Hey travelers, let’s take a little trip and hitch a ride on the holiday nightlife express. Keep your eyes peeled. You never know what you’ll find as we go along on our merry way.
Springfield drummer and Chicago expatriate Greg Fundis returns home for a trip to the top of the Hilton at Jazz Central Station on Friday. Fundis’s band 56 Hope Road, an acoustic-based jam band of sorts, recently released a CD (All Points Connect), and has had scored some sharp gigs lately, including playing the VIP lounge at the Tweeter Center before and after the Dave Matthews Band concert. Two acoustic guitars, percussion, sax, a female harmony singer, and a stand up bass, plus the Fundis phenomenon on drums, sounds like a recipe for an awesome band.
They may not be able to spell (just kidding), but the band Str8 Skny sure can play. See them in action at the Grandstand Sports Bar Saturday night from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., led by the Lowder family, with Jaigh on guitar, wife Peg on vocals, and daughter Josie, taking a holiday break from the University of Alabama, adding her lovely voice to the mix.
I don’t get out to a lot of karaoke nights but it seems to me the Yuletide season might be an opportune time to take in the karaoke experience. Taking for granted there are holiday songs on the list, it could be workable. The words and the melodies are ingrained since childhood in most everyone in the bar — it would be a quick way to win over a tough crowd, step down from the mic, and bask in the warmth of a loving, appreciative audience. Or maybe not. I think I’ll stick with “Already Gone,” “I Will Survive,” “Born to be Wild,” and “Achy-Breaky Heart,” surefire winners in every season. Turn it on and turn me loose.
Hear the rumble and the roar? That would be Viele’s Planet on Saturday night quivering with the raucous sounds of The Pimps, Non Thought, and Blackouts. It’s wild rock & roll the way the kids like it nowadays — loud enough to feel it, with a crazy driving beat, bouncing around all over the place. Hey, that sounds familiar, like something from a deep and distant memory of a past from long ago.
What could be a more exciting way to spend a Sunday afternoon than lounging in the Spillway Lanes lounge swinging to the fantastic sounds of the Bowling Alley Big Band. Glued together by the drums and drive of John Sluzalis, the BABB keeps coming back around about once a month or so to fill our fortunate lives with the beautiful music created by 17 of our cool cat boppin’ muzeekans. No doubt this show will be filled with songs of holiday cheer, which always goes well with cold beer not only because it rhymes, but darn it, because a lot of things go well with cold beer.
Everyone off. It’s the last stop on the holiday nightlife express.
Season’s Greetings to one and all.
This article appears in Dec 18-24, 2003.
