hissing lawns

Torche plays The Jinx Thursday – preview

by Tom Cartmel • January 14, 2016

Hey, everybody knows that the mighty Torche is playing (read as “laying waste to”) The Jinx Thursday night, right? That’s probably tonight by the time you read this. If you know who Torche is, you’re already planning to be there. If you don’t, but like heavy, and boy do I mean HEAVY, rock, I cannot recommend this show highly enough. Torche plays way downtuned, thunderous, but somehow melodic and amazingly catchy rock of the highest order. More hooks than a tackle box. Oh, that’s bad. Let’s try again. More hooks than Mike Tyson. Ughh, still no good. More hooks than Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Yikes, that’s no better. Here, just check out this rad video featuring one of their signature songs, and, perhaps more importantly, kickball.

Be there. Bring earplugs. Not kidding.

Here’s a few shots from the last time they came through town and I barely knew how to use my camera.

Support by Jeff Carey and Day Old Man. Show up early. Get your money’s worth.

Breakers, Black Beach, Midriffs and The Mumzees at The Jinx – photos

by Tom Cartmel • January 13, 2016

The Jinx? A Dad Joke show? I’m in. I know I’m starting to sound like a cheerleader (whatever you do, DO NOT picture me in a cheerleader uniform, nobody wants that. What’s that? Too late? Oh man, sorry.) for the Dad Joke guys, but so far they haven’t steered me wrong. More high quality, super solid, headed-toward-really-great touring bands coupled with one of Savannah’s quickest rising acts.

For Dad Joke 12 touring bands were Boston based Midriffs and Black Beach plus the ATL’s The Mumzees. All three bands shredded through fuzzy, catchy, uptempo, punky power pop. Guitar heroics all around, this kind of stuff gives me hope for the future of rock music. Killer. Savannah’s Breakers are probably the most buzzed about outfit in SAV currently, and a great crowd stuck around late to see their classic alt/new wave indebted show. Fun night.

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Larry Jack’s Magical Music Tour – 1/14/16 – 1/21/16

by Larry Jack Sammons • January 13, 2016

Hey guys,
The music scene seems to be picking up downtown this week. There are a few good shows to take note of for the weekend. Torche is playing at the Jinx on Thursday, Keller Williams is playing at Southbound on Friday, and the Hooten Hallers are at the Jinx on Saturday. I’m looking forward to seeing some of you and about this weekend.

Thursday 1/14
S.P.O.R.E. (elecrofunk jam fron Jacksonville) – Barrelhouse South
Torche (hard rock), Jeff Carey (noisey computer music), Day Old Man (Atlanta sludge metal) – Jinx
Waits & Co (Sav’h Americana) – Molly MacPherson’s
Eric Culberson Band (Sav’h blues) – Bayou Cafe

Friday 1/15
Corbitt-Clampitt Experience (Jacksonville rock) – Barrelhouse South
Kyle Megna & The Monsoons (WI rock) – Congress Street Social Club
Lara Hope & The Ark-Tones (NY rockabilly), Crazy Man Crazy (Sav’h rockabilly), Red Neckromancer (NY) – Jinx
General Patton (Sav’h rock) – Molly MacPherson’s
Keller Williams (VA acoustic dance music), City Hotel (Sav’h bluegrass) – Southbound Brewery ($35/40)
Tribute To Bill Monroe – Tybee Post Theater ($20)

Saturday 1/16
High Divers (Charleston roots rock), Those Cats (Statesboro soul-funk) – Barrelhouse South
Ray Lundy (Bottles & Cans frontman), Hooten Hallers (MO rock-blues-hillbilly) – Jinx
Tropidelic (Cleveland funk-reggae-rock) – Congress Street Social Club
Charlie Fog Band (Sav’h Grateful Dead covers) – Molly MacPherson’s

Monday 1/18
Craig Tanner & Mr. Williams Open Mic – Abe’s on Lincoln

Tuesday 1/19
City Hotel Solo Sessions – Foxy Loxy Cafe (7p)
Ben Keiser Band (Sav’h rock) – Bay St Blues
Eric Culberson Open Jam – Bayou Cafe

Wednesday 1/20
Lobo Marino (VA world-fused folk music), Oh Ma (Sav’h gnomes) – Sentient Bean (8p, $5 donation)

Thursday 1/21
CC Witt, Jason Bible, Tom Cooler, Anna Chandler, Markus Kuhlman, Eck Bohymn, AM Rodriguez, Jay Rudd – Thursday Night Opry at Trinity Church (7:30, $10, all-ages)

“the sun machine is coming down, and we’re gonna have a party”

by bill • January 11, 2016

I’m not certain when David Bowie first impressed himself in my brain, but I’m pretty sure it was during the Grammy awards in 1975. I was a little kid sitting on a shag carpet in our den in a small city in Kentucky, and then this:

Yes, that’s host Andy Williams introducing the young superstar Bowie, who begins by addressing “Ladies and gentlemen, and others” and then meanders, with a touch of French, through the presentation for the best R&B performance by a female artist. Aretha Franklin wins, accepts a kiss from the presenter, and says, “Wow, this is so good I could kiss David Bowie.”

Get in line, Aretha.

So much has been said and written about David Bowie today (a good day for Facebook for a change?) that I’m overwhelmed with memories of him and his work — his songs, his films, his albums, his outfits, his hairstyles, his amazing ability to tell entire stories in three-minute songs. I didn’t follow Bowie’s career closely over the last couple of decades, but it’s impossible to overstate his significance to those of us who grew up in his long cultural shadow.

I’ve seen a number of people say that Bowie’s power lies somehow in his ambiguity — his toying with gender identity and sexual preference before such play was fashionable, the deliberate opaqueness of many of his lyrics — but I don’t think he was that much of a shapeshifter.

Bowie’s work seemed to say that anything could be possible — and that everything would somehow be alright if we slip out of the clothes that society has laid out for us. His songs consistently found the magical, the mystical, even the fun in the everyday. His romanticization of the lives of outsiders — from aliens to the ostracized — asserted that every life and every day mattered, no matter what lay ahead.

A few things that struck my eyes or ears today:

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Florence + The Machine, My Morning Jacket, Jane’s Addiction, At The Drive-In, The 1975, Deftones, The Decemberists, Walk the Moon top bill for 4th annual Shaky Knees festival in Atlanta

by bill • January 11, 2016

The fourth annual Shaky Knees festival features another awesome lineup, including Florence + The Machine, My Morning Jacket, Jane’s Addiction (performing Ritual de lo Habitual), At The Drive-In, The 1975, Deftones, The Decemberists and Walk the Moon.

There will also be, believe it or not, Huey Lewis and the News performing Sports in its entirety.

Other top acts include The Head and the Heart, Cold War Kids, The Kills, and several bands that I’m especially thrilled to see in the lineup, including Baroness, Kylesa, Murder By Death, Eagles of Death Metal, Against Me!, The Front Bottoms, and Adia Victoria. And Houndmouth and Phosphorescent.

There will be five stages for Shaky Knees this year at Centennial Olympic Park and International Plaza in downtown Atlanta, GA. — that’s up from the four stages last year in Central Park. The festival is slated for May 13-15.

Advanced General Admission 3-Day Tickets ($215) as well as Advanced VIP 3-Day Tickets ($614) will go on sale to the public this Wednesday, January 13 at 10am. Regular 3-Day Tickets ($236) and Regular VIP Tickets ($692) will go on sale as soon as Advanced Tickets sell out. New this year, kids 10 and under are welcome for free with a ticketed adult.

Lots more info can be found at the Shaky Knees website. Also, the festival has a new spinoff event this year — Shaky Beats festival will be held the following weekend.

UPDATE: Not surprisingly, we have previously posted some pretty good photos of some of the bands announced today, so click on through for more (in no particular order):

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Robert Randolph & The Family Band, Randall Bramblett, many more acts slated for A-Town Get Down 2016

by bill • January 9, 2016

Wow, what a great lineup for the 2016 A-Town Get Down, which is slated for Feb. 27 at the Charles Morris Center here in Savannah. Skip the rest of this post and go ahead and buy your tickets here.

The last time Robert Randolph & The Family Band came to town was for the Savannah Music Festival in 2011 — and what a sublime performance that was at Trustees Theater.

Randall Bramblett is still going strong after decades as part of the Georgia scene, and the rest of the lineup looks awesome too. hissing lawns contributor Jon Waits will be there with his band Waits & Co. And Gill Landry from Old Crow Medicine Show?

And how about Andrae Murchison, the Savannah native who has traveled the world with the Duke Ellington Orchestra and The Skatalites?

I chatted a year or so ago with Walter Parks about a collaboration with the Florida Ballet, and I’m super excited to see what he has planned. Really, great news up and down the whole lineup.

From the Facebook event:

Robert Randolph + The Family Band
Randall Bramblett
Paris Monster
Gill Landry (of Old Crow Medicine Show)
Savannah Children’s Choir
Waits + Co.
Isaac Smith Band
Walter Parks + The Florida Ballet
Infalliable Funk
Marques and The Marvelous Miracles
Kay Dené + the Record
Andrae Murchison
The Get Right Band
Taylor Roberts
Arvid Smith

Some of the activities and workshops that have been announced, so far:

Hands-On Art Projects
Children’s Crafts
Portrait Painting/ Fashion Illustration
Collabostation
ArtPort Shuffle
Adobe Digital Arts Lab
Art Rise- Spin Art
Scribble- Face Paint
Ceramics
Vinyl Appreciation

The festival is produced by the nonprofit Alex Townsend Memorial Foundation, which “was named for Alex Townsend, a highly creative and impactful young man who passed away at the age of 21. A passionate artist and musician, Alex was studying graphic design at the Savannah College of Art and Design at the time of his death.”

Here’s the foundation’s mission:

We work to help instill self-esteem, confidence and optimism in young creative people. Currently we do this through the popular A-Town series of festivals for music and art, and Pianos for People, which gives used pianos to families and organizations serving the underprivileged.

It’s a great event. We encouraged everyone to support it.

Larry Jack’s Magical Music Tour – 1/7/16 – 1/12/16

by Larry Jack Sammons • January 7, 2016

Hey guys,
It looks like the weekend will be starting early this week, with an exciting punk show at the Jinx on Thursday. There are several good shows throughout the weekend. I have listed several to choose from.

Thursday 7th
Black Beach (MA rock), Midriffs (Boston flower power punk), Mumzees (Nashville post-punk), Breakers (Sav’h) – Jinx
Harbor Pilots (Sav’h singer-songwriters) – Molly MacPherson’s
Eric Culberson Band (Sav’h) – Bayou Cafe

Friday 8th
Velvet Caravan (Sav’h gypsy jazz) – Sulfur Studios (6p)
Echo Courts, Kilo Tango, The Lipschitz – Sentient Bean (7p, all ages)
Tradewinds – Mansion on Forsyth
Bottles & Cans (Sav’h blues), Tim Vee – Jinx
BBXF (Album Release), Broken Glow, Rotten Blush – Barrelhouse South
Charile Fog Band (Grateful Dead covers) – Molly MacPherson’s

Saturday 9th
Charlie Fog Band (Grateful Dead covers), Mobros (SC Americana) – Barrelhouse South
Bottles & Cans (Sav’h blues) – Molly MacPherson’s
Versatile – Congress Street Social Club

Sunday 10th
Voodoo Soup (Sav’h rock covers) – Congress Street Social Club

Tuesday 12th
Alexa Dexa, Happy Thoughts – Sentient Bean (8p, all ages, donations)
Clouds & Satellites (Sav’h rock) – Foxy Loxy Cafe (7p, all ages)

Wet Socks, The Nude Party, Grimsel kick off 2016 at The Jinx – photos

by bill • January 6, 2016

You know it’s going to be a good year if Larry Jack ends up in the pit on New Year’s Day.

And you know 2016 is going to be an interesting year when you kick it off with a lineup that guarantees tons of hits from perverted search strings. (You should see some of the sketchy search terms that draw freaks to our early 2014 posts with photos of Perfect Pussy, Crazy Bag Lady, Tonto, and Wet Socks.)

The garage rock duo Wet Socks hadn’t played a hometown show in a couple months (an eternity for them), so they predictably attracted a big crowd that couldn’t stand still. And was that the first Wet Socks encore ever? Not sure, but The Stooges “I Wanna Be Your Dog” seemed like a pretty good way to close out a rollicking show.

We are sure looking forward to more Wet Socks shows and songs in 2016 — and we hope that Hunter and John don’t wait too long before putting out a followup to their awesome album Drips.

OK, The Nude Party remained fully dressed, but what a freakin’ party. The 6-piece from Boone, N.C. plays rock and roll with an occasionally poppy, bluesy, throwback, even post-punk vibe (if that makes any sense at all) and it seemed like they could play pretty much anything. Igor drew a comparison to the early Woggles, assuming I heard him right over the din of songs like this:

Grimsel is the young Savannah duo of Grant Furton and Garrett Kemp, and they were so tight it’s obvious they’ve been playing together for a while. They’ve got a dense, shoegazey sound that varies a lot in tempo and volume. You’ll be hearing from Grimsel again.

Not a bad way to break in 2016. Tom and I both took some pics (shock), and we had no say over the funny/horrid holiday decorations behind the stage.

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So much music, so little time…Tom’s Best of 2015

by Tom Cartmel • January 6, 2016

Shut off the TV. Go to shows, listen to music, do stuff. Unlike this post, life is short.

That’s how I finished my wrap up at the end of last year, and, well, I tried. I don’t really watch much TV to start, so that was kind of easy. I saw 250+ sets of live music, shot a ton of photos (some are even not terrible), listened to music pretty much incessantly (more on that in a bit), and generally did stuff. Life is still short, but is amazing if you let it be. Oh, and this post is pretty long, too.

Thanks to anyone who read this blog (and voted us Savannah’s best, seriously, that kicks ass), went to shows, had a nerdy music conversation with me, promoted bands, played music, danced, bought me a beer, served me a beer, rode along, high fived, head banged, recommended tunes, “liked” my status, made me laugh, or just generally kicked ass in your own way.

Here’s a vaguely chronological photo journal of 2015. Check it out, or, you know, don’t….but it would be cooler if you did.

Bane, yes, freaking Bane, played the Guild Hall early in the year. The Guild Hall ended up sort of a bust as a venue, charging too much to really work for promoters, but boy, was this show fun. Seriously, Bane?

King Tuff/Ex Hex/Creepoid at Hangfire was probably my favorite show of the year. Killer, rad, awesome, stellar, pick your adjective.

I’m not sure which Cusses show this was from, as I saw them a few times (always great). I sure hope everything works out and they make a triumphant return.

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Hardy & The Hardknocks, Breakers, and SUSTO’s Justin Osborne at The Jinx – photos

by bill • January 5, 2016

I’ve written before about the versatility of T. Hardy Morris and the southern grunge of the flat-out awesome 2015 album Hardy & The Hardknocks: Drownin On A Mountaintop (buy it here). I’ve seen Morris perform five times, I think, in various projects in the last few years, so I was super-stoked for his return with The Hardknocks to The Jinx in mid-December in the final show of the year from MusicFile Productions (parent company of Savannah Stopover and Revival Fest).

I also did a rare hissing lawns interview with Morris before the show, which will be posted soon.

While Hardy & The Hardknocks furiously ripped through their set, a former student of mine who’d never seen Hardy perform walked up to me and pretty much summed it up: “That little motherfucker is amazing.”

We also love Breakers here at hissing lawns — the new Savannah band that seems to be channeling the best of the New Wave. Holden has written about Breakers here and here.

Justin Osborne opened with some staggeringly good songs that he also performs with Charleston-based SUSTO. What a songwriter.

Osborne’s set was marred, however, by some really loud women who were clustered by the bar near the stage — we’re hardly schoolmarmish around here, but, seriously, a guy with a guitar can’t compete with that volume.

Tom and I both took some shots — there are more of all three acts after the jump.

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2015 songs & soul where you seek it – photos

by JWaits • January 4, 2016

This last year was a busy one for me, with a lot of switching creative caps; photography & music. Admittedly I didn’t get to as many shows as I would have liked, but sometimes that just comes with the territory of playing my own gigs, and shooting for various publications. While club dates, and bar shows were where I lacked hearing music in 2015, I was fortunate in other ways. My year began with putting together, and taking on the bulk of production duties for Trinity Sanctuary Concerts‘ Thursday Night Opry, and sharing a management role with Jared Hall of Velvet Caravan. This gives me great access to fellow artists on a different level, as not only a host, but ardent supporter of up & coming, as well as established performers. I’ve gotten to know this ‘room’ as both a performer & producer, and can say with authority that it’s one of the best sounding spaces that we have in Savannah.

The following photos are just a few highlight shots from this last year at Trinity.

Trinity Sanctuary Concerts

City Hotel

Ramsay Midwood, Georgia Mountain Stringband, String Magnolia

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yep, Monday, Jan. 4 is Hang Fire’s final night

by bill • January 4, 2016

Hang Fire’s impending closure on Whitaker Street generated intense interest last fall, but then the bar got a last-minute lease extension.

We certainly haven’t heard the last of Wes and Heather, but nothing has been confirmed yet about a new location or locations. I feel pretty confident, though, that a bar like Hang Fire will be opening in the same general vicinity in 2016.

Hang Fire wasn’t originally planned as a music venue, but it has become a crucial player in the Savannah scene, especially as a proving ground for acts like Wet Socks and Crazy Bag Lady, which will play on the final night. In addition to the music, I think I most appreciated Hang Fire for its upbeat spirit and for the sheer diversity of the bar’s regulars.

Tomorrow [Monday] is our last night, we hope you can make it!

Posted by HangFire Bar on Sunday, January 3, 2016