Music Tonight: The Southgate House in Newport presents “Kranky Records on Tour” in the venue’s Parlour, featuring a bill of enticing musical experimentalism by artists who record for the 18-year-old Chicago indie label. Headliners A Winged Victory for the Sullen create broad soundscapes that combine Neo Classical ideas with Ambient atmospherics. The duo formed a few years back while engineer/composer Adam Wiltzie (of Stars of the Lid) was on the road with the late Mark Linkous’ Sparklehorse. While in Italy, he met Dustin O’Halloran, a composer/pianist who has released several solo albums and done a lot of film work, including contributions to the score of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette and this year’s Grand Jury Prize Winner at Sundance, Like Crazy. The duo’s self-titled album for Kranky came out in September. Openers for tonight’s 9 p.m. show are Kranky artists Benoit Pioulard and Ken Camden. Admission is $15. Chill out to the AWVFTS track “All Farewells Are Sudden” below.—-
• The Devil Makes Three brings its energetic twist on Bluegrass/Blues/Americana music to Oakley’s 20th Century Theatre tonight for an 8 p.m. show. Tickets are $15. The eclectic trio features three musicians who moved from New England to Santa Cruz, Calif. — singer/songwriter/guitarist Pete Bernhard, banjoist Cooper McBean and stand-up bassist Lucia Turino. After garnering attention D.I.Y.-style in the early ’00s, putting out a pair of self-released albums and touring as much as humanly possible, the trio signed to Milan Records for 2009’s Do Wrong Right. The acclaimed release broadened the band’s fan base exponentially and led to appearances at festivals like Bonnaroo and Outside Lands. A fourth studio album is in the works, but to tide fans over, TDMT released the live Stomp and Smash – Live at the Mystic Theater. Read about openers Brown Bird here. Check out a performance of “Black Irish” from The Devil Makes Three’s live album below.
• Cult fave Americana singer/songwriter Paul Thorn returns to Greater Cincy tonight for a headlining show in the Southgate House’s Ballroom. Thorn’s backstory is movie-worthy — born in Wisconsin, raised in Mississippi, he was a pro boxer initially, winning a Middleweight Championship and fighting the likes of former world champ Robert Duran. While working a factory job, he began playing local clubs, where one night he was “discovered” by industry heavyweight Miles Copeland, who signed him to A&M Records. Thorn’s next album came out on Copeland’s Ark label, and later albums were issued by various imprints before Thorn — who has built up a strong following on the road — decided to simply put his records out on his own, cheekily-named label, Perpetual Obscurity. Thorn’s latest release is last year’s well-received Pimps & Preachers album. Tickets for tonight’s show with The Carpenter Ants are $25. Check out a quick interview/bio feature with Thorn below.
Paul Thorn – “Pimps and Preachers” from christopher walsh on Vime
• Rochester, New York’s Nick Young, a solo Americana singer/songwriter, performs a free show at Sitwell’s in Clifton tonight at 9 p.m. The leader of Rock band Burning Daylight, Young recorded and put out his solo debut, Truth Is, last year and upon its release it was acclaimed for its strong songwriting and Roots Pop power. Stream the album here. Momentous Happenings in Music History for November 3 On this day in 1997, a Metallica fan from Chicago received an out-of-court settlement in his lawsuit against the band. He sued Metallica after attending a 1993 concert in Iowa and getting passed around like a beach ball over the assembled crowd, before being unceremoniously dropped on his head. After the settlement was announced on the first day of the trial, the judge for the case reportedly said, “The good news for me is that I don’t have to watch the tape of a two-and-a-half-hour Metallica concert tonight.” Everybody’s a critic. If everyone who has been involved in a crowd surfing fail sued the artist performing at the time, professional musicians would have a lot more than illegal downloads to worry about, in terms of pocket-book drainage. According to YouTube, it happens a lot (even sometimes to the artists themselves!). (Turn your volume down; these are all shitty cell phone cam vids.)
But still the greatest of all time is by Mr. Bob Dole:
Born This Day: Musical movers and shakers sharing a Nov. 3 birthday include: Legendary film score composer John Barry (1933); “To Sir, With Love” singer Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, better known as simply Lulu (1948); New Wave star Stuart Leslie Goddard, who you know better as Adam Ant (1954); and British Folk music hero Bert Jansch (1943). Jansch passed away just last month (Oct. 5) from cancer, which resulted in an outpouring of tributes from the many musicians who claim him as an influence. The Gaurdian‘s obituary — which called him “one of the most respected musicians of his generation” — quoted the likes Jimmy Page (who called Jansch “the innovator of the time”) and Johnny Marr (who said the artist was “one of the most influential and intriguing musicians to have come out of the British music scene.”). Jansch was also an influence on Neil Young, who took him on tour just last year (the tour played locally at the Aronoff Center). Check out this 1970 TV performance featuring Jansch and Pentangle, the pioneering group that initially introduced Jansch to the world and whose influence can be heard in the music of the current Neo/Indie Folk movement.
This article appears in Nov 2-8, 2011.
