WHEW. Made it through another week, Cleveland. Why don’t you reward yourself by heading out to see some great live music this weekend? There’s plenty going on.
We think you should check out Cellar Door Records’ show on Saturday night. There’s a million reasons why you should be there. Tucked away inside a brick building in the heart of Cleveland is this gem, with high ceilings and rustic wooden floors that make the atmosphere and acoustics great. This is also the only Cleveland venue we know that boasts a record store featuring ALL local artists. How cool is that?
I know, so cool you nearly forgot about the live music side of it. Playing Saturday night are a bunch of Cleveland favorites—The Commonwealth, These Knees, Joshua Jesty and Cellar Door Records’ own Justin Markert. This is a $7 expenditure you won’t regret.
Yesterday, at Sunset Strip’s famed Viper Room, KISS (sans make-up!) rolled out (literally!) their aptly titled “Monster” book.
Weighing in at nearly 50 pounds, Kiss Monster features a collection of exclusive KISS photographs pulled from the band’s extensive archive from their over-40 year career rockin’ Detroit City and beyond. Of its size, Paul Stanley said, “It’s not a coffee table book, it is a coffee table,” reinforcing the age-old macho adage: “size does matter.”
When one reporter asked if KISS had plans to make a smaller version of the book, Stanley quipped: “I did make ‘it’ smaller. I had to get a reduction—it was too big.”
Well then, Paul. Of course, with its hefty—ahem—girth, comes an equally hefty pricetag: for just a mere $4,250, you can own one of these two by three feet, limited-edition books, signed by all four members of KISS.
Looking for some live music in Chicago this weekend? We’ve got you covered. Check out this weekend’s featured show along with a more extensive weekend list below!
Bloomington, Indiana’s five piece alt-country group, Murder By Death, is taking over the Metro tomorrow night. The band recently ran the third most successful Kickstarter music campaign to fund the vinyl pressing of their sixth studio album, Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon. The album is currently available for pre-order, shipping September 17. Check out the video for “White Noise” from 2010’s Good Morning, Magpie, below.
The 18+ show kicks off at 9:00 PM tomorrow at the Metro – 3730 N Clark Street. Murder By Death will be supported by Ha Ha Tonka and Cory Chisel & the Wandering Sons. You can grab your tickets online for $18, or $20 at the door. You can also grab a seriously intimidating amount of 12”, 7”, and vinyl packages from Murder By Death’s online store.
It may be mid summer on Oak Street, but signs all over the rest of the city suggest that summer’s over. School zones are being enforced, the clubs are brimming with music and the first second line of the 2012-2013 season is Sunday. Here’s a look at my picks.
Tonight is the last of the Battle of the Bands, which has been taking place all week at Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse.It’s Team Irvin vs. Team Kermit and the real winners have been the non-profit beneficiaries.
The video is hype from last year’s battle, but it’s SO worth watching again. The New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic gets the cash tonight and according to Ruffins, this is going to be the best of the seven-night showdown. The gig starts at 8:30 PM and ends when Kermit and Irvin play the last note sometime around one in the AM.
Tonight, Cleveland has the distinct honor of hosting the album release for bombastic Kent two-piece, Cherry Cola Champions at local indie rock favorite the Grog Shop. The dynamic duo first caught our attention when they performed at Weapons of Mass Creation festival in Cleveland, OH earlier this year.
Months later, their much-anticipated LP is ready to greet your ears after being recorded and produced by Tim Gerak at Mammoth Cave studio in Denver and pressed at Cleveland’s own Gotta Groove Records in three colors, including cherry cola red.
Joining the band will be four other regional acts you should cock your ears toward—Annabel, The Marine Electric, Wake Island, and Pomegranates. Annabel is a four-piece that also hails from Kent. Their music is a straight-forward layering of guitars, drums, and vocals delivered in true punk-rock fashion. The Marine Electric is a four-piece that claims its members are the four nicest guys you’ll meet. They’re straight out of Brooklyn and theirs is a sound that’s an edgier brand of punk, filled with guitar solos and gritty vocals over hard-hitting drums.
Legendary Band keyboardist, Garth Hudson, has gathered together some great Canadian musicians who have chosen their favorite tunes from The Band and put them together on this here compilation Chest Fever: A Canadian Tribute to The Band.
It will be released on October 2nd, 2012 but you must crank up this version of “This Wheel’s On Fire” by Neil Young and the Sadies right now.
Due to the overwhelming popularity of the uptown organization’s Mid Summer Mardi Gras celebration, the time of the parade and its route have been adjusted.
Last year, thousands of people turned out in costume at the Maple Leaf Bar for the annual Mid Summer Mardi Gras parade. The uptown neighborhood was gridlocked for hours. The event has simply grown too big to be accommodated on the narrow side streets between Broadway and Carrollton Avenue.
So this year, the parade, which is Saturday night, joins the big boys and will stay on the wide lanes of Carrollton. The parade will leave the Maple Leaf Bar at 7:30 and head out Carrollton with a planned stop at Palmer Park on the corner of S. Claiborne Avenue.
Wally De Backer, or Gotye as you, me, and the rest of the world knows him, is difficult for many to define. Does he sound like an ’80s pop artist, perhaps? An indie rocker? A more melodic Philip Glass?
Who or whatever you think Gotye sounds like, his oddly catchy “Somebody That I Used to Know” was an inescapable force this summer, spawning somanyparodies and tributes and covers that instead of getting litigious, Wally himself mashed them into a spectacular sound collage remix:
But De Backer wouldn’t have it any other way, really. He loves brand-new takes on songs and sounds, and that’s a major focus in his music. Whether he’s pulling an twinkly hook from an obscure, self-released vinyl LP from a thrift store milk crate, or using a musical fence in the outback as a rhythm section, Gotye is all about the collaboration of sounds. When TVD chatted with him just before the West Coast leg of his world tour, the affable Aussie’s thoughts on music came tumbling out. Drawn to the new, obsessed with the obscure, Wally had lots to say to us about his songwriting processes, going “thrifting” for old records, and his “overnight” success.
You turned your Macbook into a massive digital Mellotron by virtualizing lots of acoustic instruments and sounds. When did you decide that that would be an integral part of the way you were going to record Making Mirrors?
[Laughs] Mellotron! It just sort of happened. I guess every record of this Gotye project has had a fairly heavy element of sampling in the way the songs are written and how the sounds are put together. I’ve just had to self-impose a more rigorous method every time in a way, or at least a method that forces me to work harder and to make sure that more there’s more of my original work. When I was making my first record, Boardface, I guess I was piggybacking more on whole grabs and loops of records.
It’s not that easy to do to weave twenty different samples from different records and periods together and queue them up and make them make sense in a sort of new sonic space. I guess with my current [record] I’ve tried harder to use more micro-elements, but I was still working in a setup that involved me having one hand on a mouse, sitting at a desktop computer in a small room, shifting small colored boxes around on a screen and having them have musical results. Whereas here I wanted there to be a more tactile relationship with some of my performing interests and abilities – like being a drummer and percussionist and keyboard player – to be able to have an impact on how I would make melodies and riffs.
“Vinyl is a good present. The way to the heart is through the stylus.”
“When I was 4, I’d sneak downstairs and play with the phonograph before my family woke up. I’d listen to the same record over and over. It was a compilation about teddy bears. One morning I broke the needle. I thought I’d get in deep trouble so I didn’t tell anyone. My parents noticed I didn’t listen to records anymore and got rid of the phonograph.
When I was 16 I listened to New Order’s Power, Corruption & Lies and nothing else. I never took it off the turntable. It got all covered in dust. I didn’t leave my bed for weeks. My mum came in and said I didn’t have to go back to school, I could do anything or go anywhere, just not lay in bed listening to that record anymore. Sometimes I hear that record when I’m out and think about how far I am from that room.
Before The Who made it big, they were briefly known as The High Numbers. Well, they weren’t really known as The High Numbers, but they did actually manage to get two songs recorded for Fontana under that very name. Those tracks are now considered the last few baby steps taken before the band blossomed into The Who, but with time spent it becomes obvious that “Zoot Suit” and “I’m the Face” deserve a lot more credit than that.
After The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, The Who is basically a cinch for the distinction of the most well-known band produced by the whole British Invasion. Mind you this is not a qualitative assessment but purely a matter of notoriety, and The Who has achieved third place through a combination of ambition and longevity; they kept on keepin’ on even after death’s door opened wide and slammed shut one half their original membership.
Some sticklers might not consider the third spot to be all that impressive an achievement. But I bet those folks haven’t spent much time considering just how deep a playing field that whole UK explosion was. Somehow The Who clawed over such major units as The Kinks, The Animals, Them, The Dave Clark Five, The Moody Blues, Manfred Mann, The Tremeloes, The Troggs, The Yardbirds, The Hollies, and The Zombies.
That’s not even a complete list of every band in the movement that had a fleeting moment which could be legitimately called great. And yet they all take a back seat to The Who in terms of celebrity. Again, longevity surely has a lot to do with it. But while I tend to agree that much of the band’s behavior post-Keith Moon has been quite mercenary in nature, I do not believe that The Who has been forcing themselves onto the public; while they surely had something to sell the masses have proven consistently eager to buy it.
Chicago’s very own Rock & Roll Pig Roast is back for seconds after it’s inaugural run last September. Start eating light now, because you’re going to want to be hungry for this Saturday’s all-you-can-eat roast. Whole roasted pig, veggies, and cheap drinks might be the anchor of the festivities, this year’s roast will feature live music performances by ten of Chicago’s finest.
Among the event’s top-billed are psych-rockers, Secret Colours. We’ve recommended that you check out their live show before, and this time is no different. The group has their sophomore LP on the way, and a vinyl re-release of their debut full-length planned. You can still grab a copy of their limited run EP3+ on vinyl through DREAMOVER Records. Did I mention that every copy is a unique color?
Grab the full lineup and all of the Pig Roast details, including how you can enter to win a $50 gift card to the incredible Reckless Records, below.
Memphis thrash punk outfit Manateees kick off a two-week outing tonight at The Hi-Tone Cafe. With plenty of fun to be had, music to rock out to, and words to be spelled (err… what?), there’s no reason not to come out.
Keith Hall, Abe White (Sons of Thunder, Sector Zero) Charlotte Watson (NOTS) come together like Voltron to form the mega Memphis Punk band Manateees. Later this year, they’ll be releasing a 7″ on Goner Records and have a slew of dates to play in preparation to show off their raw sound.
Tonight will start their tour with a show at the Hi-Tone Cafe. Additional entertainment will be provided by DJ Alic Cooper (Jack Oblivian) and, for those of you who miss showing off in front of teacher, a spelling bee hosted by guitarist/singer Abe White.
Despite being forced to cancel a show in Colorado last week due to a bout of altitude sickness, the indefatigable and iconic country legend will pull up on Decatur Street this afternoon in his vintage bus for a performance at the French Quarter club. The show begins at 8 PM.
It’s the second time in less than a week that a legendary artist that could easily fill the biggest rooms in the city is playing at a small club.
Last Saturday night, Lindsey Buckingham, the guitarist, singer and songwriter from Fleetwood Mac, played the 400-capacity club, One Eyed Jack’s. Read Alison Fensterstock’s great review of that show here.
Lights Resolve brought the rock back to rock n’ roll. Playing relatively early in the day, they were able to capture the crowd with their high energy, even during the hottest part of the day.
