I’ve been a horrible correspondent! It’s been almost two whole months. But it’s been a busy two months. Sometime later I’ll write about the bagillion shows I went to in October, but for now, here’s an upcoming show in Charleston that promises interestingness and deserves your time and/or money:
TONIGHT (Nov. 3) at Cumberland’s, Charleston’s Best Philanthropist/Historical Landmark Bradley Simmons (trust me, I counted the votes myself) and his Holy City Booking bring us the unclassifiable, Oregon-based noisemakers known as Old Time Relijun, who deconstruct and rebuild somewhere around the intersection of folk and rock music.
They’re currently traversing the country behind Catharsis in Crisis, their seventh album on K Records and their third recorded with K founder Calvin Johnson. I’m not familiar enough with the band’s whole catalog to write authoritatively about them, so allow me to direct you to a bona fide collector (and much better writer) — John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats — and his discussion of Old Time Relijun vis-a-vis history.
“I think Old Time Relijun are a very physical celebration of music and its possibilities, which is a terrible thing to say about anybody, since it makes them sound like professors, which they’re not. They’re hairy shirtless guys screaming about dark matter.”
Opening for Old Time Relijun are local house-show veterans and fellow experienced yellers Oicho Kabu and another local band I’ve never heard, Smallpox.
MP3: Old Time Relijun – “Indestructible Life!”
genghis tron: friday july 20th. cumberlands.
they rip it up only to break it back down. they will abuse your ears, but then nurse the wounds with some sweet, sweet synthesizers. if you’re down for some experimental metal, don’t you dare miss this show tonight at cumberlands. the three piece group from philadelphia comes to town. ed gein and gaza are also on the bill. go show them some love. and then go buy the new harry potter book, you big dork.
~lv
Filed under: Charleston, Cumberland's, Lindsay Holler, Live, Local, Lucero, Morimoto, The Map Room
Even though Prince, Al Gore, and Eye might argue otherwise, three is the magic number.
The enchanted digit rears its head in Charleston tonight with a trio of promising shows downtown and in West Ashley:
Morimoto’s experimental fusion-y jazz will be accompanied by the crunch of tortilla chips at Yo Burrito (downtown at 86 Wentworth St.) from 7-10 p.m. (free show!)
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Cary Ann Hearst’s countryfied Cold Heart Thursdays at Cumberland’s (downtown at 301 King St.) continue to make patrons dance, laugh, and maybe shed a beer tear or two with a special appearance from Memphis-based alt-country/southern rockers Lucero. Tickets for this show were going fast; if there’s any left tomorrow night, they’ll be $15 (+ $3 if you’re under 21) at the door. I missed Lucero last time they came to town, but heard about how fantastic they were for weeks. Recommended for fans of Drive-By Truckers, The Damnwells, longnecks, good ol’ Whiskeytown, The Replacements — any diggable rock with a bit o’ twang. (Check out “I Can Get Us Out of Here Tonight” from last year’s Rebels, Rogues, and Sworn Brothers)
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Aaaaand, local chanteuse Lindsay Holler headlines at The Map Room in West Ashley with her band, The Dirty Kids (hey, if drummer Nick Jenkins and guitarist Dave Linaburg, also in Morimoto, can make it to both shows, who can’t?). Holler’s haunting voice must be heard live to be fully appreciated, and her band seems to be settling further into a pleasing instinctive cohesiveness with each show.
Holler and the Dirty Kids just put out a new CD (Love Gone Awry) that I’ve got to pick up, stat. She’s got the first track from the disc, “Dirty Kids”, up at her website — check Michael Hanf’s delectable vibraphone solo in the bridge. I’ve always loved the earthiness in Holler’s voice, and “Dirty Kids” highlights it nicely with Coke-bottle percussion and Linaburg’s honky-tonk geetar.
Drinking buddy, drum teacher, and all-around fine fellow Ballard Lesemann wrote about the three other bands on the bill with Holler: Ilad, Mic Harrison & the High Score, and Magnolia Network — this Carolina collective lists “Round Swamp Symphony (of birds, insects, weather, automotive transport rumbles & sighs, rustling trees, silence, etc…)” under their Influences on MySpace…sounds promising. Can’t deny that simmering Carolina pride! Tickets to The Map Room four-band-a-ganza are a mere $5 — so, $1.25/band for all this fortifying folk.
It’s almost criminal, to be able to see six different, equally interesting bands in one night for $20 — but it sure makes a triple-showgoer’s wallet happy.
–sm
I’ve spent the last two nights in the deep, dank recess of Cumberland’s listening to the glorious present and promising future of Charleston music — namely, the incestously intertwined bands Lasso and Morimoto (plus a stellar performance from solo act Kaler, the nom de plume of Metal Monday and Michael Flynn regular Josh Kaler).
On Wednesday night, after an enjoyable set of clean, tight — not tight in that horribly soulless way, just in that “we actually practice” way — indie punk from Cincinnati’s Ampline, the three members of A Decent Animal (drummer George Baerreis, bassist Richard Weld, and singer Jonathan Nicholson) were joined by Lindsay Holler (who played keyboards but, sadly, didn’t add her smoky vocals to the mix) to perform as Lasso. The main difference between Lasso and ADA, it seems, is that Lasso bypasses the quiet, thoughtful musical meandering to cut to the rock. Lasso hearkened back a bit to Nicholson’s old band, Telegram, but with historical American underpinnings instead of British ones. Or something.
The ADA/Holler family is comprised of some of the most talented, interesting musicians in town. In case you didn’t already know from having seen Holler with her band, the Dirty Kids, this becomes readily apparent after one song from drummer Nick Jenkins, guitarist David Linaburg (both Dirty Kids), and organist Gerald Gregory, who make up fusion trio Morimoto. On Thursday night, that one song, the first one, consisted of the three CofC jazz majors playing some crazy acid-jazz business and yelling “DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS!” over and over.
It was just the beginning of a wild odyssey of unpredictable time signatures, fiery organ runs, a wider variety of sounds than you’d think a human could pull out of one measly electric guitar, and Jenkins’ it-looks-barely-controlled, but actually every-motion-has-a-meaning drumming — in fact, Jenkins’ foot was so into it that he totally decimated his bass drum, as captured in this picture by City Paper webmaster Joshua Curry.
What I saw of Kaler, most of whose set I missed due to being a wuss and not wanting to walk too far in the rain, was pretty f’in awesome. He’s got a cool one-man-band set-up, surrounding himself with instruments (guitar, bass (I think?), keys, LAP STEEL!) and using effects pedals to create loops, which he then plays along with. He got a visceral crowd reaction with his final number, a spot-on re-creation of the “dungeon theme” from Zelda, the classic Nintendo game. I got a huge kick out of watching the realization of what Kaler was playing slowly dawn across the faces of the crowd — one guy actually jumped out of his chair and said, “He’s playing ZELDA, man!” After the show, Josh explained that playing at least one video game song per show has become “his thing,” with previous shows including bits of bytes from Mega Man and Castlevania. I’m crossing my fingers for a little Klax action at some point in the future…
–sm
Saturday night was possibly the best St. Patrick’s Day ever, as three wildly different local bands (Genrevolta, Bill Carson, and The Specs) all put on fantastic shows at Cumberland’s. I was most excited about Genrevolta, who were playing their first show since last August (!!!).
Of course, with Cumberland’s being across the street from what you could democratically call a “frat bar” — and since it was amateur night — on the way into the club, I witnessed some serious douchebaggery from some bead-bedecked dude who had wandered over to Cumberland’s and felt the need to explain, in a heavily-slurred redneck drawl, to anyone within listening distance why they weren’t heading in: “Five dollars for GENRE-volta? Man, fuck GENRE-volta! I ain’t listenin’ to no GENRE-volta!” (The guy kept pronouncing “genre” really loudly, like he was trying to impress his bros with his grasp of the English language.) The nice fellow at the door and I laughed; “Yeah, I really wanted you guys to come in,” he said as they walked away still bitching.
Anyway, those assholes really missed out. Lead singer/guitarist Phil Estes, bassist Richard Weld, and drummer Pete Rivas always whip up a maelstrom of gut-punching melodic math(ish) rock, but on Saturday they were in rare form, tight as fuck and very obviously enjoying the chance to perform live together again. Despite the fact that the new Cumberland’s has unclimbable rafters, Philip still managed to slip some of his trademark offstage antics in, climbing down to the floor and spinning a bunch of cymbals around.
When he climbed back on stage and strapped his guitar back on, audience members took over spinning duty. It was touching, really. And also fun. After the show (and some puppylike eye-begging from me), Philip handed me a copy of the Genrevolta/In the Red split EP (Tick Tock Records), which will be unleashed on the public with a CD release show at Cumberland’s on Sat. April 21 (tip: you can listen to the songs right now, though, on Genrevolta’s MySpace page). He also pointed out that there was a mix-up in the end stages of pressing the CDs that resulted in the final song on the EP being wrongly listed as “Cubes” (a.k.a. the one with the “Don’t ever let ‘em try to mold ya/Give them that Genrevolta” rallying cry at the end) — it’s actually “Assassin” (a.k.a. the one with the funky bass-led breakdown in the middle and the word “killer” in the chorus … “rock killer”? “rock pusher”?).
And that was just the beginning of the night! Bill Carson played with Jonathan Gray (Jump, Metal Monday) on bass, Nathan Koci (New Music Collective) on keys, and Jack Burg (The Bedrooms, SKWZBXX) on drums and various other percussive instruments, and Cary Ann Hearst jumped onstage to sing a ditty with The Specs later that night; Lindsay Holler was there, too. Basically, if a meteor had smashed into 301 King St. on St. Patty’s Day, we would’ve lost a huge (and highly skilled) chunk of Charleston’s music scene.
–sm
