Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Bands Make Their Metro Times Blowout Picks - part 3

(words: milo)
~

March 4th - March 7th - 2009 - Hamtramck

Line Up / Schedule

Here we have the third installment of “Bands Make Their Blowout Picks”

Introduced and explained here – and expounded upon here – featuring the Blowout schedule selections of The Friendly Foe’s Ryan Allen, Zoos of Berlin’s Will Yates, The Silent Years’ Josh Epstein, Lee Marvin Computer Arm (and Dirtbombs)’s Zach Weedon, and Duedne/Pinkeye’s Jeff Howitt.

Because as we said – it’s fun to pick the brains of musicians who will not only be performing within the 4-day-long festival (March 4th – March 7th) amongst 200 other bands, spread across 20 venues, but also to hear the voices of artists who will no-doubt be circulating the streets of festival-base Hamtramck, seeing their friends and other interests performing live…

This week: Suburban Sprawl chief Zach Curd (and keyboardist/singer from The Pop Project). Curd’s main band may not be on the Blowout bill this year, but his label’s current hot ticket, The Word Play – will be performing Thursday night at the Belmont – along with The Rue Moor Counts, Beverly Fre$h and Timmy’s Organism – easily one of the more flavorful and varied combinations in the festival.
















Zach Curd: OK here are my Blowout picks/thoughts!

Blowout is the Detroit music festival equivalent of Prince's Sign O' The Times album -- messy and all over the place, but there are some cool moments. Obviously I'd say go see The Word Play (Thursday @ The Belmont) and Child Bite (Wednesday @ The Magic Stick), but here are my non-Suburban Sprawl picks:

Wednesday - 3/4/09
The "Pre-Party" night has two solid headliners in Silverghost (Magic Stick) and The Meatmen (Majestic). I like Silverghost's recorded material, and the last time I saw them live was the 2008 Blowout at the K of C Lounge. I predict that they will be one year better than last year. I've never seen The Meatmen live, but 14 year old me was into them. Oh god, I just watched some things on youtube and honestly The Meatmen are not good, but they were friends with Minor Threat. So you know, points for that? When is Minor Threat playing Blowout? I'm all over that.

Thursday - 3/5/09
The K of C Lounge lineup on Thursday is solid (Zoos of Berlin, Daniel, Devilfish, and Blase Splee). Other sets of note are The Plain Dealers at The Painted Lady, and Mick Bassett at Small's. I'm a Marty Smith (ex-Thunderbirds Are Now) fan, so I'm sure the Plain Dealers have some interesting stuff going on. I saw Mick Bassett with Friendly Foes at the Belmont a long time ago and that was my only time seeing him live. Sometimes I listen to the songs on his myspace page. They are good. Cool.

Friday - 3/6/09
When reading over the schedule for Friday, I saw Il Segreto String Quartet (playing at Whiskey In The Jar) and got excited at the prospect of a string quartet playing Blowout. Turns out they are one of those string quartets that play covers and stuff, which is less cool than modern composition, I gotta say. When is La Monte Young playing Blowout? I'm all over that. Other than that, Great Lakes Myth Society at The Atlas Bar will be great I'm sure.

Saturday - 3/7/09
The Painted Lady lineup seems pretty cool (Warn Defever, Druid Perfume), although that means going to The Painted Lady.









(Druid
Perfume)







~

Also making selections this week – fractured-folk/lo-fi experimentalist Alan Scheurman – still on the heels of the free online release of his mystic minor masterpiece “Old Patterns.” Scheurman plays Friday night in the Knights of Columbus Lounge, alongside a consortium of equally experimental folk acts like Aran Ruth, Kelly Jean Caldwell and Fred Thomas (of Saturday Looks Good To Me) performing as City Center.















Alan Scheurman:


The coolest thing about the blowout for me is that it makes it easy for musicians to catch up on what other musicians are doing musically. Sometimes you see a band at one of their first shows and you never want to see them again. But the Blowout makes it possible to see how much each of us has progressed.

Here's my picks:

Wednesday
Child Bite (Magic Stick) My old band went on tour with these guys along time ago. Now Sean is in the band and they're even more crazy and fucking awesome.

Silverghost (Magic Stick)I haven't seen them in a while but their video on the blowout site has caught my attention.

Thursday
Deastro (Knights of Columbus Hall)I haven't seen Randy with his full band yet. I like Deastro because of Randy's ability to vision the future. When he first moved to Detroit he asked me what he could get involved with to do active good works in the city. How can you not support someone with creative energy like that?

Slow Giant (Whiskey in the Jar)Max and everyone that accompanies him are amazing songwriters. If you're interested in the Detroit indie-folk scene Slow Giant's long-winded somber folk is worth discovering.

Friday
Matt Jones (Atlas Bar)Sometimes Matt's talent is hard to stomach. You'll know what I mean if you see him play.

City Center (K of C Lounge)Fred Thomas, an I-pod, and delay pedals.

Aran Ruth (K of C Lounge)We're on the same page, cosmically speaking.









(Gardens)



photo:
Bianca R.
Garza


Saturday
Gardens (K of C Hall)Terrence McKenna, DMT, Aliens, Urban Gardens, and Rock n Roll.

Druid Perfume (Painted Lady)Jamie Easter and friends scare the shit of you and fuck your mind with superior technical accuracy.

War (Painted Lady)This is the only way I could ever call myself pro-war.

Pinkeye with John Sinclair (Paycheck’s)How couldn't you be curious about this?

~
more info: Metro Times

No comments: