Artist Spotlight: Hoots & Hellmouth
While listening to their album in the comfort and privacy of your bedroom might get some toes a tappin’, it’s nothing compared to a live show with Philadelphia, PA based, roots revival band Hoots & Hellmouth. No gimmicks, no fuss; just a few guys playing some tunes with so much energy and enthusiasm, there should be a splash zone in the front. Also forgoing a drummer, H&H instead rocks out the beat, stomping holes in their wooden boxes and shaking the stage like an evangelist being exorcised. I might be scared they’d break something if I wasn’t having so much fun watching them do it.
Founding members Sean Hoots and Andrew “Hellmouth” Gray both on guitar and vocals are joined by Rob Berliner on mandolin, vocals to create sigh-worthy three part harmonies with John Branigan on bass. These guys will keep you dancing, but don’t miss out on the message behind the band. In true DIY fashion, H&H advocates the support of not specifically local music, but of local community. Even their website proudly waves the banner for “Buy Fresh, Buy Local”, a non-profit organization that promotes sustainable agriculture by purchasing produce from farms within the area, instead of mass marketed, out of season goods at the big box supermarkets. And in this digital age, between facebook feeds and twitter subscribers, it can be easy to forget about the people next door.
So come out, meet some new neighbors, and enjoy Hoots & Hellmouth, performing live with Barnstormers, Shane Tutmarc, and Wess Floyd. This Wednesday, September 1st at the fooBARtoo, the show starts at 9 pm for $7.
Posted by Rebecca Seung // Artist Spotlight // Aug 30, 2010 // 0
Artist Spotlight: Adam Hill
Good music remembers where it came from, and Adam Hill is a living testament to that fact. He was raised in Kingston, Tennessee in Appalachia. He heard all the great old country songs sang by his relatives from an early age, and when he saw the movie “Crossroads” (not the Brittney Spears movie) that was it, he needed to be a part of something great: southern music.
The rest was more than history for Adam Hill, all through high school and college he played and recorded for girls, friends, and himself. He played with this band and that band (The Satellite Pumps, Raggeddettes, Second Manassas, The Old Flames) kicking out great song after great song all through his adult life. What do you get after all of that? An experienced, talented songwriter who is confident and sure. Not to mention, a ton of Appalachian Americana tunes that are equally charming and thoughtful. Now performing with or with out the band The Sunday Best, he brings each crowd he performs for to his attention, and shows them the road he’s been down and where he’s headed. (more…)
Posted by Sarah Norris // Artist Spotlight // Aug 25, 2010 // 0
Artist Spotlight: Bawn in the Mash
Take five talented guys, add a dozen or so instruments, some haunting harmonies, and a dash of the indefinable and you get one seriously unique band. Bawn in the Mash hails from Paducah, Kentucky, where they’ve been cranking out their own blend of what can be best described as experimental folk. Pulling elements from country, bluegrass, jazz, rock ‘n roll, and the list goes on, the quintet deconstructs these familiar genres, scrambles them up, and serves up a boldly progressive instrumentation that truly puts this band in a category of its own.
The boys of Bawn are Tommy Oliverio on mandolin, fiddle, banjo, and calliope, Josh Coffey on violin, electric mandolin, guitar, banjo, and sitar, Zach Coffey on acoustic guitar, horns, bass, and drums, Eddie Coffey, father of Josh and Zach, plays the upright bass and guitar with Brey McCoy rounding out the line up with percussion on anything from xylophone and drums to computers and beatboxing. To say this band is multi-instrumental is an understatement, but what could easily turn into a muddled cacophony is instead expertly weaved together into their signature style.
While Bawn never hesitates to color outside the lines, there’s something comforting in the familiarity of the music. An innocence in its echo to the past that harkens back to those lazy days of childhood when everything was possible and the only worries were ones of grass stains and cookie crumbs. And just like the questing curiosity of youth, much of Bawn’s innovation comes from a willingness to play, not in the music sense, but in the fun way of children, daring to imagine that just because something hasn’t been done doesn’t mean it can’t be.
Come join Bawn in the Mash this Friday and (hopefully) say goodbye to the heady southern heat of summer as August comes to a close. Also featuring special guests Tristen and Adam Hill, the show on August 27 is $7 and starts at 9 pm.
Posted by Rebecca Seung // Artist Spotlight // Aug 23, 2010 // 0
Random Conflict this Friday!
Bill “Conflict” Reeves has been turning punk on it’s ear since the 70’s, Random Conflict has been tearing it up for 22 years, and they aren’t showing any signs of stopping. Random Conflict still rears it’s badass head when it’s members have time from the other bands and home economics projects, and it just so happens that Friday is just such an occasion. A punk mainstay of the South and a force to be reckoned with, Random Conflict brings no-frills street punk and shoves it in your face just like they did back in ’88 (and ’94, and ’03…). Also to hit the stage Friday is Dirty Dee and the Sweaty Meat (the Nashville native Public Offense crew), Male Nurses (on tour from MA with a new record deal), Syrian Nukes Over Disneyland (featuring Cy Barkley) and Symptoms (more Nashville brutal hardcore punk). Five kick-ass bands, five dollars. Don’t miss this monumental throng of southern punk and hardcore.
This Friday @ the End! 8 PM. $5 Find it on Facebook.
Posted by Sarah Norris // Announcements // Aug 17, 2010 // 0
Scott H. Biram TONIGHT
We hope to see you all at fooBAR.too tonight!
Posted by Larry Vance // Announcements // Aug 12, 2010 // 0
Interview: Joe Fletcher
This Thursday, Blood on the Bluegrass presents Joe Fletcher & the Wrong Reasons with the Scissormen and Scott H. Biram at the fooBar.too in East Nashville. Joe Fletcher is currently on the road trucking from Boston to Nashville hitting many stops in between. He took the time to chat with me and this was the outcome.
Rebecca Seung: What was your moment (or moments) of “musical awakening”, when you discovered your love for it and decided you wanted to make music? Have your musical tastes changed ever, or do you still listen to more or less the same bands or genres as you did when you were a child? If not, what caused the switch?
Joe Fletcher: That’s funny that you asked that because Prince’s “Purple Rain” has been my one of my all-time favorite records since I was in the 4th grade. I’ve been listening to it constantly again lately. There is nothing in the world like it. I started playing guitar about four years after that. I was completely obsessed with Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and “Appetite for Destruction” had just come out. I had just moved to a new town and one of my fellow 8th graders showed me his silver Stratocaster and played “Walk This Way” note for note. It was that afternoon that I realized that I could probably do this, too. (more…)
Posted by Rebecca Seung // Interviews // Aug 08, 2010 // 0
Artist Spotlight: Scott H. Biram
A storm’s a brewin’, and it’s called Scott H. Biram. The one man band from Austin, TX is a whirlwind of gritty southern blues, county wail, punk rock attitude, and metal thrash that combine into the perfect storm for foot stompin’, soul searchin’ rock ‘n roll. Sitting on stage like it’s his own back porch, his voice growls like the devil’s cranking up his car, and his foot, pounding out the beat, is just the engine revving up to take you on a ride to his own personal hell.
Biram’s latest album “Something’s Wrong / Lost Forever” acts as the vehicle to sightsee into the cold, lonely nights of the open road. Starting with “Time Flies” and the beginning of the journey that “has such a long way to go”, he offers a look “out the window at the world just movin’” in “Draggin’ Down the Line”, a song about the life of a traveler, chugging along just to get by, with a driving rhythm of worn tires on hot asphalt, only to drop you off in the middle of shallow waters in “The Wishin’ Well”, a Hamlet-esque questioning of the meaning of life. His songs sweat droplets of desperation until they make their slow, meandering slide down to form water rings on the woodwork. And who’s a better tour guide to pain than the man who faced down an 18 wheeler in a head on collision only to throw one giant middle finger to the Grim Reaper by showing up one month later to play from his wheelchair at the Continental Club in Austin. With enough metal in his bones to be virtually bionic, Biram is an unstoppable force of the grassroots music movement.
The tornado touches down on August 12 at the fooBARtoo, where you might be seeing technicolor but it’s not the land of Oz cause Scott H. Biram ain’t no Judy Garland. He’ll perform live with Joe Fletcher & the Wrong Reasons and Scissormen. Starting at 9 PM, the show is $12, ages 21 and up.
Posted by Rebecca Seung // Artist Spotlight // Aug 04, 2010 // 0
Hellhound On His Trail
I just finished reading “Hellhound on His Trail” by Hampton Sides. The title is taken from Robert Johnson’s song of the same name. The book deals with James Earl Ray and the worldwide man hunt led by Hoover’s FBI to bring him back to Memphis for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. James Earl is playing the Hellhound role. The book’s chapters alternate between King a few years after his Civil Rights successes trying to continue his message in an increasingly violent late 60′s, James Earl Ray breaking out of Jefferson City’s Prison in a bread box and heading to Mexico with dreams of directing porn films (one has to wonder if he’d been successful about the course of race relations in this country), Lyndon Johnson mired in Viet Nam and his Great Society falling apart and J. Edgar Hoover, still at the head of the bureau and seen as a bit of a kook. (more…)
Posted by Adam Hill // Editorials // Aug 02, 2010 // 0
In the Name of Blues
If you were at fooBar 2 on Friday I don’t have to try to put the evening into words for you, but for the rest of you, it won’t be easy. It was three courses of blues/roots that all meshed together to make for a wild and weird night, and definitely one of the best shows I’ve seen in a while.
First on was Red Mouth, a blues/punk man from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. He was wild and fiery, a true-to-stereotype redhead; we were commanded to listen to his open heart by his dark honey voice, a guitar, and his feet to stomp. Such passion concentrated in one small spot can make for a tough act to follow, but Slim Chance and the Can’t Hardly Playboys, a Nashville native five piece, did more than a fine job. They brought roots fueled grass music to the table, rocked the whole house with it, and the foot stomping and head dancing was proof.
The third and final act to hit the stage was Revered Beat-Man and Delaney Davidson. They are both on Voodoo Rhythm Records, the blues trash label that the Rev. founded 18 years ago in his home country, Switzerland, and both usually perform as one man bands. Voodoo is absolutely the correct word to put on these two men, because they both have a charming and eerie presence that infiltrated the entire bar. I had listened to music from both of them, watched videos, and read the press and blogs, and could tell they both had a small but dedicated cult following. I knew the Reverend and Delaney had something crazy going, but until I saw it for myself, I didn’t really get it. (more…)
Posted by Sarah Norris // Reviews // Jul 26, 2010 // 0
Rev. Beat-Man & Delaney Davidson TONIGHT!
There is only one hope for your wicked ways, people. Come confess your sins at the fooBar. The Reverend is in the house all the way from Switzerland and this may be your only chance left for salvation. Join us tonight for the good word.. 9 PM SHARP.
Where: fooBAR.too // 2511 Gallatin Pike, Nashville 37206
When: TONIGHT! 9 PM // $7 // 21+
Posted by Larry Vance // Announcements // Jul 23, 2010 // 0