Happy dreary Thursday everyone! Celebrate the government being open again and go see one of these shows happening tonight!
Hunter Hayes with Ashley Monroe @ The Fox Theatre
The Country Music Association’s choice as the best New Artist of 2012 earned his trophy because of his intense, single-minded dedication to his music. Hunter Hayes works at his craft virtually every waking hour. In his world, there are no days off. There are no hobbies or outside interests. Everything is focused on musical self-improvement. “With me, it’s always going to be music,” he states. “That’s the one thing I know. That is my thing. That is my place. I make music because it’s the only way I can breathe. This is how I want to spend the rest of my life.”
Wild Belle with Snowmine and Dog Jail @ The Earl
Wild Belle is the new duo of siblings Natalie and Elliot Bergman. The two have weaved in and out of each other’s musical lives for years sharing records, tapes, sounds and experiences. Wild Belle marks their first official collaboration, finding their sound rooted on a tropical island where rocksteady rhythms, disco beats and soulful grooves shine down steadfast and abundant.
Doors open at 8:30pm.
Tickets are $15.
Online, phone, and outlet sales end at 6pm today!
Cherry Poppin’ Daddies @ Smith’s Olde Bar
“You can’t fake something that’s fine,” says Steve Perry, founder and frontman of the one and only Cherry Poppin’ Daddies. Masters of both extraordinary elegance and bird-flipping fury, Cherry Poppin’ Daddies are indeed the real deal. Ever impossible to pigeonhole, White Teeth, Black Thoughts sees the Eugene, Oregon-based big band pushing themselves to the outer limits of inspiration and invention, resulting in two-count ‘em-two distinctive collections. The primary album marks CPD’s first jazz and swing-powered outing in more than a decade, while the exhilarating bonus disc is built upon a twisted frame of guitar-slinging rock ‘n’ roll. Perry once again affirms his standing as a songwriter, bandleader, and bomb thrower of the first order with songs like the defiant “I Love American Music,” utilizing deeply embedded textures of the past to directly and provocatively face up to our present and future. As brave and articulate as it is boisterous and celebratory, Cherry Poppin’ Daddies’ White Teeth, Black Thoughts is the souped-up, swinging sound of America’s dance band playing as the ship goes down.
Doors open at 8pm.
Tickets are $25.
Online and phone sales end at 2pm today!
Seth Walker @ Eddie’s Attic
Growing up on a commune in rural North Carolina, the son of classically trained musicians, Seth Walker played cello before discovering the guitar. His introduction to the blues came via his Uncle Landon Walker who was both a musician and disc jockey. Before long Seth was looking to artists like T-Bone Walker, Snooks Eaglin, and B.B. King as a wellspring of endless inspiration. He released five albums between 1997 and 2007; his eponymously titled recording debut for Hyena Records broke into the Top 20 of the Americana charts and received praise from No Depression and Blues Revue, among others. In addition to extensive national touring, Seth was chosen to headline the 28th Annual Rawa Blues Festival in Poland and was a featured performer on Delbert McClinton’s Sandy Beaches Cruise in 2009 and 2010, while having opened shows for Raul Malo, Paul Thorn, and Ruthie Foster, among others. With a blues man’s respect for roots and tradition, coupled with an appreciation for—and successful melding of—contemporary songwriting, Seth is one of a handful of artists who incorporate a wide range of styles with warmth and grace. Perhaps Country Standard Time said it best: “If you subscribe to the Big Tent theory of Americana, then Seth Walker –with his blend of blues, gospel, pop, R&B, rock, and a dash country—just might be your poster boy.”
Doors open at 9:15pm
Tickets are $10 in advance and $14 at the door.
Tables with 4 reserved seats are $50.
Online and phone sales end at 5pm today!
Hannah Thomas with Cheley Tackett @ Eddie’s Attic
Hannah Thomas has spent the last year in the car, from Akron, OH, to Greenwich Village in NYC, from Charlotte, NC to Oxford, MS, from Jacksonville, FL to Nashville, TN Hannah has been out there playing her music for anyone who will listen. And lots of people have been listening, and many of those folks chipped in to help Thomas make her first studio CD in 2 years. The first thing you will notice is Thomas’ voice. Grammy winner Shawn Mullins has commented “No Auto-Tune needed on that voice.” Hannah sings songs with the passion of someone twice her years. Goodbye on Wasted on Time features some of Atlanta’s best musicians, Jaron Pearlman on drums, Benjamin Ryan Williams on bass and Shim Gartner on guitar. Produced by Rob Gal and Jaron Pearlman, Goodbye is a culmination of the past year of songwriting. Read our interview from last year with Hannah here!
Doors open at 6:30pm.
Tickets are $10 in advance and $14 at the door.
Online and phone sales end at 5pm today!
Jel @ 529
Today Jel lives in the Oakland Bay Area with the same SP-1200 he purchased as a teen. They left the Midwest together in a concerted effort to defy genre with a collective of like-minded individuals and instruments. His crunchy punched-out beats and swells of low-bit atmospherics have become anticon trademarks, highly sought after by artists around the globe. Jel was one of the first, if not the very first musician to use the a drum machine in live performance like a drum kit with little to no sequencing. Using the pads on the drum machine, Jel plays each snare, bass kick, cymbal and loop with his fingers. And his raps ain’t half bad either. To date, Jel’s list of collaborators includes Can’s Malcolm Mooney, Stephanie Bohm from Ms. John Soda, Mike Patton, Wise Intelligent of Poor Righteous Teachers, Black Thought of the Roots, DJ Krush, Mr. Dibbs, Sage Francis, Atmosphere, and just about the entire anticon roster, naturally. Jel is currently a member of Themselves (with Doseone and Dax Pierson), Subtle (a cello-drumssamplers-guitar-keyboards-winds-and-words sextet on Lex artists), and 13 & God (Themselves and the Notwist). His second solo full-length is entitled Soft Money.
Doors open at 9pm.
Tickets are $10.
Online, phone, and outlet sales end at 6pm today!
Atlas Genius @ The Center Stage Theater
Their debut captures Atlas Genius’s singular combination of sophisticated musicality and warm, wistful spirit. Infused with a classic sensibility, each of the songs would fit seamlessly if somehow slipped into a long-treasured mixtape. On the shimmering “Symptoms,” for instance, taut keyboard riffs mesh with urgent acoustic strumming before the band bursts into a gently frenetic, guitar-drenched chorus. Meanwhile, “Back Seat” blends its pulsing bass throb with a sweetly infectious beat and tender vocals that alternately soar and sigh. And on “Trojans,” Atlas Genius begins with a restrained guitar melody and vocal (“Take it off, take it in/Take off all the thoughts of what we’ve been”) before giving way to the handclap-accented, harmony-soaked refrain and lush yet kinetic bridge. “It’s still surreal,” says Keith Jeffery of all that’s happened over the past 18 months. “I think when we were very young, we had hopes that something like this might happen one day,” he continues. (Thanks largely to encouragement from their Beatles fanatic parents, who encouraged the brothers to begin playing music by age 14.) “But then you grow up a bit and it seems less and less likely. So when we put ‘Trojans’ out, we figured it would be a success if maybe a hundred people heard it. We don’t want to force our music onto anyone. Our goal is to write songs that we love and we hope they connect with other people too.” Check out our chat with Keith from Atlas Genius here.
Doors open at 7:30pm
Tickets are $20.
