Crib Notes

CL’s new vibes backpage

Which reader review do you like best? Check CL’s Vibes backpage this Wednesday to see which one we chose.

Stone Temple Pilots at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, Sat., Aug. 23

Submitted by Wes Bingham

STP delivered a solid show at a brand new venue with great sound. Scott Weiland was unusually mellow and talked very slowly in between songs.

The real story of the night came towards the end when, in the middle of a song, Weiland turned around and flipped off drummer Eric Kretz twice. I thought they might break up right in front of us.

When they finished the song, Weiland walked back to the skin set and Kretz angrily pointed around the stage while guitarist Dean DeLeo acted as mediator.

After abruptly leaving for the encore break, they came back and it was Weiland who screwed the pooch and left out a verse during “Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart.”

After the encore, Kretz and Weiland raced to get off stage. No group bow, no waving, no drumstick throwing, no nothing. Good luck to the cities ahead on this tour, it could be a bumpy ride.

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Dressy Bessy

After touring extensively behind their 2005 release, Electrified the flashy and flamboyant Elephant 6 descendants Dressy Bessy took some time off. During the down time, vocalist / guitar player Tammy Ealom penned a whole new bunch of songs that bring the group’s blend of ultra-vibrant power pop tones full circle to embrace driving rhythms and organic simplicity.

For this round, Ealom began with the drums, and after banging out a few keepers at home, she built melodies around them, and constructed the completed songs from there, which culminate on Dressy Bessy’s fifth album, Holler and Stomp, due out Sept. 30^th on Transdreamer.

Dressy Bessy will be passing through town to play Smith’s Olde Bar on Tues., Oct. 7^th. Click below to read more tour dates.
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It’s official. The 688 reunion show is happening for real at The Masquerade on Sat., Oct. 4th. The show features reunions from several Atlanta bands from various eras gone by, all of home honed their chops at the gone but not forgotten 688 Club.

The show is set up up partially to benefit The Atlanta Music Museum, which serves as an online preservation site that’s dedicated to preserving Atlanta music history.

Regarding the reunion show, the Restraints reunion is the most unexpected addition to the bill. The group’s vocalist Chris Wood died in prison many years ago. More on this as the story develops.

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Tonight marks the second installment of Broke + Boujee since its return last month.

That ballin’ ass promoter chick Fadia Kader has big plans in store for the monthly, including expansions to Canada and elsewhere. The Puma and Pabst logos on the adjacent flyer are proof that she means business.

If you know anything about such artists as Proton, Hollyweerd, Grip, and the like, you already know B&B has been the driving force behind Atlanta’s other-ground hip-hop scene.

To prime yourself for the party tonight, download the latest Broke + Boujee mixtape here, and lookout for more to come. (See tracklist below.)

Fadia’s new twist consists of a B+B rotation that highlights different themes (music, fashion, art, lifestyle) each month. Fashion gets the focus tonight.

If that conjures Visions images of sharp-as-a-tack creased slacks, button-ups and Sunday go-to-meeting shoes in your mind, this probably ain’t your kinda party.

18-and-up. 99 cents before 11 p.m. $4.99 for ladies. $9.99 for fellas. Thurs., Aug. 21. The 5 Spot, 1123 Euclid Ave. 404-223-1100. www.fivespot-atl.com.

SEE TRACKLIST AFTER JUMP

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Word on the street says that there is a new Atlanta compilation in the works, titled We No Fun. The record is being organized by a few folks, including Chris Daresta of local experimental acts Gold Painted Nails and Suitcases, as well as Mike Keenan of the band Hawks.

According to Daresta the title is not meant as a jab at We Fun, the documentary film about Atlanta’s garage rock scene that is currently in production. Rather it’s a reference to Brian Eno’s No New York compilation that documented a handful of bands that made up New York’s No Wave scene in the late ’70s.

“We wanted to put together a cool document of Atlanta’s alternative stuff… Just outsider kind of stuff.” Daresta says.

The comp. will be a vinyl only release and pressed in a limited edition of 500 copies. According to the We No fun Myspace page the record will feature 10 bands and the line-up includes Chrissakes, Hawks, the Sunglasses, Thy Mighty Contract, the Suitcases, Retconned, Judy Chicago, SIDS, Lay Down Mains, Bernard, Chopper and the Felon Wind, which is actually 12 bands.

More details will be posted as they come in.

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reMIXT

Last August MINT Gallery in the Sampson St. lofts opened with a show that celebrated the relationship between music and visual arts via mixtapes, called MIXT.

This year the show returns as “reMIXT,” and will place an emphasis an Atlanta’s thriving and ever-changing local music scene. Artists featured in the show include members of Judi Chicago, Vera Fang, Sealions, and dozens of others contributing to the exhibit through visual art and mixtapes.

The show opens Saturday night (Aug. 23) at 8 p.m.

The Gallery made its own mixtape of some its favorite local music as a primer to the show and you can check it out here.

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By Chris Parker

Many bands settle into their suburban tracts after four albums, content to reiterate the sounds and themes explored in their first decade. Yeah, they’ll add some strings, or do an acoustic album, but generally they’re content to sit back and raise their kids.

My Morning Jacket is the exceptional act that significantly expanded its horizons just as it was emerging into the spotlight. During its first five years, the Louisville quintet recorded three albums of country rock and folk, echoing Neil Young and the Band, with a rugged jam-band boogie. Indeed, its early reputation was earned on its energetic, hard-charging live performances.

It could have settled there, content with its indie-country niche. Instead, 2005’s Z moved the band beyond that fuzzed-out, rambling-rock ghetto and stretched its muscle. A critical fave and resident of most year-end top 10 lists, the album wandered widely, invoking pop texture, art-rock grandeur, pretty piano balladry and bubbly power pop without totally abandoning their Southern-fried rustic stomp.

It set My Morning Jacket on a new shelf, and the intervening three years heightened anticipation for Evil Urges (ATO Records), released in June. It’s even more ambitious, if not nearly as felicitous stylistically. Though it’s failed to garner as much universal adoration as Z, Evil Urges pushes the band into new territory while simultaneously looking back to My Morning Jacket’s beginnings.

Read the rest of this article here.

(Photo by Autumn Dewilde)

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Courtesy Paste magazine

It’s easy to forget the good folks at Paste magazine are based in Atlanta since they’re so good (too good, perhaps) at avoiding hometown favoritism.

But in Paste’s September ’08 cover issue, Best of What’s Next: 26 Emerging Artists You Must Know, two local yokels actually made the cut: Janelle Monae and Andy Hull.

Both are artists we’ve talked up (and sometimes down) in the pages of CL. Hull is best known as the lead for Atlanta indie rock act Manchester Orchestra. But his solo set, Right Away, Great Captain is a stripped-down concept album about a sailor from the 1600s, with each song representing journal entries to his captain and family.

Monae, whose Metropolis: The Chase suite was re-released last week, was the topic of CL’s music feature last week, along with her Wondaland Arts Society label. Metropolis is another conceptual release that tells the story of an android from the future who must be destroyed when she falls in love with a human.

But Atlanta has no monopoly on fresh talent. Check the full list for such artists as Wale (Washington D.C.), the Everybodyfields (Tennessee), Black Kids (Jacksonville, Fla.), Mugison (Iceland) and more.

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Sauda

The worldwide water crisis just hit a bit closer to home with the recent news that Sauda will take her refreshingly crisp, carbonated vocal stylings to New York to attend the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music.

She hopes to put a dent in the $50,000 tuition costs with tonight’s benefit performance, featuring Abyss — a beast in the city’s spoken word scene — and folk artist Becca. Ten percent of the proceeds raised will go to Drop Dead Gorgeous, a non-profit that raises awareness about child sex trafficking.

Suggested donation: $50. 9 p.m. Thurs., Aug. 21. Artistry, 942 Peachtree St. 404-888-0101. www.artistrylife.com.

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DARK MEAT, ONEIDA, DIRTY FACES, JAH DIVISION ELECTRONIC SOUND SYSTEM Athens’ psych/improv freak-rock big band Dark Meat returns to tear it up as a co-headliner with Oneida on this packed bill. Pittsburgh six-piece Dirty Faces plays terse, dark and cerebral art-punk jams. Brooklyn’s Jah Division crafts a gimmicky but cool hybrid of deep-space dub covers of Joy Division songs. $10. 9 p.m. The Drunken Unicorn. 404-870-0575. www.thedrunkenunicorn.net. — Chad Radford

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