Holy Ghost Tent Revival at Revival Fest 2015 – photos

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I missed Holy Ghost Tent Revival when the big band from Asheville played Savannah recently, so I was thrilled to see them at Revival Fest. Check out the 2014 record Right State of Mind:

The set by Holy Ghost Tent Revival wasn’t just about the sound — it was about the light too. Capital A Productions had some strong lighting on the front of the stage, which looked really good with the flat gray sky behind the band as their set began. But then Savannah had one of its brief, glowing sunsets, with the musicians performing against a shifting sea of orange. Really nice. (Btw, I’ve got lots more photos from the festival to post, but I might just do a big gallery on the hissing lawns Facebook page.)

More photos after the jump.

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Larry Jack’s Magical Music Tour – 9/17/15 – 9/24/15

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Hey guys,
It looks like we have another week with plenty of music to choose from. The weekend starts on Thursday this week with a big show at the Jinx. There are also several Savannah bands playing around town tonight that you would enjoy, including Bottles & Cans at the Bayou Cafe. On Friday, I would like to head out to Pooler for one of my favorite bands, the Accomplices, in their last area show for a bit. But if I end up staying in town, I will probably bounce from the Jinx to Barrelhouse, both shows should be lots of fun.

One of my favorite annual events, Statts Fest, is at the Jinx this Saturday, with plenty of local bands throughout the day. And the music continues into next week, with another good show at the Jinx on Monday and early, all-ages shows on Tuesday (Foxy Loxy) and Wednesday (Sentient Bean). Although it is still a few more days away, I added next Thursday as a bonus on this list, since there are so many good shows on that night. I hope to see you somewhere around.

Thursday 17th
Ben Keiser Band (Sav’h rock) – Barrelhouse South
Bottles & Cans (Sav’h blues) – Bayou Cafe
Diarrhea Planet (Nashville rock), Burns Like Fire (Athens punk rock & roll) – Jinx ($10)
Jason Bible (Train Wrecks frontman) – Molly MacPherson’s

Friday 18th
Accomplices (Sav’h lowcountry string band) – Wild Wing Cafe (Pooler)
Big Something (Burlington, NC rock w/ trumpet & sax), SPORE (Jacksonville electrofunk jam) – Barrelhouse South
Dope Sandwich 10th Anniversary Show – Jinx ($5)
Stone Giant (Boston rock), Scattered Hamlet (honky tonk metal), Beitthemeans (Birmingham southern rock) – Wormhole

Saturday 19th
Crystal Bright & The Silver Hands (kaleidophrenic cabaret) – The Grey ($21/ $11 w/o food & drink)
Statts Fest (Joe Nelson & James Pittman, Magic Rocks, Bottles & Cans, Damon & The Shitkickers, COEDS, Hotplate, Bear Fight!, Black Tusk) – Jinx (4p, $20)
Lull, Roxy Roca – Barrelhouse South
Orange Constant (Statesboro jam rock) – Congress Street Social Club
Train Wrecks (Sav’h Americana) – Molly MacPherson’s

Sunday 20th
The Winding Stream movie – Muse Warehouse ($10)

Monday 21st
Generation Pill (Sav’h garbage), Mad Doctors, Trophy Wives (Sav’h punk) – Jinx ($5)
Greg Williams (Sav’h singer-songwriter) – Bayou Cafe

Tuesday 22nd
Clouds & Satellites (Sav’h indie rawk) – Foxy Loxy Cafe (7p)

Wednesday 23rd
Bradford Lee Folk (Nashville bluegrass folk) – Blowin Smoke (6-9p)

Thursday 24th
Isaac Smith w/ City Hotel – Sentient Bean ($5)
Jason Bible, Payne Bridges – Gingerbread House ($15, includes CD & beverages)
Bradford Lee Folk & the Bluegrass Playboys, Uncommon Collective – Trinity Church ($10, 7:30, all ages)
Jarekus Singleton, Eric Culberson – Savannah Jazz Festival (8p)

Song Premiere: The Casket Girls – “Sixteen Forever”

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The Casket Girls will release The Piano Album on October 17 via Graveface Records, but you can preorder it now. And you can check out our exclusive premiere of the album’s first single — the lush, languid, eerie “Sixteen Forever”:

“The idea for The Piano Album was born backstage before a show at BSP in Kingston, New York,” says The Casket Girls’ Elsa Greene. “My sister and I were getting dressed up and applying makeup when Ryan started playing the old piano that lived in the green room, and Fay and I started singing… There was some kind of magic in the air… And the rest was history. The recording of the album accompanied our fantasy of traveling around from piano bar to fancy hotel lobby with our new lounge act, and post partum, lingers in the afterglow of getting back to our roots.”

The Savannah-based band is comprised of Ryan Graveface (Black Moth Super Rainbow, The Marshmallow Ghosts, Dreamend), who writes and plays the song structures, and Elsa and Phaedra Greene, who write and perform the vocals.

The story goes that Ryan was visiting Savannah — his future home — and chanced upon Elsa and Phaedra playing autoharp and singing bizarre songs in one of the city’s iconic squares. Ryan had been (and still is) obsessed with The Shangri-las, and Elsa and Phaedra personified his desire of a far darker and more complex version of the 60s group.

The Piano Album follows up The Casket Girls’ True Love Kills The Fairy Tale and debut Sleepwalking, both available via Graveface Records. If you’re in or on the way to Savannah, you can of course find much of the Graveface catalog at Graveface Records & Curiosities at 5 West 40th Street.

“Sixteen Forever” is also one of the tracks on the Graveface Records Halloween Sampler, which comes with the purchase of a limited edition Graveface shirt. (Other acts on the record include Creepoid, The Marshmallow Ghosts, and Whirr.)

The Casket Girls (Facebook, Twitter) have been praised by NPR, Nylon, Pitchfork, Consequence Of Sound, USA Today, Interview Magazine, eMusic, Bust, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and more. The Casket Girls have toured with The Faint, Trust, and Black Moth Super Rainbow, among others. The band made their late night TV debut on Last Call With Carson Daly.

Parker Millsap at Revival Fest 2015 – photos

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22-year old Oklahoman Parker Millsap made his first Savannah appearance on Saturday night at Revival Fest. Millsap’s songs sprawl are unfailingly smart and well-constructed, but their emotional range is what I find most astonishing — from wry to touching, from exultant to perverse.

Millsap’s brilliant self-titled album came out in early 2014, so I’m especially curious to see what’s coming next. He and his excellent ensemble (Michael Rose on bass and Daniel Foulks on fiddle) have been on the road a lot — I was lucky to see them at Forecastle in Louisville in July — so one can imagine that his new work will feed somehow off the varied experiences of the road.

In addition to the brilliant songwriting, Millsap has a powerful, occasionally gravelly voice and has a charismatic, passionate stage presence.

I took some photos. More after the jump:

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Those Darlins at Revival Fest 2015 – photos

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I’ve already done an overview post with photos of the amazing acts that played Revival Fest 2015 last weekend here in Savannah, but I ended up with a lot of pretty good shots of some of the bands. So this is the first of several followup posts with extended galleries.

And what better band to start with than Those Darlins? This was my 4th time seeing the Nashville-based rock band, but I was swept along by the show as if I were seeing them for the first time. The pacing of the set seemed near perfect, and the foursome ripped through some of their strongest songs from their albums — especially 2013’s Blur the Line — and they previewed new work too.

If you’re not familiar with Those Darlins, check out one of their best videos:

The band’s bold and provocative look is defined by Jessi Zazu and Nikki Kvarnes — I could shoot photos of them all day, even if they’re bathed in smoke like they were on Saturday in the old paint shops at the Georgia State Railroad Museum. A great show by artists that we’ll be hearing from for years to come. Lots more photos after the jump.

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we are always looking for new contributors to this music blog

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hissing lawns, which is named in honor of a Joni Mitchell album, was founded almost exactly two years ago. In spring of 2015, even though we had been around only a year and a half, readers of Connect Savannah chose hissing lawns as Savannah’s best blog and even as runner-up for best Savannah website.

If you look over in the sidebars, you can see that we post a lot of photo galleries — primarily these are from Savannah shows (some local acts, some touring), but we’ve also covered festivals throughout the Southeast.

We have had 15 contributors over the last two years, but several have had to move on (two even took full-time journalism jobs) and others don’t contribute as much as they used to.

If you are interested in contributing to hissing lawns, here’s some general info to keep in mind:

  • we can’t pay you
  • we don’t make assignments — you cover things you want to cover
  • we can’t write about house shows — they will get shut down if they get too much press
  • we are always looking for show previews and reviews, record reviews, interviews, photo galleries, whatever
  • we generally like to keep things upbeat — with so much good music out there, why dwell on the negative?
  • we’d like more than 50 percent of our posts to be about the Savannah scene, but we have plenty of room right now for other coverage
  • we have specific needs for coverage of some types of music (especially hip-hop, rap, and pop) and coverage of venues that we don’t routinely patronize, but we can always use more coverage of everything

If you are interested in contributing, please get in touch with me (Bill Dawers) via a message to the hissing lawns Facebook page.

MusicFile forges ahead with Stopover In The Yard, special shows throughout the fall

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In my overview post (with photos!) of the spectacular 2015 Revival Fest, I noted that attendance took a hit because of the weather, which was ironic because the weather was actually pretty good: there was minimal rain, all the bands played solid sets, the cloud cover kept temperatures pleasant, and the nighttime air was glorious.

But Savannah is a famously fickle town with music fans who wait to the last minute to buy tickets. We’ve all gotten spoiled because we so often find tickets available at the door even for some important shows.

Kayne Lanahan, CEO of MusicFile Productions (the parent company of Revival Fest and Savannah Stopover), told me today that total attendance at the daylong Revival Fest was just over 700 — a 50 percent decline from 2014.

Kayne said: “Advance ticket sales in Savannah are notoriously slow so when you have everything riding on ‘day of sales’, bad weather is the kiss of death. We lost money on this one but we’re dusting ourselves off and seeing what we can learn from it.”

So MusicFile is plowing ahead and already working on booking for the 2016 Savannah Stopover. Also, take note of the following confirmed dates:

MusicFile also has a few other exciting fall shows, including another Stopover In The Yard, in the works.

a quick recap of Revival Fest 2015, with lots of photos

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On the Sunday morning after Savannah’s 3rd annual Revival Fest, I fired up Spotify and listened to Have Gun, Will Travel‘s stellar new album Science from an Easy Chair, which is based on the famed Shackleton expedition.

Have Gun, Will Travel’s set was one of the highlights of a day filled with highlights. Revival Fest — which is a project of Savannah Stopover parent company MusicFile Productions — booked excellent acts in its first two years, but this year raised the bar several notches higher.

Of course, festivals are never easy, especially not when they’re disrupted by rain. The weather really wasn’t all that bad on Saturday, but we’ve been drowning here in Savannah for weeks. The day started out gray, with ominous forecasts and worrisome radar, and that obviously scared some people away.

But the rain was light and moved out pretty fast, and festival organizers and Capital A Productions nimbly moved a couple of acts to the indoor stage and kept things running pretty close to on time.

We’d already had a great afternoon by the time the sun set behind Holy Ghost Tent Revival, which offered a few minutes of stunning views.

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At some point on Saturday, I realized that I was doing a shitty job of getting photos of the crowd, the vendors, etc., but Revival Fest will surely be posting plenty of those to Facebook soon. I’ll ask MusicFile’s CEO Kayne Lanahan for an attendance figure at some point too — given the sprawling grounds, the two stages, and the 12 hour length of the 2015 fest, I have no sense of the total turnout.

I’ll have a lot more photos to post later, once I figure out a game plan for sharing them and for more detailed posts about some of the bands.

The day got rolling with Savannah’s Missionary Blues, which sounds stronger and fuller with each gig.

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Caleb Warren & The Perfect Gentlemen / Revival Fest after-party at The Jinx – photos

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We have a lot of photos and posts coming up from Revival Fest but here are some images from the after-party at The Jinx with Caleb Warren & The Perfect Gentlemen. They played a three evening run of shows in Savannah and on Tybee Island, ending with last night’s gig. Caleb and The Gents are now performing as a Stringband trio with featured special guests for bigger shows, and will be heading into the North Georgia mountains soon to begin recording a full-length album. As with most bands that spend any significant time in Savannah they’ve come to love our local music community, laid back quality of life, and are working on plans to come back soon.

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Larry Jack’s Magical Music Tour – 9/10/15 – 9/15/15

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Hey guys,
The next few days look like an excellent run for music downtown, one of the best in a while. There are several good shows on Friday night, but I would recommend the Talking Heads tribute band, Same As It Ever Was, at the Jinx. I have seen them several times and it is always a good party. I recommend getting there a little early, they usually sell-out. I hope that most of you are planning on going to the Revival Festival on Saturday. The after-show at the Jinx on Saturday may be the best show of the week. Caleb Warren was here a few months ago, he puts on an excellent show. I can’t recommend him highly enough. I may try to catch one (or both) of those Sunday shows. If you haven’t had your fill of music by Monday, I listed a few more shows on Monday and Tuesday. I hope you make it to a few shows this week.

Thursday 10th
Lucidea (Atlanta progressive electronic jam duo), Blackfoot Gypsies – Barrelhouse South
Set And Setting, Hot Plate (Sav’h instrumental progressive rock) – Jinx ($6)

Friday 11th
Corbitt Brothers Band (Nashville southern rock) – Barrelhouse South
Magic Rocks (Sav’h classic rock) – Bayou Cafe
Main Street Trio (Sav’h rock duo) – Sorry Charlie’s
Moose Kick (Charleston southern progressive funk) – Congress Street Social Club
Same As It Ever Was (Talking Heads Tribute Band) – Jinx ($10)

Saturday 12th
Revival Fest – Roundhouse (2p-11p)
Epic Cycle (Sav’h rock) – Warehouse
Escaping Fate (Sav’h rock) – bar.food
Wood & Steel (Sav’h rock), Innocent Gun Trio – Barrelhouse South
Tropidelic (Cleveland funk-reggae-rock) – Congress Street Social Club
Caleb Warren & The Perfect Gentlemen (Atlanta Western swing) – Jinx

Sunday 13th
Shreepal Zala (Atlanta classic rock covers) – Rocks On The Roof
Tomo Nakayama (Seattle singer-songwriter) – Sentient Bean

Monday 14th
Craig Tanner’s Open Mic – Abe’s On Lincoln

Tuesday 15th
Ben Keiser Band – Bay Street Blues
Open Mic – Molly MacPherson’s
Eric Culberson Band – Bayou Cafe

West End Motel, James Leg, A.M. Rodriquez at The Jinx – photos

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I’m not going to lie, the words “featuring members of Mastodon….” alone will get me to come out for a show, but the buzz in The Jinx Friday night coupled with conversations with some friends who had seen the bands before gave me the feeling that it might be a special night. The feeling wasn’t wrong.

A.M. Rodriquez opened with his signature countrified blues, and then I was blown away by James Leg‘s dirty, raw, whiskey-soaked, blues/soul/roots punk. Formerly of Black Diamond Heavies and The Immortal Lee County Killers, Leg’s gravelly voice and insane abilities on bass keys and Fender Rhodes were mesmerizing. It’s not easy to make keys “heavy” and the man behind the Rhodes made it look effortless. I won’t miss him again locally.

Leg’s set left a pretty strong possibility for a headlining letdown, but, boy, was I mistaken. West End Motel is not easy to define…rock’n’roll certainly applies, but so do playful, country, charismatic, soulful, anthemic, catchy, and just about anything else that can make a bar band flat out fun. With the caliber of the musicians on stage, though, it never devolved into sloppy, and the set often impressed musically. There were singalongs to several of their originals, a Cheech and Chong cover (seriously) and a cover of The Misfits’ “Last Caress” that…well, you should have been there. Apparently a lot of things have to align for all the members of the band to be able to play together, and I can honestly say I felt lucky to have seen them. One of my favorite sets of the year.

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Mac McCaughan (Superchunk), Flesh Wounds at The Tin Roof – photos

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The week before I moved to South Carolina twenty odd years ago, I bought Superchunk‘s Tossing Seeds (Singles 89-91) and began what some may call a musical obsession. I have traveled a great deal of the Southeast to catch Superchunk in various venues and festivals. From Austin to Jacksonville, Music Farm to Jam Room Festival, the band has never disappointed me. So when frontman Mac McCaughan announced tour dates supporting his excellent new album Non Believers, the short drive to Charleston’s Tin Roof was a given.

Carrboro, NC’s Flesh Wounds, a killer three piece punk unit, opened the night with their own energetic punk blasts, and then settled in behind Mac and became The Non Believers for the rest of the night. And what a night it was….songs from the Merge Records founder’s current album, brilliant cuts from his efforts as Portastatic, a couple of Superchunk numbers (including one requested by yours truly!), and a few fantastic covers to close the set. Perfect.

Pics were tough, as the stage was dimly lit, but I managed a few, click through for more.

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