drums, and the occasional violin.”–Pitchfork
“With the interesting instrumentation, plaintive male-female vocal harmonies and varying arrangements, Moore’s songs took on a rambling dimension that would be just as at home in an Eastern European gypsy encampment as they’d be on some rogue, restless pirate ship. These North Carolina pop darlings soar with quirkiness and plenty of pluck.”–SPIN Magazine
“Bowerbirds opened the show last night with their enchantingly delicate musical poetry. Having already listened to their songs a fair amount I knew to expect beauty and high quality songwriting; however, I wasn’t ready for how perfect their vocals came across in person.”–Ear Farm
Their highly-anticipated second album, Gather, Form & Fly, is a monument to a band that hundreds have experienced on stages, under trees, in galleries, on floors, in headphones, and through radios-with-the-windows-down over the past three years. All the hints they’ve given us — from songs Stereogum described as “mournful, slow-blooming banjo-and-white-noise-laced epics” to tours with The Rosebuds, Arnold Dreyblatt, and Akron/Family — have culminated in a record that is an ode to death, love, musical history (from blues to musique-concréte), community, tradition, and experimentation. In all, it’s an ode to the listener.
Based in Durham, North Carolina, Megafaun was built by brothers Brad and Phil Cook and fellow Eau Claire, Wisconsin, native Joe Westerlund. The trio, plus longtime friend Justin Vernon (a.k.a. Bon Iver), made the cross country move together from WI to NC as the band DeYarmond Edison, ultimately splitting in 2006. Megafaun was born from those ashes and proceeded to record the remarkable album Bury the Square in 2007. They found a home on the road, collaborating with friends (they also joined Akron/Family and Dreyblatt as backing band) and developing an American musical language that is exquisitely translated by this year’s Gather, Form & Fly.
Tix are $10 in advance and $12 at the door
Doors at 9
Thu–August 20–The Warlocks with The Morning After Girls
Time isn’t constant or concrete. It’s made of color and shade. Time flows, blurs and fades away in dim morning light. Time melts. And The Warlocks are the ecstatic, hazy, foreboding, holy tick tock of time that isn’t anything at all. For five albums, The Warlocks have lived in between and beyond minutes and hours. Sway to The Warlocks live and loud and songs will drift and envelop each other like fog. Listen to the records and you’ll hear soundtracks to fuzz-freaked, bacchanalian stomps, pre-dawn city prowls, sleeping late with new crushes, and the elation and exhaustion that wash in and recede deep in the wee hours. The Warlocks new LP The Mirror Explodes speaks and whispers from all of these places. But where the band’s last long player, Heavy Deavy Skull Lover, tweaked time in a icy-cool, white-noise swirl that evoked a decadent lysergic night, The Mirror Explodes is disorientation through a longer lens —pictures of luck, longing, losing, moods and fever dreams scrambled in the haze of near and distant memory. On the 8 songs of The Mirror Explodes, the band’s signature amalgam of White Light/White Heat attack; space panoramas, fuzz, melancholy, and melody is present and potent. But there is vivid focus too. Throbbing bass lines, distant rolling thunder drums, and zombie rattlesnake shake are a heartbeat of strange, ominous vitality. Guitars howl, slash and bounce like light. Bobby Hecksher’s vocals sound oddly alone and unsettlingly intimate all at once. And just when you think you understand the sum of these sonic elements, they become something else entirely…
About The Morning After Girls:
“Tonight’s set is a non-stop 45-minute effects-laden rollercoaster ranging from the narco-haze of Chasing Us Under (possibly the most beautiful song you’ll hear next year) to the punky screamathon of Hi-Skies”–NME
“Imagine what Primal Scream would sound like if Bobby Gillespie layered his years of experience on top of one another…Imagine if The Kills sounded like they wanted to have sex with you rather than each other……8/10″–NME
Tix are $10 in advance and $12 at the door
Doors at 7
Fri–August 21–The Donnas
The last time the Donnas played my town, one of them ended up face down on the hood of a cop car, arms behind her back, handcuffs cutting off the circulation to her clenched fists. Her crime? Drinking whiskey in the streets of Canada.
Yes, The Donnas are for real and they are here to stay. They are a loud and proud American original. They are a band of influence, survivors in an industry known more for comet casualties than career success stories. And the Donnas really are a savvy, brazen success story; they are the American Rock n’ Roll Machine.
The legend begins in a Palo Alto junior high school in Northern California where four self-described “dorky pre-teen girls” form a rock n’ roll band at the age of 13 in 1993, under the influence of KISS, Motley Crue, and the Ramones. Over the course of the next 16 years, eight ever-evolving, critically acclaimed rock n’ roll albums are released. The Donnas jet-set the planet several times over to an ever-expanding, international fan base of rabid “Donnaholics.” From Palo Alto to the stages of Letterman and Saturday Night Live, to the pages of Rolling Stone and the cover of Billboard, The Donnas have grown up to become one of the best female rock groups of all time.
Sixteen sweet years later, the exact original line-up remains intact: Brett Anderson on lead vocals, Maya Ford on bass, Allison Robertson on guitar and Torry Castellano on drums–a steadfast longevity that is testament to their deep four-way friendship and career dedication. But there is a vast divide between the awkward tweens of the 1990s and The Donnas of the 2000s. Besides utterly poker-hot musicianship, the gorgeous foursome has entered into a new chapter of maturity, comfort, and nostalgia, looking back on their long career of growing up Donnas.
“It feels almost exactly the same as when we were 13 years old rehearsing and writing together” states Robertson, one of the best rock guitarists, female, male or otherwise, playing today. “The Donnas are a true gang in every sense of the word. We will always be unified as friends first, and that is why we have lasted so long.”
To celebrate 16 legendary years of pounding out head-banging, fist-pumping rock and roll together, on July 7, 2009, The Donnas unleash a career-spanning retrospective entitled The Donnas Greatest Hits Vol 16, on their own Purple Feather Records.
“I am so glad we decided to make a Greatest Hits because it let us re-live some of the best moments of our career” says power-house lead singer Brett Anderson. “Part of the charm of those early songs is their lo-fi sound, but it was fun to give them a super-charged makeover now that we’ve played them live so many times.”
The 16 track hits package features two brand new songs, two never-before-heard b-sides from their self-released 2007 album Bitchin’, and live versions of hits “Take It Off” and “Fall Behind Me.” And Donnaholic super-geeks rejoice: also included are “I Don’t Wanna Break Your Head” and “Teenage Rules,” two extremely rare, unreleased tracks from the band’s now-classic debut album.
“We’re very excited about those two tracks” says Allison Robertson. “They were meant to be released in Japan years ago but never came out. We thought they were long gone, and all we had were foggy yet fond memories of how the tunes actually went.”
The Donnas also re-recorded five tracks, remixed one and included two alternative versions of songs from their hugely influential Lookout! Records catalog (1998-2001).
“Re-recording our older songs was like opening a time capsule” says Brett. “I could almost smell the donuts baking in the middle of the night next to the Mail Boxes Etc. where we recorded our very first songs.”
The Donnas: a four-way, equal partnership of women in friendship, art and business. A rare trust exists between these members that most bands could never dream of achieving in a similar group dynamic. That is why most bands break up and The Donnas continue to stick together and thrive, celebrating sixteen candles… and counting.
… and when they come back to rock Canada, the whiskey is on me.
-Grant Lawrence
Rock and Roll Music Journalist
Vancouver BC Canada
Tix are $15 in advance
Doors at 9
Thu–September 3–An Evening with Sleepy Sun
Sleepy Sun is an apt title for this young San Francisco sextet, as their debut record, “Embrace”, is one of those rare slabs of rock and roll that will wake you up in the morning, and send you off to sleep at night. After honing their craft in the occult influenced creative community of Santa Cruz, the band has continued to grow, both creatively and in their loyal following, since their relocation to the city by the bay. With their throbbing rhythm section, swirling sea of guitars, and dreamy, haunting duet vocals, the word dynamic is a severe understatement.
Though the press is quick to rifle off a laundry list of rock’s greatest ghosts to describe their sound, one live show is all you need to know Sleepy Sun have stumbled upon something very much their own. Having performed their raw, high energy show on stages shared with acts such as Howlin’ Rain, Earth, Dead Meadow, and Citay, they are quickly establishing themselves as a very tough act to follow. Fans at shows are known for shouting the band’s battle cry, “Let’s get weird”. If the group continues down their rapid road to success, things are about to get very weird indeed.
Tix are $10
Doors at 7
Fri–September 4–QuiVa Productions Presents Groundation with special guest
Groundation is bringing classic roots music into the serious times of the 21st century. Their sound is an organic fusion of Roots Reggae, heavy Funk/Jazz fusion, and transcendental Dub; their live shows are synonymous with high-energy positive communal vibrations, combining the message and determination of the best Reggae music has to offer with perpetually fresh Jazz-inspired improvisation…Truly not to be missed.
Tix are $17 in advance and $20 at the door
Doors at 9
Tue–September 22–The Horrors with Crocodiles
The Horrors have their origin in the early 2000s where they became interested in obscure vinyl and DJing. During trips to London and on the Southend circuit, Rhys “Spider” Webb met Faris Badwan(Faris Rotter) and Tom Cowan(Tomethy Furse), who had attended Rugby School together, through their shared interests in ’60s garage rock, and in 2005 the three formed a band with Joshua Hayward(Joshua Third) and Joseph Spurgeon(Coffin Joe).
Their first rehearsal consisted of two covers: The Sonics’ “The Witch” and Screaming Lord Sutch’s “Jack the Ripper”(heavily influenced by previous cover versions by The Fuzztones, One-Way Streets and The Gruesomes)– the latter would later find itself as track one on the band’s debut album.
The Horrors first gained noticeable exposure thanks to their first single “Sheena Is a Parasite.” Their second release, “Death at the Chapel,” a high-profile show at London’s 100 Club in July 2006, and an appearance on the cover of the NME in August, greatly increased their profile. As a result of this exposure, the band played the NME Awards Indie Rock Tour in early 2007 along with Mumm-Ra, The View, and The Automatic, which helped them to gain further publicity.
Having released their debut album Strange House in March 2007, The Horrors played a world tour to promote it. The band appeared at the Glastonbury Festival, the Summer Sonic Festival in Japan, and Splendour in the Grass in Australia; their setlists throughout the summer contained a cover of “No Love Lost” by Joy Division. The Horrors also supported the Arctic Monkeys on their sell-out arena tour of the UK.
At the end of 2007, The Horrors announced the forthcoming recording of a new album. The sophomore album Primary Colours was officially released 4 May 2009 to critical acclaim and reached #25 on the UK Albums Chart. The single “Who Can Say” was released on 7″ vinyl one week later.
Click here to listen to Crocodiles
Tix are $12
Doors at 9
Tue–October 6–Charlatans UK
Working from a Stonesy foundation, the Charlatans added dance-oriented rhythms and layers of swirling organs straight out of ’60s psychedelia. Their initial singles — including “The Only One I Know” — were hits, and they followed that success with their eponymous fourth album, which found them embracing not only the flourishing Brit-pop movement, but also underground dance and techno, as well as their mainstay of classic rock. The Charlatans UK debuted at number one, and the group was hailed. The subsequent album, Tellin’ Stories, debuted at number one upon its 1997 release, suggesting that they had become one of the great British journeyman bands of the ’90s.
At the time of their formation in 1989, they were inspired by the emergence of the Stone Roses. Rob Collins (keyboards), Jon Baker (guitar), Martin Blunt (bass), and Jon Brookes (drums) formed the Charlatans, rehearsing with a variety of vocalists before Tim Burgess joined as their singer. The group formed Dead Dead Good Records and released their debut 12″ single, “Indian Rope,” in January 1990. Collins’ dynamic, sweeping Hammond organ distinguished the group from their Madchester peers, and the single became a number one hit on the indie charts. By the spring, they signed with Beggars Banquet, releasing “The Only One I Know” a few months later. Using jangle pop and funk, “The Only One I Know” became a monster hit, climbing into the pop Top Ten and becoming the group’s signature single. Following another hit single, “Then,” the band’s debut album, Some Friendly, was released in the fall, debuting at number one.
Tix are $20
Doors at 9
