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This page is a Monthly Archive of entries from December 2007 listed from newest to oldest.
For those interested in the vibrant and rich music scene in our humble little towns, these two bands need no introduction: both Temple of Low Men and Lorenzo Goetz helped define the musical landscape until their demises in 2005 and 2006, respectively.
What was supposed to be only a 3/4 reunion for Lorenzo Goetz has turned into a full blown two night stand now that drummer Jesse Greenlee has come back into the fold for the fun. Each night features a different opening act: tonight is a Smile Politely favorite, Elsinore and tomorrow is Darling Disarm.
Tickets are available at the gate for $8 and capacity is extremely limited. Get there early. Doors open at 8 p.m.
Photo by Todd Owyoung
Why only five? Cause ten would make the man lose sleep!
It seems that the industry’s continual search for flash-in-the-pan “bangers” has done more than just dumb down mainstream hip-hop. It has made it virtually impossible to find complete pieces of work, whole albums that stand as a cohesive offering. Albums like A Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory, The Beastie Boys’ Ill Communication or Mos Def’s Black on Both Sides are becoming rarities. Don’t fret — I found at least five albums worth your time this year.
For those of us who will be skipping the Spice Girls reunion tour this winter—join us at Jennifer North in downtown Champaign tonight. Cowgirl cutie (née punk rocker) Angie Heaton, Headlights siren Erin Fein, Marla Hansen (violist for indie heartbreaker Sufjan Stevens), and charming pianist Lynn O’Brien will be filling the space with their own brands of “girl power”—the kind that naturally exudes from real, intelligent, funny and talented women. Pick up some last-minute gifts from the boutique as you listen, and feel the warmth of holiday cheer in the assurance that part of your admission donation will go to the Orpheum Children’s Science Museum. The show starts at 8pm, and admission is on a sliding scale from $5 to $10.
Jennifer North is located at 17 Taylor Street in downtown Champaign, between Dandelion and Radio Maria.
In an event similar to what happened to Milli Vanilli in 1989, local funk and soul group Beat Kitchen received a stunning backlash from fans at their concert earlier this month after an apparent “audio error."
Seconds into their song “People Say," lead singer Brandon T. Washington made a motion to someone off stage that he was having some type of difficulty. Moments later, there was a noticeable skip in audio while Brandon and his rhythm section continued to play, oblivious to the glitch. The audio track then proceeded to speed up and wind down in reel-to-reel tape fashion to an end. By that point, Brandon expressed discomfort, gave a waving motion indicating that there was some kind of malfunction, and signaled the end of the evening with the rest of band looking on in disbelief.
Do yourself a favor and head out to the Cowboy Monkey and catch some of the brightest and most talented original songwriters in the land. Ryan Groff headlines this “early” show that is sure to knock socks off and make heads spin. The best part: collaborations. That’s the word on the street anyhow. Generally, when you think collaboration, the idea of singers and songwriters joining each other on stage can make one cringe; most songs generally don’t need anyone else to make it any better or worse than they already are.
But in this particular case, you should get excited.
Jane Boxall is the collaborator, and if you know that name, you know that she’ll be lugging a full sized marimba into the joint and will be ready to throw down with some of the most beautiful and haunting tunes that both Ryan Groff and opener Lynn O’Brien have to offer.
The show is a stupidly cheap $5 and because it’s early in the week, the fine promoter done us adults a solid and made it at a reasonable 8:00pm start time. We’ll be there. (UPDATE: We were not there due to extenuating circumstances.)
We are saddened to report the death of musician Dan Fogelberg, who passed away on Sunday at the age of 56, after battling prostate cancer for three years. Born in Peoria in 1951, he eventually enrolled at the University of Illinois to study theater and art. Shortly thereafter, he began playing at The Red Herring, of which he said, “I started meeting like-minded people, musicians who were bright and well read…The Red Herring went from being a hide-out for pinko leftists who were plotting the overthrow of the government to a really creative musical scene. And it started packing people in.” Eventually, Fogelberg was "discovered" by Irving Azoff, who ran a local booking agency and had recently landed local artists REO Speedwagon a record deal with Epic.
Tunnels / New Ruins / Shipwreck / Headlights
I walked into the largest starting crowd of the Fall Showdown thus far with Tunnels, the first band of the night's great lineup, on stage. Tunnels is fronted by Steve Ucherek, lead singer of The Living Blue, and in the past I’ve only seen the band as a duo with drummer Ben Ucherek, but tonight there was also a bassist and two drummers. Where The Living Blue are more psychedelic garage rock n’ roll, Tunnels is more of a pop jam outlet. With the singer's faux British accent, and great mid-tempo pop-rock songs like “Little Sister” and “Trouble,” the band sounds like The Kinks influenced by way of Blur. And the two drummers were great together, sometimes working on the same beat or filling each other out. Tunnels sounded great and I hope their first release comes out sometime soon.
Curb Service / Common Loon / (The Living Blue) / (elsinore)
The third night of the local music showcase started off with Larry Gates, the former lead singer of local legends Lorenzo Goetz. Now Gates, playing under the name Curb Service, performs with a setup that includes an acoustic guitar, turn tables, drum machine and mixer, instead of a full rock band behind him. The hip-hop aspect of the music makes the music really easy to get behind and nod your head to, as the modest crowd that gathered during the set certainly did.
The Beauty Shop / The Chemicals / Darling Disarm / Books Died On
Starting their set with what would be described as an empty room, Books Died On played a pleasing set of electro-acoustic pop with delicate male lead vocals and female backup vocals sung over looped drums, a tiny keyboard organ, and acoustic guitars lighter than the breeze. For fans of Onelinedrawing or Owen, Books Died On is worth checking out.
Okkervil River fans in the Champaign-Urbana area: in case you didn’t already know, your new favorite eclectic rock n’ roll band not only recently stopped by at Daytrotter for a quick recording session (downloadable for free), but Will Sheff just put up on the Okkervil River website “a kind of album of covers."
"Some of them were recorded on radio shows, some at live performances, some at people's apartments, and one of them was recorded in the stairway at our hotel in Muenster while the maid was angrily banging things around. (…)These are all covers I worked up on the last tour whenever I had the occasion, with the eventual intention of putting them out somewhere for free. They all kind of have something to do with themselves and kind of to The Stage Names material” (quote from the band’s message board). So like Black Sheep Boy before it, The Stage Names is getting the Appendix treatment.
Local rockers Shipwreck complete their utter and total domination of the West Coast...
11/14/2007
Mappy wanted to write today’s entry. So here it is:
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Owned! Face! You gonna take that from a frickin’ robot?
Tonight through Saturday, December 15, The Canopy Club will be hosting bills featuring a total of sixteen local or area musicians. All for a moderate 5 bucks a night ($7 after 10pm), that’s only $1.25 a band, if that were how it worked.
Acts range from locally well-known bands like Polyvinyl's indie-pop darlings Headlights, alt. country stars The Beauty Shop, the psychedelic garage-rock of The Living Blue, and the Midwestern indie-rock gloom of New Ruins, to the new bands quickly establishing themselves in the Champaign-Urbana scene, like Common Loon and their Beatles-inspired sonic pop songs, Tall Tale's piano power emo-rock, and World's First Flying Machine’s mini-chamber pop.
In the late 90s, the C-U scene got a boost when DJ Bozak (Adam Boskey) submitted a proposal to WEFT (90.1 fm) for a late night hip-hop show. The proposal was granted and “Needledrops” was born. Giving attention to both local and independent artists, “Needledrops” became a platform for the underground, serving as both an outlet for artists and a source of new music for heads in the community. There was never a shortage of guests or co-hosts (including a three year stint by DJ Spinnerty). Whether in studio or on location, they managed to land countless interviews with the likes of RJD2, Blueprint, Brother Ali, Jurassic 5 and Mix Master Mike, among others. Soon, gig offers began to roll in from area clubs for Bozak and Spinnerty, making it tough to stay committed. Soon after, Spinnerty relocated to San Francisco; by 2006, a busy schedule forced Bozak to relinquish the time slot and the show has yet to be replaced.
So what now?
In the last seven years I’ve promoted four shows for DJ Logic. One with his band Project Logic, another with Dirty Dozen Brass Band, another with Bob Weir & Ratdog and one with the John Popper Project. As a fan, I've seen another six of his shows. The best of these was at the Canopy in December of 1999 with Soulive and Project Logic. It was scheduled for Foellinger Auditorium but neither band was really on a national level yet and when the school was ready to cancel due to poor sales, Ian Goldberg at the Canopy said he couldn’t let a good show just not play. I was one of only like 35 people who’d purchased advance tickets; it was an amazing night of music.
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