I don’t know how you’re going to make a decision on which show to see tonight but hopefully this list will help! Don’t let a little sinkhole on I-85 keep you from enjoying your Hump Day!
Lake Street Dive and Eilen Jewell @ The Earl
Lake Street Dive makes the most of pop music virtues: solid, evocative song craft; propulsive grooves; and Price’s disarming, forthright vocals. However, it’s a personal strain of pop that is refracted through the band members’ rich backgrounds: a sinewy Motown bass line is reborn with woody heft on Kearney’s upright, Calabrese’s drumming mixes timekeeping with more adventurous jazz-inflected outbursts, McDuck’s nimble trumpet is an unexpectedly warm counterpoint to Price’s singing. It all makes for a sound with familiar roots, but with a slant that is entirely their own. Lake Street Dive’s eventual artistic breakthrough came not without struggle, and still surprises original instigator Mike “McDuck” Olson. “Now we’re a pop band, leaning very heavily on soul and rock, with hook-y writing, which I never expected,” he concludes. “If I could travel through time, I’d go back six years and play the new record for my younger self, just to assure him that the awkward, new-band phase doesn’t last forever.”
Tickets are $15. Online and phone sales close at 6pm TONIGHT. Doors open at 8:30 pm.
Savages with Johnny Hostile @ Vinyl
SAVAGES is not trying to give you something you didn’t have already, it is calling within yourself something you buried ages ago, it is an attempt to reveal and reconnect your PHYSICAL and EMOTIONAL self and give you the urge to experience your life differently, your girlfriends, your husbands, your jobs, your erotic life and the place music occupies in your life. Because we must teach ourselves new ways of POSITIVE MANIPULATIONS, music and words are aiming to strike like lightning, like a punch in the face, a determination to understand the WILL and DESIRES of the self. This album is to be played loud in the foreground.
Tickets are $15 and $17 the day of the show. Online and phone sales end at 4pm TODAY.
The English Beat @ The Loft
Hailing from working-class Birmingham, England, Dave Wakeling and The English Beat entered the music scene in the 1979. When The English Beat rushed on to the music scene in 1979, it was a time of social, political and musical upheaval. Into this storm came they came, trying to calm the waters with their simple message of love and unity set to a great dance Beat. Check out this interview we did with Dave Wakeling!
Tickets are $20 in advance and $22 the day of the show. Doors open at 7pm and the show starts at 8pm.
Richard Buckner with Ben Trickey and Jeffrey Butzer with Cassi Costoulas @ The Drunken Unicorn
In the time since Our Blood was released and after a few long tours, Richard Buckner attempted to work on writing short stories but found himself drawn back into the music room. The now-infamous process of recording and re-recording Our Blood left him a bit gun-shy, so this time, Buckner decided to get each song out of his house as soon as it was finished to avoid the contamination of over-thinking. After hearing an interview with famed producer Tucker Martine, Buckner found a destination for his songs: “Tucker understood the urgency in me to tie the whole thing up before I fell into the same trap that I’d had finishing Our Blood and was generous enough to move other commitments around to fit Surrounded in. When I had finally finished Our Blood, I felt like I’d just survived a stroll through a mine field. With Surrounded, it was more of a sensation that I’d successfully organized a messy desk.”
Tickets are $10. Online and phone sales close at 4pm TODAY. Doors open at 9pm and the show starts at 9:30pm.
Willy Porter @ Eddie’s Attic
“How To Rob A Bank,” the latest release from esteemed guitarist/singer-songwriter Willy Porter, showcases his continued growth as a songwriter and recording artist. Porter offers a rich blend of salt and sugar with tracks that move easily from rough-hewn electric edges into soulful irony with equal aplomb. Jeff Giles of Popdose.com says, “It’s another solid entry in a discography full of them, and one of the smarter, more durable albums of grown-up music we’re likely to get this year.” On “How To Rob A Bank,” Porter fills out the production with a deep supporting cast of musicians he has known and toured with for years. The LA-based folk/rock quartet Raining Jane bring their vocal harmonies, cello, sitar and percussion to the disc in warm and subtle ways. LA über-session artist, Reggie Hamilton, lends his virtuosity on Upright Bass to the title track and Weasel Records label-mate Natalia Zukerman sews her lap-steel, dobro and vocal chops into several tunes. For the core heavy lifting on the album, Porter enlists his own seasoned backing band of Dave Adler (keys), Steve Kleiber (Bass), and Dave Schoepke (Drums & Percussion).
Thank you for this, Daniel. It's exactly what I needed. Very soon I will stop crying and start working. I believe in the human spirit. As you remind us, humankind does have at least a partial track record of sucusesfclly fighting against evil. We are the Resistance now. We have only begun to fight.