Music this weekend

FRIDAY, FEB. 29th Attic Space @ Foxz
(featuring Ralph Roddenberry, Scott Sanders, Paul Scales, Tommy Jones and Thomas 'Dr T' Terrell)
A benefit show in memory of Nuçi's Space volunteer Cayle Bywater.
Suggested donation: $10
9 pm


SATURDAY, MARCH 1st
DEAD CONFEDERATE/TWIN TIGERS @ CALEDONIA
As we mentioned here in the past, local band Dead Confederate is opening for R.E.M. (along with Summerbirds in the Cellar) at SXSW. The Athens Banner-Herald's Marquee section profiles the band here.


The Marquee also looks at local Afro/Caribbean drum ensemble AMOYUBA! - who open for Toubab Krewe Friday at the Georgia Theatre. Nuçi's Space staff member and drum tech Kane Stanley is one of the founding members of the group.

My reputation is hanging around my neck.

Sprockets 5!
Sprockets Music Videos is currently accepting submissions for the 5th Annual Sprockets Music Video Competition to take place during AthFest 2008.
Dates to remember!
April 01 early deadline
April 15 late deadline
June 14 sprockets show
June 19 flagpole music awards 2008
Call for entries - ENTRTY FORMS HERE !

Kenosha Kid has a preview of their forthcoming DVD up on their myspace. Check it out here.
The DVD is movie/music combo featuring Dan Nettles' score of the film Steamboat Bill.

The Clarke Central High School magazine is an amazing publication. Highly professional and mature beyond their years, the students who put out Odyssey devote lots of hard work and hours into putting out the magazine. Check out their website here and look at this month's cover story on schizophrenia.

Daniel Hutchens and Eric Carter are the main men behind Bloodkin. The boys have been at it for years here in Athens, and the train keeps on a-rollin' this spring for the band. Bloodkin will set out on tour with former Athens band Backyard Tire Fire before ending up at SXSW. Jambase covers the story here.

Michael Stipe's lyrics and R.E.M.'s relevance to the political and culture world - discussed in Relevant Magazine.

Download a track from the new B-52's album Funplex here.

Check out the fantastic profile of Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum here on Slate.

"At the end of Aeroplane's final song, you can hear Jeff Mangum set down his guitar and walk off, and, minus a few months of under-the-radar touring, that's exactly what Mangum did in real life."

Jeff Mangum

Athens Music Scene: Must Read

PASTE MAGAZINE
After the Goldrush:Does Seattle's Music Scene Still Matter?
Writer: Corey DuBrowa
Feature, Issue 40, Published online on 22 Feb 2008

The city responsible for innovators from Hendrix to Heart to (Wayne) Horvitz—the Ground Zero of grunge, the home of the influential Sub Pop label and the inspiration for period-perfect 1992 film Singles—has seen better days, musically speaking.
Late last year, the Crocodile Café became the latest in a long line of vaunted live venues (from the OK Hotel to Moe’s to RCKCNDY to Fenix Underground) to close its doors. Others, such as the Showbox and Comet, have either been purchased by out-of-town interests or continue to exist only precariously, threatened by the downtown core’s massive residential—and commercial—development schemes. Some of the scene’s leading lights—including Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock, Mudhoney’s Steve Turner and Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla—have fled Seattle’s increasingly expensive real estate and impossibly dense traffic for the artist-friendly confines of Portland, Ore. And increasingly punitive noise ordinances and nightlife restrictions have made it difficult for Seattle clubs that book live bands to turn a profit, forcing them to consider more lucrative alternatives.
“Mayor [Greg] Nickels and other city leaders don’t have a clue about the impact of their policies on this community,” says Tim Hatley, lobbyist for the Seattle Nightlife & Music Association. “If you’re Dan [Cowan, owner of Seattle fixture the Tractor Tavern], why would you invest in a booking person and upgrades like sprinklers and soundproofing when you could make more money as a pool hall for the yuppies in their brand-new condos right across the street?”
EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHEREThe argument for Seattle’s musical demise largely boils down to economics. Any vibrant music scene requires plenty of cheap space in which artists can live, practice and work, since a musician’s living is often feast or famine—and it’s been a long time since anyone could accurately call Seattle “cheap.” According to Northwest Multiple Listing Service, the median price of a single-family home in King County as of fall 1993 (the same timeframe in which Nirvana’s In Utero and Pearl Jam’s Vs. were released) was $159,000. By the fall of 2007 that same property had swelled to $457,000. Even taking inflation into account, prices have essentially doubled within 14 years (with a corresponding impact on rents), which has predictably chased some former residents to less-expensive locales.
“The music community itself is still really strong in Seattle,” says Death Cab guitarist Walla, a Portland resident since 2006. “But there’s a goldrush mentality about the way the city is managed. The difference between Seattle and Portland has everything to do with economics: Seattle City Hall seems to have completely lost any interest in music or the arts. It’s crazy to hear Mayor Nickels going on about building a tunnel under the waterfront: All he seems to care about is ‘denser, bigger, more.’ My decision to move to Portland was strictly about quality of life vs. a musical choice. I started looking at houses here two years ago, and thought ‘I can afford to buy a nice house within walking distance of a bunch of mom-and-pop shops run by adult kids just like me.’”
For their part, Seattle’s civic leaders suggest they’re doing all they can to balance the commercial interests that have fueled the city’s considerable growth and the artistic and aesthetic interests associated with Seattle’s musical boomtimes. “There may be some growing pains affecting nightlife as Seattle continues to grow and density increases, but Seattle music has moved from ‘scene’ to industry,” says James Keblas, Director of Film & Music for the mayor’s office (a position created in 2003) and co-founder of the Vera Project (see sidebar).
Keblas points to a 2003 economic-impact study showing that Seattle’s music industry contributed $1.3 billion in revenues to the city, supports 8,700 jobs and is comprised of more than 2,600 businesses, including 88 record labels, 115 record stores, 164 live music venues, 100 recording studios and nearly 1500 bands/artists (according to recent independent surveys). “The City Council recently passed a noise ordinance but the details and rules won’t be worked out until June 2008,” Keblas says. “I can assure you it will be as lenient towards live music venues as possible, and far less strict than any other major city.”
Perhaps the biggest myth of all is that it was ever easy to be a working musician in Seattle. Mudhoney’s Mark Arm—progenitor of the term “grunge,” co-founder of the seminal ’80s indie band Green River and one of Seattle music’s most influential voices—cautions against making too much of the current downturn.
“It’s not like things were necessarily any better in the ’80s,” Arm explains with a sardonic laugh. “The U-Men were the biggest band around, and they usually played to less than 50 people in tiny places like the Ditto Tavern and the [now-defunct] Vogue. The war against local music was on full-force: The 1985 Teen Dance Ordinance made it impossible to put on legal all-ages shows; you either played house parties or rented a hall and took your chances. To say the scene’s ‘dead’ seems Chicken Little to me: That’s about marketing conceits, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the music. Maybe it’s good for the scene to have a little difficulty, you know? That way the people playing music for the enjoyment of it, rather than building some ‘career,’ will keep the thing going.”
“What we had in the ’90s was a once-in-a-lifetime event,” says Charles Cross, editor of late indie paper .The Rocket and biographer of Seattle icons Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix. “There was a period in 1993-94 in which five local bands debuted at #1 in the Billboard charts: That’s an impossible standard to maintain. People forget that in 1991, when Nirvana supposedly ‘broke,’ Kurt Cobain’s tax records show that he made only $33,000 and was evicted from his apartment because he couldn’t afford the $137.50 monthly rent. People have been writing Seattle-scene obits since 1994—it wasn’t as great as everyone seems to think it was then, and it isn’t as bad as everyone suggests today.”

Remembering Cayle Bywater

FRIDAY FEB. 29th
Attic Space (and special guest Ralph Roddenbery)
Foxyz Tavern: Celebrate the life of Cayle Bywater
9 PM
We are honoring the memory of Nuçi's Space volunteer, UGA student, dog lover, and a great gal... Cayle Bywater.

'ATTIC SPACE' will be playing covers (such as Jeff Beck, Pink Floyd..and more), & originals in blues, jazz and rock.
9:00 pm until...we'll have some snacks until they run out!
$10 suggested donation
Featuring:
Scott Sanders on guitar/vocals (Strawberry Flats, Landsharks..), Paul Scales on harmonica/keys (Paul was co-producer of Caroline Aiken's Grammy nominated CD: "Are We There Yet Mama"), Tommy Jones on bass/vocals (Ralph Roddenbery Band, Dan K Theory), Thomas 'Dr T' Terrell on drums (Dan K Theory, guest w/ RRB and steady gigs in Athens with keyboard player, Fred Williams).
And the illustrious Ralph Roddenbery on acoustic guitar/vocals/acrobatic dancing/impromptu theater!
Please join us for a great night of fun, great music and to celebrate Cayle Bywater.
Foxz Tavern. 2455 Jefferson Rd.Athens, GA 30601; 706-546-8209. Next to the Jefferson Rd/Prince Avenue exit, off Hwy 10 (Athens bypass).

All the fallen leaves find their branches again...

The Whigs on Conan O'Brien: Feb. 20th 2008.

350 Heads on a... 305 Engine

The Whigs Right Hand on My Heart video has been released - the video was shot here in Athens, Ga. Here's a YouTube version.
Remember - The Whigs on Conan O'Brien: Tonight FEBRUARY 20th.
Also - Pitchfork Media gave Mission Control a 7.0.

More Jeff Mangum news in Pitchfork.

DBT reviewed in Spin: 3 stars.

Ghostmeat Records is back - so to speak (they actually never left in the first place and have been releasing the stellar AthFest compilation every year). Flagpole profiles their new releases - albums from Lona, Russ Hallauer and William Tonks.

This is old news to some, but cool nonetheless.
Somehow based around the video game "Rock Band", an MTV.com video series came through Athens and interviewed among others the prolific Jeff Tobias and We Vs. The Shark. There's also some great footage of the Orange Twin Compound and an interview with Laura Carter.

---

Battle of the Bands in Athens: Human Rights Festival

Battle of the Bands competition, benefitting the 30th Annual Athens Human Rights Festival, will be held April 5th @ Tasty World. There will be separate catagories of competition for teen and adult bands and the winners will play the festival in May.
Contact info for bands:
ahrf_bob@yahoo.com or Sue @ 770-725-2652.

Ariadne Thread: stringing together Mangum, Colbert and the Campbell gals

The second album from Athens' Hope For agoldensummer - Ariadne Thread - is a beautiful experience. And yes - experience is the right word. The album, packaged in a gorgeous casing(below), comes with a hand-woven booklet containing an original short story and artwork. The text is penned by Page and Claire Campbell's cousin Wallace Cochran, of the band Drakkar Sauna.
The Campbell sisters are 2/3rds of Hope, and the primary songwriters and vocalists. The third piece is guitarist Deb Davis. Ariadne Thread is full of what the Campbells do so well - emotive, gothic Southern vocals richly layered and packed with heart-wrenchingly sincere lyrics.
They deliver "It's been a long, long year ... things got messed up" with such weight, and vague descriptions like "things" and "messed up" suddenly make perfect sense.
Hear tracks from Hope For agoldensummer on their Myspace page.
Learn more about Ariadne Thread:

---

FROM THE WEB:

As if he wasn't already the coolest person of all time, Stephen Colbert apparently enjoys Neutral Milk Hotel.

Check out the new video for R.E.M.'s first single from Accelerate.

Former Athens resident Brian Burton aka Dangermouse says the new Gnarls Barkley will be coming out soon. Listen to the new track and get more info on The Odd Couple here.

We got your money now we'll make a new start.

(Parker Gispert of The Whigs in the studio recording Mission Control).
The Whigs will be appearing on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on February 20th.
In other Whigs news - a few months ago they were profiled in Spin Magazine (Thanks for the heads-up from Alyssa Bernstein). While you're at it, check out this December review of their Knitting Factory show and some really good photos: here.
The same issue lauded the re-release of Pylon's Gyrate album (on DFA Records).



Stereogum reviews Accelerate, the new R.E.M. album.

---

Please read Julie Phillips' profile of the talented Athens musician Danny Esposito. Esposito passed away last week and was a highly respected guitar player in these parts. He will be missed by his family and many friends.

---

"Two things we can all agree on:1. We all love Michael Jackson2. We’re all glad he’s not our uncle." Patterson Hood writing about Thriller, on its 25th anniversary


Steve LaBate (Attractive Eighties Women/Paste Magazine) reviews the new album from Widespread Panic.
The Athens Banner Herald also profiled a WSP listening party here.

What a beautiful face I have found in this place... 10 Years of AEROPLANE

(ABOVE: artwork by NMH's Jeff Mangum)

Stereogum looks at the 10-year anniversary of Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.
Pitchfork Media is re-running a great interview from 1997 with Neutral Milk Hotel.
Blogging on Aeroplane:

Cut Shallow
Audio Galaxy
Deaf Indie Elephants

---

Popmatters sits down with Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley for a really good interview.
In other DBT news, their new album Brighter Than Creation's Dark (New West) at No. 36 on the Billboard Top 200 Chart a few weeks ago...

---

The Whigs get reviewed in The New York Times (typical lib media!)

---

A track from Elf Power's new album: here.

---

Check out Tate Millerton's poster art - he's been doing some cool artwork for Dark Meat shows, etc lately.

Rocking on a ROCK farm!!

Drive-By Truckers will play at this year's Bonnaroo. The seventh annual four-day camping and music festival will be held on June 12-15 on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee, 60 miles south of Nashville.
Among the confirmed 2008 Bonnaroo artists are: Pearl Jam, Metallica, Jack Johnson, Kanye West, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, My Morning Jacket, The Allman Brothers Band, The Raconteurs, Willie Nelson, Death Cab for Cutie plus what seems like millions of others...

---

(ABOVE: Patterson Hood - red guitar - joins the rotating band onstage).

The Ted Hafer Memorial Show last weekend at 40 Watt was fantastic. It was a reunion of sorts - with music played by the likes of: Vic Chesnutt, Dave Marr, Nick Bielli, Larry Tenner, Phillip Mcardle, Curtiss Pernice, Dave Gerow, John Neff, Creston Spiers, Frank Macdonell, Sam Mixon, Ballard Lesemann, Paul Trudeau, Steve Hurley and John Harrison.
(The ass-kicking) Sloan Simpson has Vic Chesnutt's set (joined by Curtiss Pernice, Sam Mixon & Ballard Lesemann) on his (amazing) Southern Shelter website.
Also, here's photos from Laura Ford and from Mike White
The concert was also a benefit for Nuçi's Space - thank-you so much to Barrie Buck, Curtis Pernice and Jessica Green for planning the event!

---

Stream a track from the new R.E.M. album Accelerate on Pitchfork.

---

Watch Friday Night Lights tonight on NBC and you'll hear Right Hand on My Heart by The Whigs.

---

FoA (Friend of Athens) comedian Patton Oswalt will host this year's Plug Independent Music Awards...
Vote here for locals (Of Montreal) and semi-locals (Deerhunter/Black Lips).