SEA HERO is an instrumental band from Louisville, Kentucky that creates “an ebb and flow of noise and harmony.” SEA HERO recently finished recording their third album at Kevin Ratterman’s La La Land studio, to be released in 2015.
BLACK STATIC LINE is a Louisville, Kentucky & Nashville, Tennessee-based space-rock band that experiments with slow tempos at light speed echoing off the nearest galaxy. Beginning as a noise project in 2002, BLACK STATIC LINE has evolved into its present quartet format, with Cole Street (Hollow Ox) at the helm on guitar and vocals, Devin Lamp (The Ascent of Everest) on bass, Corey Taylor (The Ascent of Everest) on lap steel and Matt Bach (Dave Cloud and the Gospel of Power) on drums. On their brand-new sophomore release Enlil (Meltface Records), the band delves into a beautiful dream of outer-space aided by soaring vocals, whale song-sounding steel licks, crushing bass fuzz, and shimmering guitar melodies.
Thursday, November 27th at The New Vintage.
Doors open at 8 PM FREE!ALL AGES!
Facebook invitation here: https://www.facebook.com/events/530755927068880/
Recommended If You Like: Dinosaur Jr., The Replacements, High Rise, Mainliner
Continuing their credo of ‘no limits,’ the Philadelphia-based trio PURLING HISS fail to repeat themselves, shaking out a bunch of weirdo pop numbers rife with ramshackle; tactile and free. PURLING HISS have broken out of the basement, run through the bedroom and are now loose, out in the streets. Their new album, Weirdon, was released this September on Drag City.
STATE CHAMPION started in 2006 as a moniker for the early acoustic experiments of Ryan Davis (Cropped Out, Sophomore Lounge). It has since evolved into a rock n’ roll band with a Chevy van and not one, but two vinyl records. Their sophomore record, Deep Shit, received quite a level of acclaim. Because it’s awesome! “STATE CHAMPION uphold the long and storied history of Louisville and Chicago’s music interconnected… Digging into the dregs of Royal Trux sludge Americana, angular punk, and torch ballads done with malice, STATE CHAMPION accentuates the punk suffix in cowpunk. Weird, wonky, and wild, STATE CHAMPION are a sight to behold live with their unbridled energy and extremely art-damaged take on electric folk.” – The Decibel Tolls.
DAD BODIES are making their debut at this show! They are a Louisville, Kentucky-based band, with members formerly of the well-loved Mote.
The first studio release by CHRIS FORSYTH AND THE SOLAR MOTEL BAND, Intensity Ghost, is a career-defining statement of purpose and a near virtual history tour of late 20th century electric guitar, touching on widescreen psychedelia, art rock, the late-70’s New York scene, and the melting pot of early 90’s underground bands, but writing a whole new chapter, unforeseen by most in 2014. Whereas last year’s acclaimed Solar Motel album was a Forsyth solo album recorded with an ad-hoc studio band, upon its release Forsyth put together a group of players to tour the record — bassist Peter Kerlin, guitarist Paul Sukeena (Spacin’), and drummer Steven Urgo (ex-The War on Drugs) — who took his vision to another level. Forsyth brought this group, now called THE SOLAR MOTEL BAND, into the studio in late 2013 to make Intensity Ghost, largely forsaking the epic sprawl of Solar Motel in favor of a startlingly diverse and focused set of songs. The result is a 5-track masterwork and a rare combination of power and grace. Just as The Grateful Dead or Popul Vuh were able to embrace broad spectrums of sound and transform those influences, THE SOLAR MOTEL BAND distills Forsyth’s message while avoiding any genre exercises. Intensity Ghost is a giant sounding record, it’s hall-sized psychedelia filled with hooks and an immediacy rarely found in such sweeping, cinematic music. CHRIS FORSYTH AND THE SOLAR MOTEL BAND synthesize rather than emulate what has come before, producing something all their own.
MA TURNER’S FATUFAIRFE began in late Summer 2014 as a means for Ma Turner (CROSS, Warmer Milks, Salad Influence) and John Phillip Farmer (Salad Influence, Arcane Rifles, Birddog) to perform songs with a full group that the two had been touring as a duo in the Spring and Summer of 2014. Bringing in John Ferguson (Apples In Stereo, R. Stevie Moore, Big Fresh), David Farris (Bernie Worrell, Tatsuya Nakatani, Jack McDuff, R. Stevie Moore, Tallboys, Club Dub) and Travis McGirr (Blood Pheasant), Turner and Farmer were able to expand the material into broader territories. The end result is a culmination of a handful of barn jam sessions as well as two live performances (one being the 2014 Cropped Out Festival in Louisville, KY) which led up to the recording of their self-titled long playing album, scheduled for release in Spring/Summer 2015.
SPARKS.MOORE is the duo of Jason Sparks and McKinley Moore, who also play in The Wrists. They are also former members of Natives.
Over the two years since their critically acclaimed self-titled debut, HORSE LORDS have become fixtures on the American DIY scene, touring with Matmos, Guerilla Toss, and Guardian Alien. On their second album Hidden Cities (released November 7th, 2014 by NNA Tapes), HORSE LORDS square the circle, making music that is alternately tight and loose, real-time risky and process-oriented, reconciling the sweaty force of a killer basement show with the icy precision of conservatory training.
PARLOUR originally began as a solo project from Tim Furnish following the mid-90s dissolution of Crain – the seminal Louisville rock group he co-founded in the late ’80s. PARLOUR evokes “A unique combination of interweaving guitar shards… driven by a dark, relentless rhythm section.” Their most recent album, Simulacrenfield (released on Temporary Residence), was one of our favorites of 2010 and an instant classic.
KEENAN LAWLER is a guitarist who has collaborated or performed with a wide range of forward-thinking musicians and mavericks including Rhys Chatham, John Butcher, Eliott Sharp, Charalambides, Ignaz Schick/Perlonex, Kaffe Matthews, Burning Star Core, Jason Kahn, Ut Gret, Kevin Drumm, Helena Espvall, Ian Nagoski, Alan Licht, Taksuya Nakatani, Bhob Rainey, Eric Carbonara and Joseph Suchy.
Choreographer, dancer, and three-time New York City Moth StorySLAM winner, Mark Lamb will be sharing three tales from his repertoire of stories. Mr. Lamb is best known for his work combining story, music and dance. Originally from Western Kentucky, he now resides in New York City, where the New York Times has recognized his work as “gently charming,” “quietly celebratory,” and “an expression of communal joy.” Mark will be combining his stories with Louisville’s own Tyrone Cotton on vocals and guitar. Cotton has played throughout the country and in Japan, including venues and festivals such as South By Southwest in Austin, TX; B.B. King’s Blues Club in Times Square, NYC; The Motherlodge Festival in Louisville and NYC; and has opened for James Hunter, Johnny Winter, Eric McFadden and the Blind Boys of Alabama. Joining Tyrone on percussion will be Ray Rizzo. Drummer Ray Rizzo needs no introduction to Louisville music lovers. He helped form the bands The Java Men, L’Woo, and AM Sunday, just to name a few. He’s also played drums for Days of the New, Janitors of the Apocalypse, and King Kong (again, just to name a few).
The first of Lamb’s stories, “Into the Fire,” is about Mr. Lamb learning as a young adult the significance of an iron skillet in his family. When he discovers how much meaning the passing down of a skillet can carry in a Southern family, he is exposed to a whole world of stories and realizes the significance that the object can carry. In this performance, Mr. Cotton will be weaving in traditional Southern Hymns, original compositions and vocals.
The second story, “The Daddy Story,” explores the relationship of a father and son. It describes the father as being a basketball fanatic and the son becoming a dancer. The story examines how both art and sports can lead to social change. Mr. Lamb also tells in this story how the first high school in Kentucky to integrate was in his home town of Sturgis, Kentucky, and how his father was involved in this process and what that means to him.
Lastly, the third story is entitled “A Boy and His Dolly.” This story gives insight into how Mark discovered Dolly Parton as a child, and how this discovery impacted his life. “A Boy and His Dolly” has become one of his signature stories that he has told throughout the Southeast and New York City. Tyrone and Ray will bring the magic of Dolly to life by covering some of her most iconic songs.
Todd Hildreth, Craig Wagner and Ray Rizzo formed JAVA MEN in 1992 when Wagner and Rizzo were still students at Bellarmine University (then Bellarmine College). JAVA MEN developed from the classic jazz/soul organ trio arrangement of organ, guitar and drums, encompassing post-rock, hip hop textures, and bluegrass in the their original compositions. The band self-produced 3 recordings (“A Letter To St. Paul”, “Void” and “Orbituary”) and shared bills with The Rachels’, Victor Wooten, and The Brian Setzer Orchestra. Individually they have been part of other great Louisville music groups including Liberation Prophecy, King Kong, and The Ron Jones Quartet.
Craig plays with the aforementioned Liberation Prophecy and with Carly Johnson. He and Carly recently won the LMA’s “Jazz Artist Of The Year” Award. He is also part of the jazz faculty at both the University of Louisville and at Bellarmine.
Todd leads the bands Squeezebot and the Todd Hildreth Trio, and currently plays with King Kong and Vgroove. He is part of the music faculty at Bellarmine University.
Ray lives in Brooklyn, New York where he is part of the bands Mesiko and Corporal, and often plays with Trixie Whitley. He has recorded with members of the Lounge Lizards, Glen Hansard, Trixie Whitley, Frogbelly and Symphony, Dawn Landes, and Yo Yo Ma (on the Grammy winning “Songs of Joy and Peace”).
For the sets at The New Vintage on October 20, The Java Men plan to unearth some rarely-performed compositions in their catalog.
Monday, September 1st at DREAMLAND 810 E. Market Street (in the alley behind Decca Restaurant) FREE POTLUCK GRILL OUT begins at 3 PM (more details below)
Concert doors open at 7 PM
$10
Advance tickets available here: http://www.ticketfly.com/event/662933
Facebook invitation here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1405659663014178/
Recommended if you like: Django, Segovia, John Fahey, Derek Bailey, Sonny Sharrock
Formerly the guitarist for the legendary Sun City Girls, Richard Bishop released his first solo record (Salvador Kali) in 1998 on John Fahey’s esteemed Revenant label under the moniker SIR RICHARD BISHOP. Since then he has released albums on a variety of labels: Improvika, Elektronika Demonika, and While My Guitar Violently Bleeds (Locust Music), Fingering the Devil (Southern Records, UK), Polytheistic Fragments and The Freak of Araby (Drag City), and many more. His most recent LP, Hypostasis: A Work in Three Parts, is now available through the VDSQ label as part of their Solo Acoustic Series. This appearance marks his first time back in Louisville in over five years!
A Bhutanese guitarist now residing in Asheville, NC, TASHI DORJI makes meticulously crafted sounds that conjure spirits, wrestle demons, and tame wild beasts. As beautiful as they are cerebral, his acoustic works are reminiscent of Derek Bailey’s free improvisations, flamenco and John Fahey’s Americana.
Listen to and watch an excerpt from “Blue 12″ by TASHI DORJI here:
For the past decade PETE FOSCO has been exploring and celebrating the sonic potential of amplified electric guitars and the imaginary worlds they create. He graduated from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati in 2004 with a BFA in Electronic Media Production. Since then his solo and collaborative work has been released by labels such as Digitalis Recordings, Reverb Worship, Holy Cheever Church, Gift Tapes, Dead Pilot, Calypso Hum, and the Greenup Industries imprint that he runs from home with his wife Heather. He has toured throughout the Midwest and Northeast United States, and in Iceland. He has shared bills with many of his long-time inspirations and heroes including Charalambides, MV+EE, Six Organs of Admittance, Baby Dee, C. Spencer Yeh, Byron Westbrook, Barn Owl, Circuit des Yeux, Caboladies, Metal Rouge, and many others. His compositions are usually at least partially if not mostly improvised, blending extended and traditional guitar techniques and drawing equal inspiration from classic 90s psychedelia like Flying Saucer Attack and Spiritualized, film soundtracks, and many varieties of free-form, improvised and sacred musics. FOSCO is a native of Cincinnati, OH and currently resides in Covington, KY.
FREE POTLUCK GRILL OUT begins at 3 PM
As part of our LABOR DAY celebrations, DREAMLAND is hosting a FREE POTLUCK GRILL OUT on the patio across our alleyway, beginning at 3 PM. Feel free to bring all kinds of delectable delicious foods to dine on, and share, with your fellow Dreamlanders! Everything from appetizers, salads, and sides, to dessert is welcome. We’ll have grilling facilities available (both veggie and carnivorous), as well as picnic-style dining ware, tables, chairs, etc. We’ll also have ALE 8-1 GINGER ALE and good ol’ H2O for sale.
TINY REBELS: An Exhibit of Drawings by MA TURNER will appear in DREAMLAND’s gallery space through this closing party on August 23rd. TINY REBELS is a deeper study into MA TURNER‘s visual end of the creative spectrum. These 3.5×3.5 inch sketch/collage pieces explore broader themes of the human condition amongst habitats such as the woods and the galaxy condensed into TURNER‘s personal interpretation.
“JOVANTAES are Lexington, Kentucky. They emerge from (and possibly define) my town’s peculiar skate/Kraut/nihil/garage axis, evoking the smell of stale Miller High Life and burning couches: stumbling match-grip surf rolls, howling chorused-out guitar, droning Adderall haze, and a singer who makes Will Shatter sound like Scott Walker. Imagine Moolah playing at a beach party on the edge of the Kentucky River, big gray globs of unidentifiable garbage drifting silently past and the dense wet air becomes gridlocked with mosquitoes” – Trevor Tremaine (Hair Police)
Not much information exists online about Lexington’s LIVE ISLAND, so perhaps the music just speaks for itself. Listen to them here: http://liveisland.bandcamp.com/.
Lexington, Kentucky’s MA TURNER was born in Louisville in 1977, and in addition to being a visual artist,is the guitarist/co-founder of the bands Salad Influence, Human Process and CROSS, as well as multi-instrumentalist/founder of Warmer Milks. MA TURNER has been making art under various guises and styles since 1981. He will be joined by a full band for this show.
WILLIAM HOOKER is a percussionist at the heart of New York City’s storied avant-garde underground. Taken as a whole, his work reflects a lifelong commitment to advancing and evolving the historical continuum of jazz, while navigating a myriad of creative trajectories through new music. His discography spans more than 30 years, and boasts collaborations with David S. Ware, Andrea Parkins, Thurston Moore, Billy Bang, Lee Ranaldo, Roy Campbell Jr, David Murray, Elliott Sharp, Alan Licht, Nels Cline, William Parker, and many more. Each collaboration has been marked by a serious investigation of his compositional agenda, and the science of the modern drum kit. Hooker brings dramatic tension and human warmth to avant-garde jazz. Over the past three years, he has become progressively active throughout the Midwestern USA, while fostering an ongoing collaboration with Ohio-based multi-instrumentalist Edward Ricart.
Like Hooker, Ricart’s work cuts a wide swath through a diverse range of the creative contemporary music underbelly, including the avant-rock power trio Hyrrokkin; free jazz/noise rock quartet Haitian Rail; free-rock duo Matta Gawa; and the Edward Ricart Quartet (alongside Herb Robertson, Jason Ajemian, and Andrew Barker), as well as collaborations with Marshall Allen, Merzbow, Peter Brotzmann, Paul Dunmall, Andrea Parkins, Rhys Chatham, Ches Smith, Travis Laplante, and members of the rock groups Black Flag, Fugazi, Bardo Pond, and Tortoise, among many others… As curator of New Atlantis Records, he has played an active role in nurturing a new community around the music, transcending the aesthetic constraints of experimental jazz, creative rock, and more
In this most recent iteration of the William Hooker Trio, Hooker has enlisted bassist Luke Stewart, a rising voice in Washington DC’s independent music community, and a frequent collaborator of trumpeters Jaimie Branch and Lewis ‘Flip’ Barnes, saxophonists James Brandon Lewis and Ras Moshe, electric guitarist Anthony Pirog, and many more. This unit is poised to offer new points of entry to Hooker’s free-ranging aesthetic, marrying his bounding, propulsive rhythms and masterful technique to the angularity, energy, and electric backbone on supply from Stewart and Ricart.
Brooklyn based violinist, composer, and software engineer CHRISTOPHER TIGNOR is best known for his work through his bands Slow Six, Wires.Under.Tension and as a composer for forward-thinking classical ensembles over the last 15 years. Tignor’s emotionally charged scores are built from layered strings, percussion, and live electronics and live neatly between worlds, performed around the world at venues ranging from the rock clubs of South by Southwest to Carnegie Hall. His 7 LP’s are available from the Western Vinyl and New Albion record labels and compilation records featuring Tignor’s work for others are available through In a Circle and GPR records including music for the renown Brooklyn Rider string quartet and A Far Cry string orchestra. As a string arranger, Tignor has worked with This Will Destroy You, Lymbyc Systym, and several other bands at the boundaries popular music. Several of his live processing software instruments are available from his website: wiresundertension.com. You can stream his entire discography here: https://christophertignor.bandcamp.com/.
As an accomplished 12-string guitarist/composer, ALEXANDER TURNQUIST was naturally alarmed when the ulnar nerve in his left hand seized up in 2013, but after a surgical procedure he gratefully started the process of learning to play guitar again. His recovery was cut short when not long after the surgery he was hospitalized with meningitis. Though his recovery is ongoing, and he continues to struggle with a weakened immune system and memory loss, he was inspired to soldier on, rather than being deterred by his physical struggles. Turnquist’s latest full-length Flying Fantasy confirms the idea that out of great hardship can come great art. As he wrote the material for the new album it became clear that his sensitivity had sharpened, his empathy magnified, and his sense of purpose blossomed. The unfortunate circumstances he endured ostensibly forced his metamorphosis from a remarkable guitar player to a truly great composer. Much like the butterflies that adorn the album cover, he seems to have changed form and taken flight.
At this point, everyone knows about the legendary Louisville scene of the early 1990s. Our city was destined to be “The Next Seattle” — just like every other moderate-sized city with a few decent bands, a couple of independent record labels, and a handful of venues. Well, once that all dried up, the magazines and taste-makers stopped caring, but it didn’t matter — Louisville musicians kept on playing, and today we’ve got more good bands than you can shake a stick at.
Back in the day, though, there were a number of INCREDIBLE bands that fell through the cracks, for whatever reason, never receiving the wider recognition they might have deserved. One of those bands is NITROUS. Falling somewhere within the parameters of the aggressively noisy post-hardcore of like-minded bands such as Drunks with Guns, Unsane, or Bastards, NITROUS could always be counted on to be THE most intense band at any given show they played. Consisting of Edward Lutz, Takayuki Tsuji (Undermine), Jason Fuller (Kill), and Chico Beat (Erchint), a NITROUS show was an event.
This show will be no different. This is NITROUS‘ first show in over twenty years, and unlikely to happen again. DO NOT MISS IT.
““Weight” and “volume” are terms usually reserved for science, but with TROPHY WIVES they’re an art. The Louisville, KY-based four-piece’s dark, sweaty rock cribs its moves from Birthday Party-esque post-punk, Kyuss-like stoner grooves, and Jesus Lizard-like rhythm section gnarl in equal measure, going unpredictably but consistently for either your gut or your throat. Make no mistake: they’re going to hit you hard and kick your ass, but at least you’re going to have a good time rolling with the punches.” -Johnny C., www.prfbbq.com
THE WINDAGO features Louisvillians Chris Guinero, Dave Bird, and (sometimes) Tim Ruth, who have performed with Evergreen, Undermine, Auditory Clang, Pale Horse Riders, the Palace Brothers, Rude Weirdo, Speed to Roam, and Juanita, to name just a few of their projects. It’s folk music inspired by Gypsies and Native Americans. They have been working on material for the past four years with plans to release material on Ted Records and Self Destruct Records.
The Other Side of Life 