Americana artist and former Detroiter, Jeff German & the Blankety Blanks will celebrate their new record release when they return for a hometown show onSaturday, September 19at 9 pm at PJ's Lager House in Detroit. Their second album, “12 Packs, 8 Tracks, and Black & White TV” is set for release onSeptember 18.
The Blankety Blanks will headline the Detroit show which features two local acts kicking off the night of music.
Matt Dmits (9:30 pm) - Americana singer-songwriter Matt Dmits brings his soulful country tunes to the stage. Facebook.com/mattdmitsmusic
Petals of Power (10:30 pm) - Quirky power rock from this new Detroit band by musician Kevin Perri formerly of the Junk Monkeys. Facebook.com/petals-of-power
Jeff German & the Blankety Blanks (11:30 pm) - The band hails from Columbus, Ohio but guitarist/frontman Jeff German is a native Detroiter from Lincoln Park. He is known around these parts for his previous work fronting the rockabilly trio The Flyin' Saucers, who regularly performed here. He also fronted The Curdogs and was the sideman to Bloodshot Records artist Lydia Loveless and americana singer Amy Black.
The band released their debut album "12 Rounds" in 2014 on Wisconsin indie label Slothrop Records. Describing his music as "Midwest music for the working class," the album received airplay and accolades around the world. They released a maxi single “Woodshed” in spring of this year to preview the upcoming album.
The second release for Slothrop Records is titled “12 Packs, 8 Tracks, and Black & White TV.” The songs recall a simpler time when entertainment was all about lazy afternoons sittin' and drinkin' on the front porch listening to your favorite tunes and later gathering around a black and white television to catch your favorite performer on one of the three channels of variety shows.
The band took a more organic approach to recording this album, shunning the studio for the great outdoors. German talks about the recording process for “12 Packs…,” “We recorded the record at a campground that a friend let us use for a number of days. We just lived there and made music. It was completely relaxed. I think the record reflects that. It's a diversion from our first record, which was very guitar driven. This record is warmer and full of interesting and really beautiful sounds and melodies.”
The CD will be available at the show for $10 and vinyl LPs will be forthcoming and available on the bands website.
The show is onSaturday, September 19, 9 pmat PJ's Lager House located at 1254 Michigan Avenue, Detroit, 48226.313-961-4668,www.pjslagerhouse.com21 & over are welcome and cover is $6.
The recent package tour of The Church and The Psychedelic Furs had '80s music fans out in full force for a sold out show at the Royal Oak Music Theater this past Saturday night. Some may call this pairing of bands a nostalgia tour but can it really be considered a 'nostalgia' tour if one of the bands has continued to release music since their inception?
Celebrating their 35th anniversary as a band, the Australian psychedelic rock band The Church played first. They treated the packed house to a select set of songs from their 21 album career and highlighted three songs off of their latest album, 2014's “Further/Deeper”. Their most recognizable hits, “Reptile”, “Metropolis,” and “Under The Milky Way” brought the biggest cheers of course, but the band's energy and enthusiasm was also duly noted on this night. The band's performance far outshined the headliners on this particular show. This was mentioned by more than one attendee I spoke to after the show. This was my first time seeing the band live and I was glad I had the chance to finally see them.
This is the first time the two post-punk, neo-psychedelic bands have shared a bill after an attempt at a dual tour in 1988 fell through. But while The Psychedelic Furs have continued to tour playing their hits, they have not released any new material since the 1991 album "The World Outside." Not content to rest on their laurels, The Church have not only produced a recent album but a video for the song "Laurel Canyon."
The Psychedelic Furs have always been one of my all-time favorite bands. I have seen them live just about every time they have toured thru Detroit so this reviewer has seen enough shows to compare them! The show started off strong with the one-two punch of “Heartbeat” and the rousing “Mr. Jones” off their second album (one of my favorite songs), followed by “Heaven,” seemed promising. The energy was there at the onset but they quickly changed pace, slowing it down and delivered mid-tempo songs from the “World Outside” album throughout the middle of the set. They featured two unreleased songs; “Little Miss World” and “Wrong Train.” Only two songs from their debut album showed up in the set list, “Susan's Strange” and an encore of “Sister Europe.” The back half of the show they played the hits “Pretty in Pink,” “Love My Way,” and “Heartbreak Beat,” but by then the energy in the room diminished. The second encore was the song “Sleep Comes Down,” but sleep came down midway thru the show for this reviewer. It should be noted however that Mr. Butler's voice is still as strong as ever.
According to their website they have “hinted” at a new album but no new songs were introduced at this show, the latest being the 2012 unreleased “Little Miss World”. While I'm not giving up on the band and it is always nice to hear the hits, it would be nice to hear what new songs they could come up with now and I would love to hear them mix it up with a better paced set at the next show.
The Detroit City Art Walk is happening this weekend, August 28th and 29th, 2015, up and down Michigan Ave. in the Historical Corktown district of Detroit.
This two day/night event will feature both local and international artists from Detroit and surrounding cities, states and countries.
The Detroit City Art Walk will happen in various establishments including bars, cafes, clubs and restaurants along Michigan Ave. in Detroit's Corktown district during the businesses normal hours.
Bodies of work will be composed of such mediums as glass and metal sculpturing, fashion, drawing, painting, watercolors, wood, poster art, mixed media, pottery and video installations.
Mac Sabbath's first show on their 2015 East Cheeses Tour kicks off in Detroit on Tuesday, September 1 and MCB has your free ticket in!
The self-appointed founders of "Drive Thru Metal", the band is primarily a
parody of English heavy metal group Black Sabbath, utilizing lyricism and
imagery centered around fast food.
Performing in elaborate costuming, the band's line-up consists of vocalist
Ronald Osbourne, guitarist Slayer MacCheeze, bassist Grimalice and drummer the
Catburglar, alternately known as "Peter Criss Cut Fries". Mac Sabbath's concerts
are described as a "multi-media show with video, theatrics, audience
participation and sing alongs", featuring an array of food-related props which
tie into their overall theme.
The band's repertoire includes such parodies as "Pair-a-Buns" ("Paranoid"),
"Frying Pan" ("Iron Man"), "Sweet Beef" ("Sweet Leaf") and "Never Say Diet"
("Never Say Die"), while the band's T-shirts read "We Sold Our Soul for Cinnamon
Rolls" (parodying the compilation We Sold Our Soul for Rock 'n' Roll).
And MCB is giving away a three pair of tickets to the show!!!
Just drop a e-mail to ambervillainfilm@aol.com with "Mac Sabbath" as the subject and along with your "full name" and your "favorite fast food place" in the body of the e-mail for your chance to win. Winners will be sent notification on Friday!
This self-produced documentary is a culmination of Aux 88's hard work and commitment to the art of electronic music. Aux 88 are an electro group from Detroit, composed of Tom Tom (Tommy Hamilton) and Keith Tucker (DJ name DJ K1). As pioneers of Detroit Techno, they recognize that, as global leaders of this genre, it is critical to share their history and, in a sense, the history of electronic dance music.
The documentary, and accompanying soundtrack, was completely created and produced by Aux 88, the first group in Detroit Techno to create their very own documentary, with input from other artists around the world.
Australian rock band The Church play the Royal Oak Music Theatre as part of their U.S. Summer tour. The concert is on Saturday, August 22, at 7:30 p.m. on a dual tour with the U.K. band The Psychedelic Furs.
The band started making music in the early '80s and first gained attention in the U.S. for the song "Unguarded Moment" from their debut album. The 1983 album "Seance" had our own Creem magazine singing their praises and hailed the band as "one of the best in the world". The band may be best known here for their late '80s hit songs "Under The Milky Way," or the song "Reptile," both off the 1988 album "Starfish". But The Church is not just on a "retro tour" as the band has continued to produce music over the past decades and this year celebrates their 35th anniversary!
They have just released their 21st studio album "Further/Deeper" in the fall of 2014. They are touring throughout Europe and the U.S. in 2015 to promote the twelve new songs as well as old favorites. They promise to include some "surprising choices from their 35 year catalog" on this tour which will surely please longtime fans of the band.
This is the first time the two post-punk, neo-psychedelic bands have shared a bill after an attempt at a dual tour in 1988 fell thru. But while The Psychedelic Furs have continued to tour playing their hits, they have not released any new material since the 1991 album "The World Outside." Not content to rest on their laurels, The Church have not only produced a current album but a video for the song "Laurel Canyon."
For the first time ever, The Church will be offering VIP tickets to their fans for almost all of their upcoming shows:
All VIP tickets will include:
·One premium reserved or general admission ticket
·Early entry into the venue
·Meet & Greet and photo with The Church
·Pre-Show Soundcheck Event
·Exclusive Tour Shirt, lithograph, laminate and more
For more info on The Church visit their website at www.thechurch.net
Royal Oak Music Theatre is located at 318 West 4th St. in Royal Oak, MI 248-399-2980. 7:30 p.m. doors and all ages are welcome. Tickets are available at royaloakmusictheatre.com
This Saturday is the DIMEBASH: A night of tribute and celebration of Darrell "Dimebag" Abbott (Pantera/Damageplan). Dimebag is no longer with us, but his legend lives on and he is an inspiration for many musicians in the rock genre today.
There will also be a raffle with proceeds going to charities in Dime's name. One raffle item includes this original painting by Defy Doom by Shawn Michelle Scott...
It all goes down at Simons After Dark located at 4936 Allen Road, Allen Park, MI 48101 on Saturday, August 22
The 33rd annual African World Festival will once again bring over 150,000 attendees to the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, with performances, poetry, arts and crafts, African drumming and dance, hundreds of vendors, ethnic foods, and events for all ages!
Parking is easy and secure, the layout is great and there is something to do for everyone.
This FREE, 3-day festival for the entire family takes place from 11 AM to 11 PM daily.
The bad boys of Detroit punk-psychobilly make their return to The Motor City to perform at this year's stacked Blackout BBQ Festival. After blowing the minds of audience members, including mine, at The Southgate House in Kentucky, I briefly spoke with bass player and lead swooner, Vic Victor, about plans for a new album, scaling down their rigorous tour schedule, and what exactly will keep the sharply dressed men busy; and in such a short amount of time, Mr. Victor provided me with more than I asked for.
Bills Bills Bills
As we got a little bit older, within the last two years, [we took] the money that we were getting from the band and turned it around into businesses that could keep us at home...not because we wanted to be at home, but because as a band grows you can only play Chicago so many times a year, you can only play L.A. so many times a year, ya' know? We were going through the schedule and we were going through the west coast every six months on rotation. The guarantee stayed the same, it was just expected that we would come back. We needed to do that to keep exposure happening but also to pay our bills. Less time on the road means more time in Detroit, and in order to make up for performing less shows, we're doing screen printing and embroidery (Industrious Dudes Merchandising). We do that to basically make ends meet at the end of the month. We've been really fortunate, but it only goes so far. People not in bands don't understand that it might cost you $200 to get to the next city, it might cost you $6,000 to get to the next city. There's so many factors and we put ourselves so far in debt, but I don't want to be 45 years old and be in the same spot I was in when I was 25 years old and neither does anyone else in this band.
Tour Life
We got to a point where we were like, we needed to tone it back, and in our personal lives things were happening. Like, we needed to be home a little bit more than two months out of the year, so in the last year and a half we scaled back the amount of shows that we've been doing, and instead of 250 shows, we're doing about 100, maybe a little bit less.
Young Bands
I fucking can't stand it when a band goes out on tour, especially a younger band, and all they do is whine, whine, whine. For the first eight years of the band, we were working odd jobs and we were working our asses off to be able to say to our bosses, 'Hey, can we take a month off', 'Hey can we take two months off', and 'Hey we got something coming up, can we take three months off?' Eventually we worked ourselves out of normal job into this job, but I can't fucking stand whining about being on tour. When you're playing to people and people paying your bills, what the fuck is there to complain about? Yeah everyone loses their fucking girlfriend or boyfriend because they're away for two weeks or whatever; or you make stupid decisions, or people assume that you're making stupid decisions, that's the sacrifice that you make when you're in a band. I see so much whiny ass shit it's obnoxious. (Laughs) If you're in a band, you just need to realize that you revoke all ability to whine, and just be grateful you're out there. If you're making a living being in a band, you have no fucking room to complain.
New Shit
I'm working at it at the same pace as the first album. The first album, I wasn't in any hurry, I didn't know I was going to be recording it. I just wrote songs because I was learning how to play music, learning how to play the style of music which would eventually become Koffin Kats, and I'm taking that same approach where the second to the most recent album was always like 'we're going to record on this date, let's have this many songs done', and really I work really well under pressure. We have enough material out where I don't need to put anything out, I'm just kind of waiting for these gems to pop up in my head. I probably got a handful of songs at the moment and I kind of wanted to take things back to the beginning. I'm two sided on this. I can't fucking stand the people that go, 'Wow, that band, they're never as good as their first album', because I don't believe that. A lot of my favorite bands, their albums are cool, but it's about seeing the progression for better or worse. To be in a good band, you have to make these moves and it might be an awesome direction or it might go the other way. I'm not too proud to say that I don't miss how the old sound was...I put whatever effort into that album with the same mentality that I'm putting into this one.
The Detroit Influence
Really the only factor that Detroit has in our sound is our location is ten minutes outside of Detroit. I didn't get into MC5 or Iggy Pop or Ted Nugent...but it's just a place that we're from. The Detroit influence doesn't have any more effect on us, or I should say has the same effect, to any other band from anywhere in the US. In a sense, what MC5 and The Stooges created [or] what Alice Cooper created, we could've been from Idaho and had the same exact influences as what the bands from Detroit would. We've never been a band to say, 'Oh we're from Detroit, that's what made our sound', or 'We're hard-working because we're from Detroit'. No, we're hard working because we didn't want to work the shitty jobs that Detroit had to offer for us. So if there's any influence Detroit ever had upon us, it's the career that we had to look unfortunately forward to.
Koffin Kats will perform at Saturday's Blackout BBQ, and my only suggestion is to leave your whiny ass shit at home or Vic Victor may put you in check.
Email breeehenry@gmail.com to win Koffin Kats's "Our Way & the Highway"
*will mail to any location, contest ends on Friday, August 14, 2015 at 6:00 PM
