I can’t help but be amazed at the incredible variety and substance of shows this week in a host of various venues. Along with the entertainment values acknowledged, many of the upcoming events contain a good deal of educational and even, spiritual, overtones and underpinnings. The Celtic influence reigns supreme this weekend with the World […]
Music
Posted inMusic
Last Chance
A local private space since 1991, the Last Chance Bar and Lab hosted several outstanding musicians and concerts through the years, while also being a band practice place. The Last Chance Blues Band, a popular, area blues combo and another group, Touch of Grey, originated from the celebrated club/rehearsal spot to play on the town. […]
Posted inMusic
The Ex-Bombers
Out of Charleston, Ill. and originally from Columbia, Mo., The Ex-Bombers are doing swell with a minimalist setup of bass, drum and vocals saying all that needs to be heard. Drummer and vocalist Keri Cousins says the music is “dirtbag spy jazz or beatnik punk” and proudly adds that “our songs come from seedy and […]
Posted inMusic
Rosie blooms
Few other Americana artists spent a lifetime as creative, consistent and challenging as Rosie Flores. From her early days with the Los Angeles cow-punk, rockabilly scene to a current life-defining record, her work from constant live performer to recent record producer follows the music muse. I first met her in June of 1999 at the […]
Posted inMusic
The Alley Tones
Cultivating a deep and biding respect for the legacy of the blues, The Alley Tones hail from St. Louis, a heritage blues city along with Chicago, Memphis and New Orleans. Eric A. Gavillet (vocals), Nathan Byrd (guitar), Joe Phillips (bass) and Justin Schmitt (drums) joined forces in March of 2012 with a vision and purpose […]
Posted inMusic
Labor Day doings
Well, it’s time for the annual bemoaning of the passing of another summer, one that seemed to fly by like a hungry mosquito heading for dinner on my left elbow. Now I suppose fall will just do the same. The years pile up with annoying regularity and increasing rapidity, but all in good time. First […]
Posted inMusic
Blues, BBQs and beyond
I feel like I’m beginning to sound like a broken record – those were those big flat, black things with music on them we had many moons ago. Sometimes they’d get stuck on a scratch and play the same thing over and over. I still have a bunch with a working turntable and the records […]
Posted inMusic
Still Kick’n
What can you say about this band that hasn’t already been said? Here’s one thing – this Saturday is the extremely popular group’s final show. Yes, we won’t have Still Kick’n to “kick around” any more after this weekend as members Kelsey Hickman (lead vocals), Pat McCue (lead vocals, backup vocals, keyboards, acoustic guitar), Don […]
Posted inMusic
Epsom
What’s an Epsom? Dare we ask this Springfield-based experimental and adventurous trio consisting of Scott Faingold (vocalizations, lyrics), Steven Sgro (noises, guitars) and Tim Harte (drums, drums, drums)? The band began in May of 2012 when the former drummer of NIL8 and local roustabout, Gary “Walnuts” Swaggerty communicated to Faingold these fateful words: “We need […]
Posted inMusic
Fair and Un-fair 2
With the 2013 Illinois State Fair still in progress and plenty of hip and happening stuff going on around town, it’s time for the second installment of Now Playing: Fair and Un-Fair. I could expose you to the silly nonsense of using the word “fair” in various other contexts, but that wouldn’t be fair or […]
Posted inMusic
Phil Yates
Based out of Burlington, Vt., singer-songwriter-guitarist Phil Yates spent time in Los Angeles and Chicago, then Columbia, S. C. and once upon a time lived in a little burg called Springfield, Ill. After attending high school here, he split town and now teaches mathematics at a college in Vermont, while making music he describes as […]
Posted inMusic
Fair and un-fair
Here we go again as the Illinois State Fair encompasses Springfield in an annual entertainment entanglement of deep fried frenzy and pure played pleasure. Some folks revel in the excess and others leave town to avoid the mess, but regardless, the ISF consumes the capital city for the next 10 days. Of all the entertainment […]
