Saturday night the annual BRINK New Music Showcase returns for its 10th year and spreads its wings. The showcase, a cousin event of the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards, first went down in 2001 as a way to showcase the next generation of great local musicians before the big CEA event honored the current crop.
For its 10th anniversary, BRINK (now completely free) is moving to Northside and using four venues. In its front room, Northside Tavern has High Heels, Sacred Spirits and Fake Hands; the back-room stage has Pop Empire, Soapland, The Skeetones and Acarya. Following a 7 p.m. book signing by Michigan music critic Bill Brown, Shake It Records hosts Painwater, Andy Gabbard and The Cincy Brass. The Comet has Leopard Messiah, Two Headed Dog, Monkeytonk and The Dukes, while Mayday’s lineup features The Guitars, The Kickaways, Shiny Old Soul and the Zachary Burns Band.
Get a complete BRINK schedule and descriptions of each band here.
Debuts That Enthuse
Two superb, homegrown debut full-lengths drop this weekend:
• Walk the Moon’s debut album, i want! i want!, is being released Saturday in conjunction with a multimedia event at The Mockbee (2260 Central Pkwy., Brighton). The band is joined by Gold Shoes, The Harlequins, DJ Dustin Chow and DJ Devon Cherry, as well as avant dance troupe Pones, Inc. (the band will also premiere a new music video).
While the band’s Talking Heads influence is evident live, myriad other inspirations combine on i want! i want! to create Walk the Moon’s distinct sound. Though ’80s New Wave plays a part, you’ll also detect more contemporary sounds, like recent Dance/Rock and modern Indie Pop. But it’s the more timeless songwriting, gripping (and never pandering) hooks and craftily constructed arrangements that will keep you coming back.
On i want! i want!, WtM sounds like they’ve taken elements from modern Indie heroes like Franz Ferdinand, TV on the Radio, LCD Soundsystem, Of Montreal, The Killers, Vampire Weekend, Spoon and Modest Mouse, filtered them through their own vivid, fearless imaginations and reassembled the pieces into something striking and original. With a debut this powerfully compelling and polished, I’d be stunned if it didn’t draw big attention to the WtM. (I go into more detail about this album here.)
• Greg “Tex” Schramm, former drummer for local faves StarDevils and current time-keeper with The Sidecars and Magnolia Mountain, steps up to the mic with his first solo album, Greetings From (credited to Tex Schramm and His Radio King Cowboys). The album gets a release party Saturday at the Southgate House’s Juney’s Lounge. The Sidecars also perform at the free show.
The album’s 15 tracks show impressive range — with songs hovering in the orbits of Classic Country, vintage Rock & Roll, twangy Rockabilly and rollicking Honky Tonk — and have a thick air of authenticity. The Radio King Cowboys are all-star quality and include lap-steel guitar specialist David Rhodes Brown (he also plays lead guitar, mandolin and banjo). Schramm and his ’Boys make it look easy, moving effortlessly from the rumbling, blazing, bluesy “Talkin’ on the Telephone” to the cinematic, reverbed-up Surf instrumental “Tacumcari” to the could’ve-been-Trad Country-hits-40-years-ago like “I’m Walkin’” and “A Time Late at Night.”
Coming straight out of the chute this fully developed suggests even greater things in Schramm’s future. Fans of George Jones, early Elvis, Carl Perkins and Hank Williams, as well as modern traditionalists like The Mavericks, Chris Isaak and BR549, need to seek out this Honky Tonk/Country/Americana tour de force, pronto. (More details about this album here.)
CONTACT MIKE BREEN:
