Welcome revelers of the nightlife. Enter with me into the world of live music, which includes within its realm the great sport of people watching, the sublime art of spirit imbibing, and the good old pastime of dancing to your heart’s content.
The fine fellas in Black Magic Johnson invite you to the second annual “We Remember” All-Star Springfield Musician Jam in remembrance of 9/11/01 tonight at Floyd’s Thirst Parlor on Fifth Street. (That’s Thursday, September 11, 2003–if you’re not a fast grabber of IT, you’ve missed it.) Players are asked to come on down and participate in the music making. All others are requested to attend for their own listening pleasure and to give the musicians a hearty hand for the enjoyment they proffer. On Friday night, get yourself to Taylorville to see Blues Quarry at Major Leagues, a fairly new club with an excellent stage and sound system. The group, a blues version of Rock Quarry and the Flintoonz (the house band from Bedrocks, a highly frequented live music hangout of a few years back), features several popular and talented local musicians. Come early and stay late; the band plays from 9:30 to 1:30. Please be careful and respectful on the drive–Route 29 can be hazardous to your health. While you’re in the joint, check out the full plate of music on the table at Major Leagues (or peruse the Pub Crawl). They’re filling up the calendar and packing ’em in down there.
For the not-so-faint-of-heart, may we suggest a venture to Viele’s Planet on Friday night? Prepare yourself for the sonic onslaught of the fast and loud funk-rap-rock of Chawbacon. They will get in your face and you will like it. Spittshine and Set Piece help out with the pleasantries of melodic mayhem.
If you’re yearning for St. Patty’s Day, pop into the Forty-Niner Bye Bye on Friday for a taste of the green, when Stone Ring Circle helps celebrate a “Half-Way There” party. The Celtic-rock band features a fiddle and flute, which keeps them heavy on the Celtic and light on the rock.
Jazz Central Station has booked a nice doubleheader weekend: on Friday it’s Treologic, a hip-hop horn band from Chicago, and on Saturday it’s Oysters Rockefeller, a capital city blues-band favorite that relocated to the big city up north a few years ago.
Of course, that would be the logical place to go after a stop at the Old Capitol Nights music and food festival held on the south side of the Old State Capitol Plaza this Friday and Saturday. The gated event features a good mix of local talent and upstate acts, cruising through the barriers of jazz, blues, R & B, soul, and swing to create a tasty musical gumbo. The action begins at 5 p.m. and flows until midnight.
A quick and gentle reminder: the Funny Bone Comedy Club re-opens this weekend after a summer break. It’s no joke–they are celebrating four years of making laughter a serious business. It’s the only place around booking national comedians, so if you like that kind of thing use it or lose it, as they say.
So ends the weekly tour of our entertainment world. Have fun!
This article appears in Sep 11-17, 2003.
