It's an usually busy Wednesday night on the local club scene, with numerous options for music lovers to get out of the house on this gorgeous summer, er, spring, er, winter day (thanks, global warming!).
• Indie/Alt Brooklyn rapper Louis Logic performs a free show tonight in Over-the-Rhine at MOTR Pub on his way to Austin, Tex., for the South By Southwest festival (something we'll probably be saying a lot over the next week or so). Beginning his rise in underground Hip Hop over a decade ago with the track "Factotum," Logic went on to collaborate with artists like MF Doom and Jedi Mind Tricks and release a pair of critically acclaimed albums. After his 2006 LP Misery Loves Comedy, Logic went into hibernation and studied music theory, piano and voice, returning with a "Surf/Hip Hop/Balkan fusion band" called Spork Kills. He continues to travel and tour the world with his own "One Man Variety Show," in which he plays masterful piano, rhymes, dances, sings and charms the audience with his comedic banter. Logic is prepping for the September release of a new recording for Fake Four Inc.
Opening up is local cross-genre, avant floetess Abiyah (who guested on ArtRap whiz Open Mike Eagle's Rappers Will Die of Natural Causes last year) and turntablist djdq (from the group Glue as well as former DMC U.S. Team champs Animal Crackers).
Here's a clip for the Misery track "The Great Divide."
• Finnish composer and "master fiddler" Arto Järvelä — currently on tour in support of his latest solo release, Arto Järvelä plays Fiddle, Volume 3, and once called "the busiest man in Finnish Folk music" — plays tonight at Walnut Hills recording studio/performance space The Monastery at 7:30 p.m. Admission is $10. Järvelä is traveling with like-minded Finnish-American acoustic Folk duo Kalavama, which released its eponymous debut last year and have been touring ever since. The two acts will perform separately and in collaboration during the show.
Here's a sample of Arto's lovely playing:
• Puerto Rico rockers Los Vigilantes play a free show at The Comet tonight, joined by the always-solid local Garage/Punk crew The Long Gones. Los Vigilantes released its debut full-length last year, described as 14 tracks of "juvenile delinquent garage-punk … heavy on the ’60s side with a healthy dose of droopy ’50s doo-wop back-up vocals, rocked with additional organs, tape loops and swagger." Feel the Rock Power in the clip below:
• Another free show for those wanting to spend some time downtown takes place at Arnold's tonight at 8 p.m. as piano-Pop-rockin' singer/songwriter Hugo comes in from Chicago on his way to — say it with me now — South By Southwest in Texas. The Miami Herald favorably compared Hugo's lyrics to Woody Allen and his sound is said to be primarily influenced by the likes of Billy Joel, Ben Folds and Elvis Costello. Check out Hugo's brand new video for the track "Leave Love Behind."
