Larry Jack’s Magical Music Tour 1/8/14 – 1/15/14

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Hey guys,
What a great bunch of music last weekend. I missed a few shows that I wanted to see (Wet Socks and The Silver Palms), but I caught a few acts that I did not expect to see (Drunk Uncle and Hypnotics, both of which were great). This was the type of weekend that reminds me of how nice the whole Savannah music community is and how exciting it is to be a very small part of it. If you enjoy reading this blog, I would encourage you to try to catch a show downtown soon and enjoy the good vibes floating through City Market and throughout downtown. This would be a good month to do it, there is going to be great music throughout January. The good music continues this week. It looks like the Tour starts on Thursday this week.

Wednesday – 1/8/14

Epic Cycle – Warehouse Bar (8p)

Thursday – 1/9/14

Delta Prawns – Warehouse Bar (8p) – This was a pleasant surprise that I got to see last week, a side project of Anders and Charlie from Damon & The Shitkickers

Jason Bible – Rocks On The Roof  (9p) – Music from the frontman of the Train Wrecks

Eric Culberson – Bayou Café (9p) – The Bayou is a perfect place to see a blues band.

Wet Socks, Thee Holy Ghosts, Jeff Zagers, White Treasure – Soft Science records launch/release party – Hang Fire (10p) – I missed Wet Socks last week, I plan to catch this fuzz-rock duo Thursday

Jeremy Riddle – Molly MacPherson’s (10p)

Friday – 1/10/14

Beach Weather, Edward Appleby, Black Dust – Graveface Records (7p) – Listened to the first two bands, moody kind of music. I would like to catch Black Dust (members of mumbledust and Blackrune).

Megan Jean & The KFB – The 5 Spot (8p) – I probably won’t make it for this, but Megan Jean is always worth seeing.

Electric Grandma, Lobo Marino – Sentient Bean (8p) – World music at the Bean.  Grandma has finally returned from a European and Western US tour and I have not seen them in quite a while. I hope this will be one of the highlights of my weekend.

Sins of Godless Men, Burning Mansions, Hotels – The Jinx (10p) – This will be the heaviest show of my night. Great bands and a fun night of music at the Jinx.

Train Wrecks – Molly MacPherson’s (10p) – It has been a while since I have caught one of my all-time favorites, the Train Wrecks.  I hope to catch some of their Americana music during breaks at the Jinx, but you could spend the whole evening there and be very happy.

Saturday – 1/11/14

Accomplices – Molly MacPherson’s (10p) – If you haven’t caught them yet, you are missing out on one of Savannah’s best bands.

Anchor Bends – Jinx (10p) – Clips sounded good, includes members of Leatherface and All Night Drug Prowling Wolves.

Perfect Pussy, Tonto, Crazy Bag Lady – Hang Fire (10p) – I’ve only seen Tonto (guitar rock), it sounds like the other two bands are punk, I’ll make it over there for some of the music. And with a name like Perfect Pussy, you have to be good.

Sunday – 1/12/14

Priests, Crazy Bag Lady, Forced Entry – Graveface (7p) – Punk rock on a Sunday!

AcousticA – Jazz’d – Ray Lundy and Mike Walker from Bottles & Cans performing blues music.

Tuesday – 1/14/14

Ray Lundy – Foxy Loxy (8p) – I look forward to seeing the frontman of Bottles & Cans at this rare solo show in one of my favorite locales.

the legendary Art Garfunkel performing two February shows at Savannah’s Dollhouse Productions

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Well, here’s an interesting surprise this morning:

Post by Dollhouse Productions.

This date hasn’t appeared yet on his tour schedule at Songkick, but you can see that he will be performing other spots in Georgia and the Southeast. Pretty cool, and it’s sure to get a whole new crowd into Dollhouse.

The event page at Brown Paper Tickets describes the show as an “open rehearsal”:

Be a part of an intimate evening of songs, anecdotes, and a unique Q&A session during an acoustic performance

Seats are $65, which is a bit higher than I expected, honestly.

[UPDATE: A second show has been added on 2/15. It’s a 21+ venue. No photos, recording, or even reviews are allowed.]

The Silver Palms at The Jinx – photos + review

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So what’s next for The Silver Palms?

On Friday night, the young band from the southeast corner of Georgia played The Jinx, Savannah’s premier rock club, before an appreciative, attentive, and very curious crowd.

The Silver Palms took the stage and got right to it just moments after opener Blackrune finished. There was only the briefest of sound checks before The Silver Palms launched into their upbeat set of catchy, garage-y rock.

“Georgia Boy” was the only song that any of us in the audience had heard (I’ll post the video below), and I was thrilled that the band sounded as polished live as in that recording. If anything, singer Dalton Drury’s voice is even stronger and more evocative in person.

TheSilverPalms-2

The Silver Palms slid quickly from one track into the next, with almost no banter from the stage. I thought a couple of the songs ended too abruptly, but I was hooked pretty quickly.

And then just as the medium-sized crowd seemed ready to step forward for more, and just as the band seemed to be relaxing into their own sound and into the new space, the set ended. The Silver Palms is working with Dave Kaplan of The Agency Group (who also reps The Black Keys, Black Lips, Electric Six, and The Kills, among others) and with London-based Machine Management, but the promising young band hasn’t played a lot of club gigs, and they’ve primarily been relegated to opening slots for shows in big cities like Atlanta, New York, and Chattanooga. Short sets are fine — and often preferred — for shows like that, but not when you’re a Friday night headliner in a latenight city like Savannah, where the bars are open till 3 a.m.

Just after The Silver Palms left the stage, one of the show’s organizers ran backstage and hustled them back out. And then they played a few other songs and seemed to relax a little more. A couple of times, guitarist Adam Drury seemed poised to break loose with an extended jam, but then he pulled back. But the crowd wasn’t going anywhere, and there was none of the drunken chattiness that sometimes disrupts late shows at The Jinx. There was a sense that we were watching a potentially great band literally find their stage legs, and we wanted more. But I don’t think that the band could read that mood — I had the impression that they didn’t want to overstay their welcome or take too many chances.

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just a little more 2013 – photos

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As I was going through my 2013 photos for my year end review, I came across a handful of shots that didn’t fit neatly into any of my posts this year. Some were from noteworthy gigs, but not my top shows of the year, some were from shows that were covered by someone else, a few were from performances that I only managed to capture one decent image, some of them I just like. Anyway, here’s some miscellaneous photos from 2013, most with a short explanation. You know the deal, a couple photos here, more after the jump.

KEN Mode played an unfortunately under attended show at The Jinx. Their noise/hardcore blend made a lot of year end lists and they won a Juno Award, the Canadian equivalent of an American Music Award. Their frontman, Jesse Matthewson, was really engaging live. kenmode-1

Another poorly attended show, this time at The Wormhole, Masked Intruder was a great pop punk show. Wearing color coordinated Chuck Taylors and ski masks through the whole show makes for a great gig to photograph. I proceeded to shoot the entire show with the white balance on my camera on the wrong setting. maskedintruder-1

Pianos Become the Teeth played Sweet Melissa’s basement on their way home from playing the Fest in Gainesville. It’s super dark down there and it was earbleedingly (what, that’s not a word?) loud, but PBTT was really entertaining. I’m glad that there is a young punk crowd around town, too. pianobecometheteeth-1

Ponderosa at The Jinx. I just like the mood of this picture. ponderosa-1

Scott H. Biram brings his one man show through town at least once a year. It’s always worth seeing. scotthbiram-1

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Larry Jack’s Magical Music Tour 1/3/14-1/7/14

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Hi guys,
I hope everyone survived New Year’s Eve. I would like to suggest y’all make a New Year’s resolution of seeing more music. For those of you that have to be in early, I’d like to point out that on Friday, the Bean exhibit (6-9p) followed by supper and the Accomplices (8pm) [see below rescheduling, but still a good idea] at Dub’s gets you home by 10pm. Or you could go to Greg Williams at Foxy Loxy on Tuesday (8pm) and be in early too. And I can tell you the tacos are delicious at Foxy Loxy. Good music does not ALWAYS happen after midnight. It looks like 2014 is starting off pretty busy.  Looking ahead, I see lots of good shows coming up throughout January. These are the shows I recommend/ hope to go to this week.

Thursday 1/2/14

Stan Ray – Warehouse – Acoustic show from the drummer of the Accomplices

Pluff Mudd – Molly MacPherson’s – Matt and Zac from the Accomplices.

Eric Culberson – Bayou  Café – I really like seeing a blues band in this River Street location

Friday 1/3/14

Savannah Rocks! Bulletin Board Opening Night – Sentient Bean (6-9) – This group has been collecting Savannah music memorabilia and is going to post the pictures on a giant bulletin board. The board will be at the Bean throughout January, moves to Blick Art in March. You can bring pictures or other memorabilia and they will copy (free of charge) and place on the display.

Accomplices – Dub’s Pub (8PM) – Start your year off right with some Accomplices music. It’s an early show and they have good food.

Drunk Uncle Friday – Dub’s Pub (8pm) – Some of the Accomplices couldn’t make it to the show, but this should be just as fun.  And could be a fitting name for this one-off band of Matt Eckstine and Stan Ray from the Accomplices, with Eric Dunn of the Train Wrecks and Cory Chambers of City Hotel.  You better be prepared for a good party at this show.

General Patton & the Heads of State – Molly MacPherson’s (10p) – Good dance rock band from the guitarist of Domino Effect

The Silver Palms, Blackrune – Jinx (10p) – Guitar rock, I enjoyed the video on Youtube. I’ve only seen Blackrune once.

Night Idea, Fight Cloud, Wet Socks – Hang Fire (10p) – I don’t know two of the bands, but I definitely recommend Wet Socks, a Savannah-based garage rock duo

Hitman – Bayou Café – More blues at the Bayou

Versatile – Congress Street Social Club (10p) – R&B group, if you like to dance, bounce from here to Molly’s and you will get your fill

Saturday 1/4/14

Epic Cycle – Congress Street Social Club – I always enjoy seeing this jam rock trio

Story’s End – Molly MacPherson’s (10p) – Three piece, keyboards, guitar, and bongos. Video sounded okay, I think I will like it.

Velvet Caravan – Jazz’d – Not my favorite venue, but I really like this band. Gypsy-jazz at its best.

Sunday 1/5/14

Sincerely, Iris – Jazz’d – One of this singer-songwriter’s increasingly rare gigs around here, he has relocated to North Carolina.

Voodoo Soup – Congress Street Social Club – Big E. and a rotating group of veteran musicians play some good party-rock.

Tuesday 1/6/14

Greg Williams – Foxy Loxy Cafe (8-11p) – This should be a very entertaining show. Greg is a talented singer-songwriter and I suspect this will be a perfect venue to see him.

a gig you’ll regret missing: The Silver Palms at The Jinx on Friday

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Despite a pretty thin digital footprint, the young band The Silver Palms has over 7,700 fans on Facebook and over 3,800 followers on Twitter.

The band from Camden, Georgia will play a Stopover preview show on Friday, January 3rd at The Jinx, with Blackrune opening. Click here for event invite.

I love The Silver Palms one and only music video. Here’s “Georgia Boy”:

You’re going to be hearing more about The Silver Palms soon. Click here for my column about the show in Do.

Larry Jack’s NYE recommendations

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If you still don’t know where you are going, this is a list of some music tonight.  Lots of DJ’s, if you enjoy that sort of thing.

Hypnotics – Molly MacPherson’s – I think it would be great to ring in the New Year with this garage-rock trio.

Les Racquet, Accomplices – Tybee Island Social Club – I am betting this will be a great show, if you happen to be on Tybee for New Year’s Eve.

American Hologram – Hyatt Regency (9-12) – Craig Tanner’s not there, but I think the others can hold it down without him.  And, most important, it’s free.

2Tone Fish –Warehouse

Those Cats/ A Nickel Bag Of Funk – Rousakis Plaza (A Nickel Bag Of Funk is playing last)

Andrew Gill Band – City Market (until 11pm)

Eric Culberson – Billy’s Place above McDonough’s (backed by a baby grand piano, sax, bass and drums.  I’ve never been there before, but I bet that would be fun

Greg Williams – Siciliano’s

Jackson & Maggie – 5 Spot (Old Clary’s)

13 standout Savannah shows in 2013

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Check out hissing lawns’ year-end posts by Petee Worrell, Anna Chandler, Kayne Lanahan of MusicFile Productions, Tom Cartmel, and Larry Jack, who saw a mere 626 live performances at Savannah venues in 2013 . . .

Here I’m focusing on 13 standout gigs/shows/sets that I saw in Savannah in 2013, with an emphasis on shows where I shot some photos. As with all such lists, this one is personal and idiosyncratic. I saw so much more good music this year than I can possibly detail here, and I’m sure I missed as many great shows as I saw.

13. Doug Mains & the City Folk

Doug Mains & the City Folk played their second gig at The Sentient Bean back in January — apparently the final Savannah visit from the immensely talented group from Michigan. They recently announced that they are disbanding. But good news: there’s another album already in the can that will be released in 2014, and musicians as talented as Doug and his bandmates don’t just disappear when one project ends. I still play the 2012 album The Mountain’s King regularly and keep finding more beauty in the subtleties of the instrumentation and the evocativeness of Doug’s vocals.

Doug Mains & the City Folk at The Sentient Bean

Doug Mains & the City Folk at The Sentient Bean

12. Mac DeMarco

So would the then-22 year old Mac DeMarco live up to the hype that he generated in the months before appearing in a 1 a.m. set at The Jinx on opening night of the 2013 Savannah Stopover? In a word, yes. I was probably the oldest person in the room, which happens pretty often these days, but found it impossible not to be swept along by the energy of the crowd and the live versions of songs like “Ode to Viceroy” and “Cooking Up Something Good”. I’m assuming that we’ll be getting a new record from DeMarco in 2014; I’ll be snapping it up.

Mac DeMarco at Savannah Stopover

Mac DeMarco at Savannah Stopover

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Downtown Double-Header at The Jinx and Hang Fire

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Last Saturday was probably one of the busiest nights music-wise I’ve had in a long time. Downtown was hit with six top quality acts at two of the best venues in town and luckily I managed to catch a bit of each band’s set.

Up at Hang Fire, the night was opened by local act Sunglow, a one man electronic project that generated tracks that ranged from distinctly mellow and ambient to more trip-hop inclined beats occasionally supported by minimalistic vocals. Next at Hang Fire came Athens, Georgia natives Powerkompany. Powerkompany delivered a certain kind of pop driven folk music that was engrossing and carried a rhythm that begged to be danced to. Closing out the night at Hang Fire was Savannah’s own Lovely Locks serving up their harmony intensive rock and roll that left the packed house cheering for encore after encore.

Down a little way at The Jinx, the night was opened by Rotten Blush who kicked things off with a fast and furious rock assault. Following Rotten Blush came Savannah locals Tonto, a trio of true rock and rollers who belted out some serious doses of classic, Americana rock. Closing out the night at The Jinx was Niche, another well-known purveyor of rock and roll who create a distinct sound by infusing their brand of slightly heavy rock with a certain Southern flair that gives several local bands that unique sound that comes out from Savannah.

All in all, whichever choice you happened to make last Saturday was a good one in my view as all of the bands were really on top of their game. Be sure to check out a few of the shots from the night below and hit the jump for the full sets, starting with The Jinx and finishing up with the acts at Hang Fire.

DSC_1601 DSC_1621 DSC_1654 DSC_1826

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Larry Jack’s Year End Review

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Hi guys,
Well, I see everyone is writing a year-end column, so I guess I will give it a shot. There have been a lot of really good shows that I have been to this year, but I am really not a good enough writer to be able to say much more than “what a great show” about each one of them. If you want to read something about the local shows from real writers, be sure to check out some of the other blogs on this site, especially Anna Chandler, Petee Worrell and Tom Cartmel’s columns.

Surprisingly, as I look over my list, there aren’t a lot that jump out at me as the best of the year. Part of that is because I am old and tend to forget, but I think it is because I really enjoy almost all of the music that I see being played in Savannah. I definitely come home some times and say “now THAT was a night of good music tonight”, but rarely do I come home disappointed with the quality of music that I hear. That is probably why you see me smiling so much at all the shows, why shouldn’t I be happy? I do envy these musicians that are able to express themselves in a way that gives other people joy. What a gift. I try to understand how they are able to communicate with their fellow players, even if they have never played with them before, usually with something as simple as a head nod. I hope that these musicians realize how lucky they are to be able to perform in front of people, sometimes even making a living at it!

Rather than trying to write about individual shows, I thought I would post the year end statistics on shows I have seen. For the wonkish among you, I counted an act as seen if I saw them for at least one song. Open mics counted as one band. For the venues, I counted the number of acts seen at that location, so three bands at The Jinx in one night counts as 3 points. Although most of these stats were what I expected, I did find some surprises.

TOTAL ACTS SEEN IN 2013 – 626

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Tom Cartmel’s Year in Review

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I’ve been a pretty hopeless music fanatic for over 30 years: my first live show was the Beach Boys when I was twelve, went through the typical classic rock high school, dove into the Pittsburgh punk scene in college, had an unfortunate jam band phase (don’t worry, I got better) when I moved to South Carolina, and then settled into listening to as much new music as I could (which is a lot). For years I traveled the Southeast to see shows that were interesting to me. Unfortunately, that driving only occasionally landed me in Savannah, even though I live right outside of it. Sure, I made it to the occasional Johnny Mercer Theatre show, a couple Fugazi shows, Frank Black at Savannah Smiles(!?) and some stuff at the Roundhouse, but didn’t really feel a connection to the Savannah scene. Then, one day, a few years ago, I went to my first metal show at The Jinx, a Black Tusk show specifically. I was HOOKED, instantly. Since then, I have attended pretty much any show that I could, as long as it, at least loosely, fell under my definition of “rock”. Generally, but not always, there is a guitar involved. At some point, I started taking pictures and really enjoyed it. The only downside to it is that I realized I should have been taking pictures for about the last 25 years. Oh well.

So here’s my rambling top ten semi local music events and releases of the year, in no real order.

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MusicFile Productions: The 25 Best Songs Of 2013

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Phosphorescent

Phosphorescent Tops My Best 25 of 2013

I’ve always been fascinated by year-end ‘best of’ music lists. The big guns (Rolling Stone, Spin, NPR etc) have more ground to cover than I can wrap my head around (from Miley Cyprus to Speedy Ortiz?) and the indie blogs need to stay true to their particular vibe. Perhaps that’s how “Song for Zulu” by Phosphorescent can end up as #50 on Stereogum’s Top 50 and #1 on Paste’s. It’s #1 for me as well so perhaps I am more of a Paste gal than a Stereogum hipster? Well yes, for those of you that know me, that would seem obvious.

The bottom line is lists are deeply personal. They’re about the music that’s touched you over the past year for one reason or another and putting it to a committee vote kind of loses the point. The lists I  gravitate to are the ones that help me discover music I might have missed or overlooked.

We are exposed to a tremendous (almost daunting) amount of music at MusicFile Productions over the course of a year and we spend a lot of time scouring the planet for up and comers. But at the end of the day, I admit to being heavily influenced by a combination of a) a good melody b) strong lyrics c) a bit of edge and creativity and d) some classically trained chops used in non-classical ways. If it makes me choke up, pump my fist in the air, dance my butt off, stomp my feet or give me pause, well that’s what I’m talking about.

I’ve left off all the Kanye West’s,the Arcade Fire’s, The National’s and the Vampire Weekend’s, not because they aren’t good records but because guessing you don’t need to see them on another list? I’ve also left off most of the bands we have playing Savannah Stopover Music Festival in March. Including them might seem self-serving plus a lot of them have VERY good records coming out in 2014. The exception I made was Caitlin Rose. Her 2013 Album The Stand In has restored my faith in country!

The list below is comprised of individual tracks taken from what I consider to be some of the best Albums or EP’s of the year. It contains rock, folk, pop, classical, dance, country, electronic, R&B, chamber pop and a lot of songs that defy categorization. To my knowledge, it contains no songs currently being played on over the air radio. And there are a few trends we definitely noticed this year: Strong country women with a classic bent (Caitlin Rose, Kacey Musgraves, Holly Williams), Smooth R&B with an 80’s nod (Rhye, Denitia and Sene), the continued resurgence of garage-y surf pop (too many to list!) and complex, orchestral folk/pop efforts with neo-classical elements (San Fermin, Mutual Benefit, Amason).

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