SHOW OF THE MONTH

Corndogorama
Lenny’s Bar
Atlanta, GA
July 12-15, 2007

Corndogorama, now in its 11th year, has been hosted for the past six years at The EARL, set in the bustling neighborhood of East Atlanta. This year, the festival organizers moved their four-day music and carnival extravaganza to Lenny’s Bar. The move created mixed feelings for fans and musicians alike, but ultimately the music won out over all arguments.

The first day offered a warm-up of sorts to what was to come in the following days. The meager line-up featured local favorites from across the board. Southern sleaze rockers Rock City Dropouts, rhythm and blues hipsters The Booze, punkers Beat Beat Beat and Mastodon spin-offs Fiend Without A Face all drilled out 30-minute sets. To finish off the night, New York City transplant Mr. Move played a tongue-in-cheek homecoming show that set a tone for the corny weekend.

Friday opened with a slower pace musically, but quickly picked up as hordes of festival-goers arrived for after-work festivities. Highlights of the early evening included sets by gritty country rockers Long Knives and the straight-ahead, crowd pleasing music of The Skylarks. As night fell and revelers made their way to pack the main stage inside the club, a heavy dose of female-led indie rock groups paraded through the evening. Sets from veteran local favorites Magnapop, upstart popsters Luigi, and The Coathangers all delivered various styles of rock that enamored the capacity crowds. The night ended with Gentleman Jesse and His Men, whose group dynamic has expanded with a greater stage presence and a slew of new songs.

Day three opened with showers, but the clouds parted to the sounds of DJ duo Beach Titti. The new group crossed genres from hip-hop to electro to dance rock, all the while sporting metallic bikini brief bathing suits and rocking the crowds in a lifeguard stand built to scale over looking a modest beach atmosphere, complete with splash pools. Along with the Corndogorama staples of The Beer Factor, Corndog Eating Challenge, and Brothers Swinks motor sports extravaganza, outdoor sets from Club Awesome, The Orphins, Zoroaster and Moresight highlighted the afternoon in the sun. Inside the club, a fiery, spastic explosion from dance rock upstarts Judi Chicago lit up the mid afternoon. The Preakness, N.E.C. and The Hiss rounded out the bill before a slew of enthralling sets from One Hand Loves The Other, All The Saints and The Selmanaires.

The final day drew a more laid back crowd, as many were simply worn out from the previous days brouhaha. The night was wrapped up by powerful sets from Brass Castle and All Night Drug Prowling Wolves, which featured guitarist Brent Hinds for the latter half of the set. Hinds was by far the hardest working man of the festival, playing not only with the Wolves and Fiend Without A Face, but also making his final appearance with his most notable band, the Grammy-nominated Atlanta stalwarts, Mastadon. Mastadon’s set concluded the weekend before a crowd of highly anxious metal heads, hipsters and festival-goers alike.

-Review & photos by Jason James

Red Lipstick Society / Terry Sullivan / Jew(s) and Catholic(s) / Wafer Thin / 220 Short / Little Mascara
Garage
Winston-Salem, NC
June 29-30, 2007

If you’re looking for music’s answer to a TV dinner, look no further than this year’s Camel City Showcase — a veritable vacuum-sealed package of acts ranging from a singer/songwriter to a hip-hop sensation. While some of the 12 performances were more notable than others, arguably this showcase was the fruition of organizer Brent Naylor’s vision. As a musician himself, Naylor has had a vested interest in promoting and supporting original music. He has orchestrated an unprecedented twelve showcases since 2002 whereby over 3,000 Winston-Salem music lovers have seen more than a 100 bands hailing from locales such as Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina and New York and ranging in genre from folk to rap.

The latter was fully executed by 220 Short, who made audiences remember the days of Beastie Boy mayhem complete with comedy and arena-size ego swagger. Visually, the band is a poor man’s Cirque du Soleil, with costume changes, ninja turtle security guards and a lead singer who, while not necessarily acrobatic in his vocals, more than makes up for it in his execution.

Red Lipstick Society’s inimitable combination of country, rockabilly, bluegrass, folk, and punk (and a power packed vocal duo in Amanda Mary Dunn and Erin Martin) has quickly made them the darlings on the NC circuit. Their streamlined 30-minute set was just enough to provide a vehicle for their quixotic tunes while leaving an excited crowd wanting more.

Noteworthy performances by Little Mascara, Mo Greens and Jew(s) and Catholic(s) proved that if you’re looking for a cookie cutter format you won’t find it here.
The standout performance of the weekend was the new line-up of Wafer Thin. Long time veterans of the North Carolina music scene, Wafer Thin has reinvented, yet retained, enough of their roots to make the music sound novel and established all in one simultaneous explosion. No pigeonholing here as echoes of surfer rock, alternative and jangle pop abounded throughout their set.

If you missed this showcase, dry your tears; Naylor is already planning the next one slated for this fall and scouting for talent, ensuring that the camel will ride again.

-Review & photo by Kim Thore

Lucero / The Speed Kings / Andy Bilinski / Mike Slaton & The Whales
The Soapbox
Wilmington, NC
July 11, 2007

This evening was sure to be a showdown of sorts for Wilmington’s The Speed Kings and Memphis’ Lucero. The Speed Kings are fast punk rock, in sharp contrast to the openers, singer/songwriter Andy Bilinski and the underground country roots of Mike Slaton & The Wheels. The openers revealed the variations in style that the headliner Lucero flits between — brash rough rock and mellowed introspection.

There wasn’t really a noticeable rift in the audience until The Speed Kings took the stage and a plurality of punk rock groupies made their way to the front, and an equal number of alt-country fans and frat boys headed for the back. The Speed Kings blistered through their set, with their slick, working-class punk rock reminiscent of the genre’s mid-90s phase. Every other song had the words “rock ‘n’ roll” in the chorus, but for every fist pump raised there was another person text messaging on their cellphone. Finally a mosh pit broke out towards the front, with it topping out at five guys clinging to their 20-ounce PBR cans. A song or two later, strobe lights filled the room — from the fire alarm. But no false alarm and no fire; it was just the sounding of “the rock alarm” as The Speed Kings dubbed it.

Lucero took the stage next, and it was plain to see why a punk rock and alt-country band could co-exist on the same bill. As the clock hit midnight, rumbling drums and snarling Southern vocals provided by lead singer Ben Nichols throbbed through the crowd. They started off with a raucous medley of their brand of dirty Americana that climaxed with a few whiskey shots taken by Nichols and bassist John C. Stubblefield, provided by the audience. But eager to please the ladies, Lucero soon delved into a couple of ballads that swayed a few couples to slow dance. Nichols was radiant on stage, with a cocksure grin backed by shoulders that shimmied on some of the fastest licks from their new album, Rebels, Rogues and Sworn Brothers.

There were a few problems attributed to “beer soaked guitars” that led the rest of the band into a couple of improvised instrumentals. The appeal of Lucero is most apparent live, as everyone in the crowd has a favorite song that they can sing the loudest.

-Review & photo by Josh Spilker

Deerhunter
The EARL
Atlanta, GA
July 7, 2007

Deerhunter opened The EARL’s eighth birthday celebrations with a rather uneventful set, choosing to focus on atmospheric vocals and focused musicianship over on-stage theatrics. Although lead singer Bradford Cox did don a sequined top, he chose to let the band’s growing sound and heavily distorted vocals carry the majority of the show. While many psychedelic bands’ guitar work can often be classified as overly egotisical, it was quite the opposite this Saturday night as Cox’s over-indulgent vocal effects took over, distorting most of the songs’ lyrics to the point of incomprehensibility.

Outside of the excessive vocal distortion, the rest of the band was on point, displaying an increasing mastery of the songs that have definitely been pushed forward as a result of Deerhunter’s recent national acclaim and several opening slots for other high-profile bands.

It seemed to take the crowd a few songs to get past the vocal abstractions, many of which resulted in the audience hearing the lyrics several seconds after they exited Cox’s mouth. Cox was constantly adjusting the vocal effects before and during each song with a series of pedals near the base of his mic stand.

Without the vocals to distinguish one from another, many of the songs seemed to blend together, an admittedly possible intention. The title tracks from the band’s most recent releases, “Cryptograms” and “Fluorescent Grey,” seemed to get the most reaction out of the audience. These songs, not coincidentally, are two of the more easily distinguished tracks in Deerhunter’s catalog. Cox offered the most interaction before the band’s performance of the latter, allowing the audience to settle a miscommunication and choose what song the band should play while also commenting that the song was about necrophilia. Just shy of the middle of the set, however, it all hit, as the combination of a relatively uninterrupted, well-played set combined with the audience’s grasp (or release) of the vocal significance.

-Micah J. McLain

Athfest 2007
Various Venues
Athens, GA
June 20-24, 2007

Cementing Athens’ reputation as the regional Mecca for independent music, Athfest 2007 brought vendors, craft artists and a diverse line-up of rock and roots bands to town for a yearly festival that feels like a well-worn local ritual at this point. Despite the scorching hot June heat and humidity, thousands of brave souls from all over the Southeast slapped on sunscreen and sweated it out through four days of exciting line-ups at venues throughout Athens.

On Thursday night, the hilarious pop duo Cars Can Be Blue took to The Caledonia Lounge and quickly won the audience over with their short and upbeat comedic songs. When it came to sex they had an x-rated song titled “Dirty Song,” which contained the graphic requests of a girl who’s not getting what she needs. But they also had a cleaner abbreviated sex song, “D in the P,” that put it simply: “Put the D in the P... or the A.”

Ninja Gaiden Band, who graced the Caledonia stage late Friday night, is similar to its counterparts, Contraband and Megaband, in that members of Cinemechanica play the music to each level of a NES video game while Noah McCarthy beats the entire game without the use of codes or loss of any lives. It only took him about 40 minutes to complete this mission, the average amount of time a band usually has for a set. The crowd was energized by the renaissance of seeing a classic video game from their childhood and the excitement of seeing it accompanied by an indie rock orchestra. One might think that keyboards would be an integral part of mimicking a video game, but Ninja Gaiden Band only used guitars, bass, and drums. The band paid close attention to the screen to known when to stop and start, and the crowd cheered after the completion of each level. After McCarthy beat the game, he took a victorious crowd surf while the band played the credits to the game.

At the Verizon-sponsored main stage on Washington Street, local acoustic three-piece the Adam Payne Band was releasing their debut album, Untitled, as part of the packed Saturday afternoon bill. Fronted by Monster Zero’s Adam Payne, the band managed a strong set of acoustic rock tunes that had even the most overheated festival patrons up on their feet.

Later in the day, teenage sensation Connelly Crowe drew an uncommonly large audience at the smaller Hull Street stage, as the talented guitarist and vocalist came out with her most successful performance to date since winning last April’s local Battle of the Bands. Through the Athens word-of-mouth hype-machine, this impressive new artist has been making her name throughout the local scene, and her performance proved without a doubt that she will be sticking around for many years to come.

Backed by an acoustic band, Bobby Yang engaged his audience with his usual takes on unusual arrangements of popular songs. Yang and his electric band, The Unrivaled Players, astounded the audience, demonstrating both the traditional beauty of his instrument and the unorthodox fashion in which he performs with it. His violin was shockingly versatile, as it plowed through every imaginable genre over the course of the set. The quiet violinist’s own affinity for the music was obvious, as his squeezed-shut eyes and smiles peaked from behind his highlighted hair several times during his set.

The Winter Sounds did what they could with their 40-minute set in front of a dwindling audience at the outdoor stage as the Athens-based band performed just a couple of hours before sunset. Those who left early to gain strength before the night’s club crawl surely missed out on one of Athens’ best new bands, as the sounds of The Sounds made an almost-seamless transition to the stage, and frontman Patrick Keenan’s voice was as pitch-perfect live as it is on their newest release, Poreclain Empire.

With the sun finally setting, the massive crowd of local students and festival-goers filled Washington Street far beyond capacity for Athens’ new indie-rock superstars, The Whigs. Performing most of the hits from their debut album, Give ‘em All a Big Fat Lip, the three UGA alums rocked out alongside half a dozen celebrity cardboard cutouts ranging from Paris Hilton to Humphrey Bogart. Most of the audience sang along with vocalist Parker Gispert throughout the show, proving this country-rock band may be the biggest thing in Athens right now.

The night’s “Club Crawl” was highlighted by out-of-towners Parade, and the Atlanta pop-rockers delivered a highly polished set at The Go Bar in support of the EP they released in mid-July. With a stage presence to match their catchy sound, these Athens natives easily satisfied a hugely enthusiastic and slightly sloppy crowd, and the band looked right at home in the midst of the evening’s festivities.

While many venues on and around Washington Street were still steadily pumping out obscure and seizure-inducing beats via indie and rock acts, Hot Corner Coffee’s closing bands opted to offer sounds that went down as soothing as a cup of French Roast. Duo Christopher’s Liver served up beautiful, acoustic music that could be the perfect musical back drop in any coffee shop on the planet, while Folklore closed up shop by sending the audience on their way with folk-meets-pop narratives found on their newest disc, The Ghost of H.W. Beaverman.

Rounding out Saturday night at The 40 Watt, We Versus The Shark were fast, heavy, and unpredictable, like a shark attack. Sam Paulsen and Luke Fields played battling math-rock guitars and screaming duets. Bass/synth player Jeff Tobias was playing his third of four sets that day, opening with his bands Pegasuses XL and Mouser, and playing later that night across town with Dark Meat. Drummer Scott Smith started fully clothed, but progressed to a sweaty mess in boxer shorts, coming to the front of the stage and shaking his drum droplets on the crowd like a wet dog.

-Review by Alex Adan, Melinda Hanna and Ari Mazer;
photos by Alex Adan and Bobb Lovett

Spectralux / Ruby Isle
The Drunken Unicorn
Atlanta, GA
July 11, 2007

Atlanta’s Spectralux played trance-inducing rock with Jeff Cobb’s spacey guitars, Henry Watts’ mellow bass, and Peter Roets’ echoing vocals. They turned on their fog machine and played in a thick white cloud, later adding their colorful light machine to the formula and attempting to bring arena-sized antics to a smaller scale. Crisp drums from Patrick Boggs paralleled synthesized beats and stacks of keyboards by Jonathan Whiteside.

When band members live over 1,000 miles apart from each other, it’s a special occasion when they plan a tour. For Ruby Isle, this was their second live show ever (the first being at South By Southwest). Dan Geller provided the dance-friendly programmed beats and some robotic vocals as he did in his former Athens band I Am The World Trade Center. Minneapolis’ Mark Mallman provided the energetic vocals and added some guitar and keyboard. He danced around the stage when not confined to an instrument and playfully ventured into Geller’s work area.

Together they made music that sounded like it came from an altered De Lorean DMC-12 traveling at 88 miles per hour. Mallman’s voice sounded like it was from the 1980s, and Gellar’s machines made beats that sounded like what people from said retro era would have predicted music from the future to sound like, where everyone wears silver jumpsuits and cars fly. And just to make things a little more livey, the duo have added a tour drummer, whose supplemental percussion made things move along just a little quicker.

Ruby Isle played songs from their debut EP, Into The Black, as well as their forthcoming EP, Miracles, out on Geller’s recently revived Kindercore Records based in Athens, Georgia.

-Review & photo by Alex Adan