August 23, 2014

Early Square Pig faves Ravenna Woods have an all-ages show at the Crocodile tonight, with Country Lips and friends-of-Your-Mother-Should-Know Mikey and Matty. $8, 8:00 p.m. Sounds like a fun show that I'm sorry to miss!!! More info here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1409996905906578/
Here's what I had to say about Ravenna Woods on December 4, 2010: I saw this band on the same bill with Curtains for You and can attest that they put on a great show. They make the list for neighborhood-level local flavor. In fact, the name implies that they're my neighbors. 

And here's what I think about this week's picks:

The Goddamn Finkelstein Shit Kids
I like the implication that they've proudly claimed as their name an elderly neighbor's oft-repeated rant.

Internal Error
Mundane frustrations are elevated when converted to band names. In the same way, we transform our own inner mistakes and regrets into art.

Jesus on the Moon
This is timely for a reason few people would get, but I hope I can influence more so they will. "Epwa," my favorite story in Mermaids (the new YA story collection the Pankhearst Writers Collective) takes place in a floating community centuries after a catastrophic flood of an entire world. Random fragments of Catholic dogma have been blended with new mythology of water, moon goddesses, and an afterlife in the undersea palaces of the Mermadden. The Pilot, who knows more history and science than anyone else and is regarded as a heretic, tells the protagonist Hannah that a long time ago, men walked on the moons. At another time, she tells about a man who walked on water. Hannah wonders if they were the same man. The Pilot doesn't know -- but she thinks so.

Snakes of Christ
Not on the same bill with Jesus on the Moon, but they should be. Snakes get a bad rap in a lot of religious imagery, but they are God's creatures, too -- devouring vermin since the beginning of agriculture.

The Ukadelics
A happy accident of a common consonant sound bring together unlikely partners in a way that is not only fun, but obvious after the fact. I wanna go to this luau!

May 24, 2014

It isn't (yet) raining on Folklife! Having ventured out to the Tractor last night for The Minus 5, Mikey and Matty, and Stag (great show!), we're skipping the festival in favor of yardwork and donating blood. Here are some well named bands who as far as I know are also not at Folklife:

Assuming We Survive
An ominous beginning -- or optimistic, depending on context. Either way, this group must be hard-core.

Demons Carry Symphonies
I suspect Berlioz knew this.


Hair and Space Museum
I love how the addition of a single letter transforms an inspiring institution into something laugh-out-loud ridiculous. Now I'm thinking of that video where an astronaut washes her hair in microgravity.

Organik Time Machine
Each of us has one, a meat sack carrying our consciousness inexorably into the future.

Whirr
Onomatopoeia names are always welcome! I'd like to see them on a bill with The Low Hums.

July 13, 2013

I don't get out to too many shows that I'm not playing on (or so it seems after last weekend), so tonight is a special treat: a much anticipated show for I which I don't have to do anything but show up! Shelby Earl celebrates the release of Swift Arrows tonight at the Columbia City Theater, with Mikey and Matty, and Courtney Marie Andrews. I know, a whole bunch of name names, but elsewhere in time and place are an abundance of named bands to make up for it.

Badger Pocket
Either a tiny town in Arkansas, or a feature of a previously unknown species of marsupial weasel.

Future Bible Heroes
Because, as my friends in the United Church of Christ say, "God is still speaking."

Human Animation Lab
Why do I think this is going to involve lightning and an assistant named Igor?

Strangely Alright
Duddley Doright's weirder cousin.

Warpvomit
What happens when you get spacesick on a faster-than-light ship.

Honorable mention to a lineup that reads like a poem:
Seize the Sun
Love the Lost
Ascend from Silence