It's Rocktober and we have your music, food and booze here. Come visit next week for a welcome home to a Canadian neighbor with an eclectic and fun line-up, Detroit surf-rock and Brooklyn buzz band Grooms hitting town to showcase their new album Infinity Caller.
TUESDAY OCTOBER 8- 9 P.M.- $5
SHERIFF SCABS, MOSELEY, Y/N.
SHERIFF SCABS- Sheriff Scabs is a rock and roll trio from Chicago, IL. Frontman Michael Scabs established himself as a solo artist in the mid-2000s as a recording artist, then later as one of the premier live bands in the Chicago/Milwaukee area. Michael Scabs had started out as part of the groundbreaking underground Chicago rock group Black Country Rock. A few years after BCR disbanded, Michael accepted an invitation to perform as a solo artist, opening several dates for The Dresden Dolls. His combination of dark, disturbing lyrics and a quick, facetious sense of humor, quickly won over crowds. Scabs carried over this villainous cartoon persona when he fleshed out a four member lineup, featuring Chicago industrial metal veterans, Bambi (bass), Mode (lead guitar) and Dreg (drums).
In their time together as a four member rock band, they shared the stage with some of the coolest names in rock and gained notoriety with their intense live shows. Bambi and Mode left Sheriff Scabs after releasing an E.P., two music videos and their full length debut, "A Deep Six Holiday." To fill the void, Michael and Dreg invited Ivan Russia(bass player / frontman for MR RUSSIA and Michael's former bandmate in Black Country Rock) to join Sheriff Scabs.
Sheriff Scabs dynamic changed instantly. Not only in going from a a quartet to a trio, but in sound as well. Ivan Russia brought an updated mature, indie sound to Sheriff Scabs brand of heavy garage rock. But Sheriff Scabs' new found maturity in sound has not stripped them of the comic amusement that made them so popular. Such antics as a faux 2012 U.S. presidential campaign and the launch of their own podcast "We're With The Band", have kept Sheriff Scabs in a class of their own.
As they inch toward 20,000 fans on Facebook in 2013, Sheriff Scabs plans on recording new material, releasing a brand new music video and playing their first headlining tour, finally reaching all their fans beyond the Chicagoland area.
Sheriff Scabs dynamic changed instantly. Not only in going from a a quartet to a trio, but in sound as well. Ivan Russia brought an updated mature, indie sound to Sheriff Scabs brand of heavy garage rock. But Sheriff Scabs' new found maturity in sound has not stripped them of the comic amusement that made them so popular. Such antics as a faux 2012 U.S. presidential campaign and the launch of their own podcast "We're With The Band", have kept Sheriff Scabs in a class of their own.
As they inch toward 20,000 fans on Facebook in 2013, Sheriff Scabs plans on recording new material, releasing a brand new music video and playing their first headlining tour, finally reaching all their fans beyond the Chicagoland area.
MOSELEY- Moseley is an all-girl supergroup that's new to the scene. Individually, however, they're no stranger to the music business and have been making waves in their home town of Nashville. Frontwoman Suzie Chism, previously with an Edwin McCain project, joined forces with Abby Hairston (Drummer of local sludge-rock duo BangOKBang) and session power house Christy Callaway to form a refreshingly authentic, buzzworthy combination. Whispers among Nashville music lovers as well as some Music City movers and shakers are already predicting them to be the next big alternative rock act to follow the same path to success as The Black Keys, Kings of Leon, Paramore and Jack White. Their kick-ass transitions, pithy lyrics, and surprise endings keep the listener on his toes, waiting for the beat to drop and the floor to open beneath him in an oddly easy to digest manner. Drummer Abby Hairston explains "It's like The Ranconteurs and Black Sabbath had a love child, or three of them actually, and they just happened to all come out woman." Whatever their secret is, it's working, and we'll catch them next Tuesday.
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 9- 9 P.M.- FREE
OVER THE HUMP W/ UNCUT FUNK.
This open mic funkathon is lead by P-Funk drummer Gabe Gonzalez and master keyboardist Phil Hale. Come hang out, dance or bring your ax and join in.
FRIDAY OCTOBER 11 - 9 P.M. - $5
WELCOME BACK JASON! W/ MID-CENTURY MODERN, FEELINGS, ALISON LEWIS, SABBA RABBA.
Jason Yates, one of the owners of our neighbor Brooklyn Street Local has been exiled in Canada awaiting his Visa for nearly a year. He's back and we're having an awesome party to welcome him back.
MID-CENTURY MODERN- Is the new project of new Detroiters by way of Toronto and Vancouver, Canada, Ida Nilsen and Jay Clark Reid. Nilsen cut her teeth with experimental jazz/pop band the Beans, the Gay, the New Pornographer's AC Newman and alt/country weirdos the Buttless Chaps. Her own project, Great Aunt Ida, has toured Canada and into the US many times sharing the stage with folks like Sarah Harmer and the Waterboys. Their latest disc, Nucleraize Me, was described by one writer as "Reminiscent of Belle & Sebastian's fuller late-period material, steady and sure, intimate and honest, with songs that are so damn smartly crafted." and "fraught with admonishment, yet somehow managing to avoid flat-out misanthropy." Reid, Nilsen's husband, fronted the legendary Alt- Country band Jay Clark and the Jonesbased in Toronto through the late 90's and 2000's. Their last recording Blue Cholera, an ode to the forgotten working-class, recieved praise across Canada.
"The songs display a maturity that gives the band credibility and shows the band understands and appreciates the elements needed to pay tribute to the acts that came before them....They don't try to force sepia toned organs or twang-y lap steel in where it doesn't belong and never try to crowd the honest emotions Clark Reid presents." HeroHill.com
FEELINGS- Constuct a rather fractured, avant-gardist gutter-pop; maybe ramshackle is nice word for it! A new kind of punk that'll still pluck the heartstrings of those still nostalgic for Nirvana, or those still mused by the dark-beauty of Jesus & Mary Chain. Maybe they're the middle ground between the melodiousness of the Smiths/REM and the shambled shreds of the Replacements.
ALISON LEWIS- Alison Lewis is a singer and songstress from Detroit, Michigan. Alison began singing and playing in coffee shops, on street
corners, and dive bars many, many years ago. From Detroit to the Blue Ridge Mountains. From The Oregon Coast to Chicago. From Europe and the UK all the way up The Ute Pass to Green Mountain Falls, Colorado, and back to Detroit where she lives and plays now. Alison has performed at festivals, bars, around camp fires and far beyond.
SATURDAY OCTOBER 12- 9.P.M.- $5
GROOMS, RAIL, THE GATOR
GROOMS- NYC Post-Punk in the vein if Modest Mouse, they give off a whiff of vague danger, a static unease occasionally broken by detuned guitars and skins-smashing breakdowns. Travis Johnson (vocals/guitar) and Emily Ambruso (vocals/bass) met, ridiculously, on Friendster, shortly before that website became 100% irrelevant, only to meet in person at a Valentine's Day party in the Oklahoma woods a few weeks later. They immediately started discussing experimental music and pop, and, after relocating separately to New York in 2004, starting playing experimental music and pop together in their bedrooms. They met Jim Sykes (drums) through a friend soon after, but didn't start playing with him until 2009, when Grooms formed and released their debut album. That album was a dark, noisy, and tangled affair, the lyrics focusing almost entirely on Travis' religion-fixated obsessive-compulsive disorder, which he was diagnosed with in adolescence.
RAIL- 3 Guys with nothing in common but the same parole officer. Garage/Surf Rock from Detroit.
THE GATOR- Is Allison Hanna. She'll be opening the show solo with her unique brand of "Beardless Folk/Punk"
SUNDAY OCTOBER 13 - 9 P.M.- $5
800 BELOVED, BRIEF CANDLES (MIL), DOUBLE WEIRD
800 BELOVED- is a Michigan-based group formed from the writing & production of singer/songwriter, Sean Lynch. The group's moniker, taken from a 1-800 telephone number, hints at the merger between two opposing themes - "800" representing the interest in popular culture's flimsiness while "beloved" alludes to the lyrical use of sacred, often dismal and ironically naive subject matter.
Having distributed music in many formats, including pill-shaped thumb drives and limited cassette singles before signing with the Moodgadget label in 2008, 800beloved delivered their long awaited debut album 'Bouquet' in CD format on Valentine's Day 2009 at C Pop gallery in Detroit. Their second album, 'Everything Purple' was originally released in April 2010 and later pulled from online distribution following Lynch's request to end licensing agreements with Moodgadget. In September 2010, the majority of the group's recordings including both albums were independently re-released in digital audio formats.
The outfit currently rehearses and records in Milford, Michigan where Lynch also works as a cosmetologist & assistant for a funeral home.
BRIEF CANDLES- Progression is a natural flux in music, and when not a conscious effort, engages the listener even more so, ditching cloying persuasion for something simple and honest. Milwaukee's Brief Candles drift on an entirely natural momentum generated during the years between They Live We Sleep [2006] to its current Fractured Days to create new material that is a testament to years spent pouring their collective composing energies into music that is heavy and layered yet disarmingly pretty. The formula remains the same on the band's thoughtful buildups and gracefully majestic instrumental passages, but deepens with even more prominent vocals bending this formula and adding even more life to the quartet's signature muscular, yet shimmering, sound.
Fractured Days easily reads like a dream, hazy, yet realized, and what pulls it into reality is its twists and turns, compliments of guest producers who manage to take particular songs and polish them to brighten their edges just enough. Mostly recorded in Milwaukee at Kevin Dixon's Humdrum studios and at Greg Norman's studio in Chicago, the band sought out likeminded musical minds to take their new material into appropriate sound spaces.
Jeff Zeigler [Kurt Vile, Pattern is Movement] brightens and sparkles the dreamy "Ten Weeks" and the vibraphone-adorned slow burner "Permafrost" while Adam Pierce [The Swirlies, Mice Parade] heightens Boniger-Dixon and Dixon's pretty vocal exchanges on "Small Streets" and "Recognition". Neil Weir [Vampire Hands, Gospel Gossip] hones in on the band's signature sound in "The Completist", building and making it resonate strongly without losing that sense of urgency the rhythm section naturally dips into to make those builds even more significant. Full of dense sonic spaces, Fractured Days sees Brief Candles at a new peak, not at all lost in translation even after several years of wait.
DOUBLE WEIRDO- Originally concieved as a basement recording project between guitarist/singer Nick Zomparelli and drummer Josh (Earthboy) Arutoff (Davis) in late 2012. After showing the early demos to a friend he coined the two as double weirdos. With the addition of bassist Quennton Thornbury the duo became a trio but they kept the name Double Weirdo to honor the their friend who isn't even dead or anything.
LOOKING AHEAD:
OCTOBER 17- FUZZ, CCR HEADCLEANER.
OCTOBER 18, 19- HALLOWEEN COVER SHOWS
OCTOBER 22- NIK TURNER OF HAWKWIND
OCTOBER 23- FRANZ NICOLAY( HOLD STEADY), THE CODGERS, MIKE GALBREATH
NOVEMBER 1- RYAN DILLAHA AND THE MIRACLE MEN
NOVEMBER 2- SUGAR BARON, LE VOYAGE, THE KICKSTAND BAND.