01/28 | Schubas | Chicago, IL
01/29 | Courtyard Cafe | Champaign, IL
01/30 | Rohs Street Cafe | Cincinnato, OH 01/31 | Al’s Bar | Lexington, KY 02/01 | Nachbar | Louisville, KY
02/10 | Ames Progressive | Ames, IA
02/11 | Firebird | St. Louis, MO
02/13 | The Outland | Springfield, MO
02/14 | Slowdown | Omaha, NE
02/15 | Vaudeville Mews | Des Moines, IA
03/05 | The Aquarium | Fargo, ND
03/11 | The Union | Athens, OH
03/12 | The Summit | Columbus, OH
03/15 | Cake Shop | New York, NY
03/16 | Bruar Falls | Brooklyn, NY
03/19 | Heirloom Arts Theatre | Danbury, CT
03/25 | The Mirarmar | Milwaukee, WI
Wax Fang and The Invaders will be playing at the Zanzabar on Friday, October 30th starting at 9pm. Tix will be $7 bucks. Sean over at Buzzgrinder is putting the show on. Should be great (but what do I do about The Avett Brothers?). Also, there will be a costume contest. I suggest that at lease three people go as the painted Wax Fang…
As a few of you know, I have a few musical projects that take up a lot of my time, and one of them is the indie-folk band Bro. Stephen which just finished up a month-long tour and which will keep me out of Louisville for quite some time. Now, you will have to excuse the shameful self-promotion because this really isn’t about me. This is about all of the bands that I’ve met and will meet along the way and who you should check out and support in hopes that we can lure a few of these acts to play in Louisville in the near future.
Just last weekend I caught up with one of the most exciting bands in the country: Cincinnati’s The Seedy Seeds. TSS closed up the opening night of the Midpoint Music Festival in Cincinnati, OH at Cincinnati’s famed Contemporary Arts Center. I have had the pleasure to catch this band quite a few times in the past 6 months since they’ve played Skull Alley a few times (to a lucky few folks) and even played the Buzzgrinder Birthday Bash at The Rud with J Roddy Walston and The Business (which was one of the most fun shows in Louisville I’ve ever been too). That’s not to mention the times I’ve caught them in their native Cincinnati where they are indie-pop royalty with the support of their city like Louisville hasn’t seen since The Merediths (remember them?). Their set at MPMF had over 200 people crammed into a hot, sweaty room totally blissing out on every note and beat that came from the stage. (more…)
The Seedy Seeds made the short trip from Cincy to play at Buzzgrinder.com’s b-day show at the Rud. The turn out was great and the first bunch of fans got a pretty nice Pabst Blue Ribbon swag bag (apparently the bands did too…notice the headband). TSS played a bit of everything, including a few songs off of their sophomore album, Count the Days. I started off sitting off to the corner, but couldn’t help joining the dance off taking place center stage. A man dressed as a used pontoon boat salesman may have taken the cake, but the guy in the Tigers had may have come in a close second. TSS will be at the Southgate House on Sept. 12 and at Mid-Point Music Fest in Cincy on Sept. 24. They find their way down here quite a bit, so be sure to check them out next time around.
Buzzgrinder, the national which in the last year acquired a local flavor with Sean moving to town, is celebrating it’s 8th birthday on July 31st with a fantastic show at The Rudyard Kipling, with performances by J-Roddy Walston and the Business and The Seedy Seeds, two local favorites!
Help to make this show a success by inviting all of your friends, because Buzzgrinder and other blogs exist to really make an effort to contribute to the local music scene, and the more those contributions are appreciated, the better the contributions can be.
They’re also claiming to have some presents compliments of Pabst Blue Ribbon & who doesn’t love free stuff?
J-Roddy Walston and the Business – Used to Did[audio=http://www.buzzgrinder.com/media/jroddy_usedtodid.mp3] The Seedy Seeds – Drive Me to the Center [audio=http://www.buzzgrinder.com/media/seedyseeds_center.mp3]
You know the feeling. You pick up a record and play that first song and it totally bowls you over or it leaves you totally underwhelmed. Regardless, we have pretty lofty expectations for that first track. Many would argue that the first track is absolutely the most important. It’s not that the other tracks aren’t great, but there is something special in the opening track of an album. We also all know how it feels to love the first track on a record, but be totally ambivalent to the other tracks and there is nothing more frustrating. So, if the first track is the only track that’s good it doesn’t really hold up as a great opening track in my book.
But what makes an opening track great?
I think there are a million different schools of thought on this, but I think the basics are clear: the song must set the tone for the record and be totally engaging. A lot of bands/groups/etc choose to use throw-away skits or jingles for the opening track which I think is a mistake. Would Sonic Youth have had such a crushing effect on alternative music if they hadn’t led Daydream Nation off with “Teen Age Riot”? I don’t think so. I think that a song is looked at in a totally different light when it is the first track. I asked a bunch of people from around the web and country what their favorite album openers are. It’s amazing how diverse everyone’s opinion is and I thought you’d enjoy to hear them and check in with your own. Here they are after the break (with a list from me and other Backseat Sandbar folks at the end). Enjoy!
Two very different types of artists made for a very packed Skull Alley on Saturday night. It was a beautiful sight. Matt & Kim & Hollywood Holt make for an unlikely pairing, the first an intense and wonderfully playful pop punk/dance duo, the second a straight forward emcee banging out incredible rhymes.
DJ Narwhal started off the night spinning the standard, and the 95% of the crowd which was under the age of 18 were simply loving it. Then Hollywood Holt took to the stage and showed us all how hip hop is done. At all times interactive, with DJ Sklyer mixing the beats behind him, his friend Conflict on the mic next to him (second performance with HH ever), Hollywood Holt showed what it means to have stage presence by constantly posing, jumping into the crowd. The entire building was shaking with bodies smashing into one another everywhere. I can’t help but wanting to think that song that most of the crowd would be familiar with, namely “Throw a Kit (on dat bitch)”, feels like a comment on modern day hip hop as it is one of the very few that has the standard one-liner that doesn’t really make too much sense and is simply repeated over and over throughout the song, though in truth it is more likely understanding that a simple song over sick beats makes for a fun song to dance to and has a better shot at getting on the radio. I thought it was great when HH asked the crowd full of kids “How many of you are riding around on two wheels” and I raised my hands with a “yeah”, but “No” came booming from the crowd of kids clearly excited to finally be getting to drive. HH forgets that we’re not the metropolis that Chicago is, so people actually like driving here. It made for a great introduction to “Throw a Kit” nevertheless. The set was fairly short (perhaps only 30 minutes), but was incredibly intense. I was talking with Conflict after the show and I described the show as a really solid punch, where the energy and intensity is better spent at 100% and shorter (like one solid punch) than 90% for an hour.
Matt & Kim came on next around 10:30 and the girls all fawned over Matt and he played to it. Matt & Kim’s stage presence reminded me of Man Man on stage with the way they spent time standing on top of things, jumping around like monkeys and having the time of their life. They recently released “Grand” which supplied the visual effects on the dual screens at the back of the stage. It’s virtually impossible to put a Matt & Kim show into words. They played several songs from the new album and virtually no song lasted longer than two minutes in traditional punk style. Favorites including “Yea Yeah” and “5K” graced the set. At one point, Matt grabbed the support beams over his head, and rather than crowd surfing the Hollywood Holt way, walked across the supporting hands of the crowd to the middle of the room where he hung upside down, just before falling and practically breaking his neck. Overall, the set was tons of fun and an unfortunate plenty missed the show as a result of its selling out.
we recommend watching the following video in High Quality (click the box in the lower right corner)
