Blues by the Sea
Mingo Point
Kiawah Island, SC
May 13

Blues by the Sea was a home run — with over 900 attendees at the free festival. The audience was a sea of spider chairs in Mingo’s clearing of oaks on a marshfront. The air was pungent with the aromas of burgers and steaming oysters. Blues by the Sea featured five acts — Mac Arnold and Plate Full o’ Blues, Chris Cotton Band, Drink Small, Wanda Johnson with Shrimp City Slim, and Chick Willis.

Mac Arnold and Plate Full o’ Blues opened the festival. After Arnold’s keyboardist performed “My Way or the Highway” to entice the crowd, Arnold strode onstage in his cowboy hat and python boots. Arnold and Plate Full o’ Blues displayed tremendous energy and talent, inspiring audience members to snap more than a few pictures. Later, Arnold left the stage to play his gas can guitar for “Nothing to Prove” while he weaved through the crowd. The bassist closed with a spirited song about a blues pub called Mississippi,”Red’s.”

The Chris Cotton Band, a trio including acoustic guitar, drums, and a standup bass, was the second act. Cotton performed songs from I Watched the Devil Die, his lauded recent album. Cotton’s music has nostalgic stylings that resemble tunes in the ’20s and ’30s. His set proved he has intimate familiarity with blues’ rural roots. His fingers skittered all over the fretboard, and he played at a rapid-fire pace. Strings often popped mid-song. Cotton joked, “I only break about one string a song.” Remarkably, he’d re-string his guitar while his drummer and bassist did bang-up solo sets.

Drink Small was up next. Frontman Small charmed attendees with his baritone, rhyming talk. When he started playing, he truly made the guitar sing sans stompbox pedals or any other kind of special effects. Small belted out “Funky Summertime” and “Everyday I Got the Blues.” Attendees eagerly snapped photos of this 73 year-old guitar wonder. The crowd had seemingly doubled in size. Small closed with “Us Got to Go.” Gary Erwin aka Shrimp City Slim asked attendees, “are you digging it?” The audience responded with resounding applause.

Erwin joined the fourth act, Wanda Johnson, on his keyboards. Local bluesman Steve Hardy played lead guitar. Johnson sang feel-good tracks like “Enjoy the Ride” and “Drop in the Bucket” interspersed with slow ballads like “Down to the River.” The sky got cloudy, the wind picked up, but Johnson kept the crowd enthused with her sunny demeanor and exceptional vocals. She dashed into the crowd of dancers that encircled the stage to join in the fun. She closed with “I’m Through With You.”


Chick Willis was the final act. His set included his hit “Stoop Down Baby” and covers of Charles’ “What I Say” and “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” A significant crowd lingered on after the festival’s last official hour, but Willis played on. It was a challenge to accept that a great day of great blues had come to an end.

-Kathleen Wehle; photos by Dereck Shawn Curry

Dear Enemy
The Roxy
Atlanta, GA
April 29

On Saturday April 29, Three Days Grace headlined The Roxy, but Atlanta band Dear Enemy owned the night. From the crowd’s perspective, no one would ever know that Dear Enemy is an unsigned local band. The five high-energy band members worked the crowd like nobody else in town.

Three minutes before their show time, the theater was packed with over 800 rabid hard rock fans. A sea of lighters lit up when the house lights dimmed and Barry Manilow’s “Looks Like We Made It” hit the P.A. From the stage to the balcony, lead singer Brian Kraatz had the entire crowd raising fists in the air screaming “throw your hands up, throw your hands up” while keeping the mosh pits flowing with blood, sweat, and tears.

The enormous mutant wall of guitars courtesy of Ed Borowski and Gogi Randhawa mixed with the tasteful hard-hitting drums from newcomer Alex Dorminy and the pounding bass of Ben Workman. These four guys keep the performance fun and active by running around the stage, jumping on speakers, and swinging their guitars around like little kids. The live sound of Dear Enemy gives the crowd heavy guitar riffs with big melodic choruses and aggressive vocals by Kraatz and extreme back-up screams from Randhawa. The sound is brutal yet full of melody without the typical emo whining.

When Dear Enemy left the stage for Three Days Grace to take over, the band members headed straight to the merch booths to hang out with their fans. By the end of the night, they had given away more than 800 free demos, signed hundreds of autographs, and sold hundreds of dollars in merchandise. Thanks to an amazing performance, Dear Enemy gained several new fans and, judging from the crowd’s enthusiastic response, easily out-performed the headlining act.

-Ryan Bennett; photo by Erik Dixon

The Black Lips /
The Selmanaires /
The Flakes / Thee Crucials
Lenny’s Bar
Atlanta, GA
April 29

These days, nothing says street cred like putting out a 7-inch record. And this night’s festivities featured four great bands that are leading the 7-inch revolution in Atlanta. The show started off energetically with Thee Crucials who released their debut record at the show. The group played keyboard-heavy beach-party rock ‘n’ roll assisted with a bag full of props ranging from the whimsical to the weird. Lead singer/guitarist Shake Revard climbed all over various equipment and had numerous runs through the audience while wailing licks.

Experimental rock duo the Flakes caught the crowd off guard with its two-song set — an average length for the band. Frontman Randy Castello started with a catchy blues tempo he recorded on a relay pedal that played throughout both songs. Alex Lambert’s backing drums kicked the rhythm up a notch and created a platform for Castello to explore his guitar’s range from average to avant-garde.

Atlanta rock heroes the Selmanaires debuted some new songs and warmed the crowd up to a sweaty swelter. The Flakes’ vintage rock sound will make you wonder if John Lennon had bastard children before he got popped. Twins Herb and Jason Harris will each be releasing solo 7-inch records on Rob’s House Records later this month. The Black Lips are hands-down the most raw Atlanta band you will ever see. As they started playing their mumbly garage-punk rock on their broken instruments, the sold-out venue’s crowd instantaneously began jumping and pulsating to the excitementof the group’s last home show before heading out on a 44-date European tour. Despite the ceiling at Lenny’s only being about eight and a half feet high, two crowd surfers smooshed themselves between the hands of the crowd and the decaying ceiling for much of the set. As the show went on, the crowd increasingly engulfed the band. Monitors had to be moved closer while fans filed in to the left and right of the stage. And like the unbelievable chaos of a hurricane, the show ended with guitarist Cole Alexander pissing into his own mouth, puking it up, then continuing to finish the song with his pants down. The Black Lips give unforgettable, messy performances to complement their catchy, riotous sound.

-Review and photos by Alex Adan

Liz Durrett
The EARL
Atlanta, GA
May 2

Is the obscenity of watching a narcotics patient decompensate over her Stratocaster too much to bear? Problem solved. No one needs to watch Chan Marshall speak in tongues, stop mid-song to abuse herself, or leave the building with an audience member ever, ever again.

Reason being, Liz Durrett. The unstudied, new-rustic, sad-sweetness of Marshall’s Cat Power recordings is matched, unequivocally, in Durrett’s live set. As with Marshall, the transcendence is not technical, but in the will with which she sustains and transmits a navigable and storied world of feeling. As with Marshall, this is a given because of the austerity of her instinct to tell the truth, to write songs that mean something. Her voice seems a fifth appendage; opening its fist slowly on words stolen from her life.

Never have I seen anyone play guitar so gingerly. The creaking, back-porch feel of her highly amplified, hardly touched Gibson electric was submerged in the rare kind of reverb that is more enveloping than noticeable. Violin and xylophone, though less than stunning, filled things out competently. The drummer and bassist were an admirably restrained spine for the affair.

Beam is to Stevens as Marshall is to Durrett. If Sam Beam and Chan Marshall are whispery and somber, so are Sufjan Stevens and Liz Durrett, but they sing more complex melodies, with more dynamic changes, more lilt. Both Stevens and Durrett are robbed in the recording by the sublimity of their voices. Bizarrely, each is gifted with the same kind of vocal polyphony, a subtle, high, breathy harmonic overtone that makes the result — impossibly resonant and smooth — seem like studio shenanigans even as it issues from their faces in your sight. This, finally, is what makes Marshall’s recordings preferable to Durrett’s, that she relies more on recording techniques than on the riveting gorgeousness of her voice.
But then, problem solved.

-Alan Bajandas

The Five Foot Flame /
Gravel Undertone
Lenny’s Bar
Atlanta, GA
May 4

Walking into the dive that is Lenny’s only to see a girl in angel wings playing the violin is not exactly the scenario one would find themselves in on any other night. But, anyone who ventured out to see one or all of the five bands that played that Thursday night was lucky enough to witness quite possibly the longest set ever out of Gravel Undertone. The use of the violin in a live show was definitely a posh touch, yet the implementation of heavy metal-inspired guitars looped through computer equipment made the sound slightly hard to swallow.

Following Gravel Undertone was the Five Foot Flame, a band that could very well be one of the best acts in Atlanta that you don’t know about yet — simply because they don’t play very often. The band definitely has a grasp on the type of music it’s playing, which could be described as a stimulating mix of ’80s new-wave pop and indie-inspired rock. Michael Bentley’s suave presence in front of the crowd gave off a serious vibe that fit well with his baritone vocals and lyrical content of the band’s catchy songs. Theirs is the kind of music you might think you’d hear in a Molly Ringwald movie, only so much better. The song performance that stood out the most was “The Hook,” and when the chorus begins “You only call me when you’re wasted / And I remember how you’ve wasted my time,” you could almost see the heads in the crowd nodding with recognition of that drunk dial Bentley seems to be singing about. Put the Five Foot Flame on your list of new bands to check out this year.

-Leah Baker; photo by Susan Wile Schwarz

Scott Holt Band
A Dough Re Mi
Mount Pleasant, SC
May 5

It was Cinco de Mayo at the Dough. Holt had a packed house in February. This time around, he had been noted as a must-see in the paper for both nights he was appearing in the Charleston area. He strode onstage to start the show, breaking into “I Ain’t Gonna Cut You Loose.” Holt may be a Tennessean, but his blues sound Southwestern. Holt also covers blues classics with unique style.

It took a few lines to recognize Elvis Presley’s “One Night With You” which then segued into Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.” Holt joked, “it’s my wife’s favorite song, and it’s not mine! We are going to have a talk.”

Holt exudes great charisma with his burgeoning crowd as well as with his bandmates. When strings popped, he played “keep away” as the stagehand tried to swap out guitars. He quipped between songs. Later, he leaped offstage and handed his guitar to strangers to play lead. All while the band kept playing. In this scenario, several shows ago, Holt first met Sarah Cole. He handed the 13-year-old the guitar in jest, she then wowed bystanders by skillfully playing it.

This night, Holt once again offered his guitar to his young fan. As she played, she revealed natural talent. Her eyes fixed intently on her fretboard, listening and aptly playing along. A smile crept onto her face when the audience responded appreciatively. Holt knows it’s important to nurture young talent; he was the student once. Hendrix inspired him to play, but a teacher encouraged listening to the work of bluesmen. As a teen, Holt was invited onstage with Buddy Guy. Years later, he joined Guy’s band, playing with them for a decade. Without these experiences, Holt says “I would not be a performer today.” Giving back comes with the territory.

In their live show, Scott Holt Band proves that blues playing is both craft and religion. Through years of exposure to different styles and playing backup for music legends, you eventually find your voice.

-Kathleen Wehle; photos by Dereck Shawn Curry

Group X
The Drunken Unicorn
Atlanta, GA
May 6

Before Group X took the stage they made an announcement stating that our government has hired them to eliminate aids. Not AIDS, but aids defined to be “an assistant or helper.” They came out wearing biohazard suits, medical face masks, and had squirt bottles in hand to cleanse the audience throughout the entire set.

If you are unfamiliar with Group X, you may recognize their music from various Flash Internet videos for Bang, Bang, Bang or Mario Twins. You’d be surprised to learn that these self-described “Arabian Rap Sensations” are just white boys from Marietta, Georgia talking funny. Blonde-haired blue-eyed lead singer Blade sounds a lot like Strong Bad from Homestarrunner.com, and this character has a stage attitude like a demanding diva.

As he spit out hilarious lyrics in broken English over bass-heavy rock beats, he targeted every member of the audience within reach of the stage and proceeded to squirt them while keeping a straight face. Most didn’t mind since they were already soaked in beer from an earlier performance. His demands of the audience included a dry-humping ménage à trois on stage, competitive eating involving a can of gravy and a tube of anchovy paste, and five pantless men dancing on stage as one humped an economy-sized can of beans, all in the name of preventing or eliminating aids.

Group X’s elusiveness from the public eye and lack of touring has made the world curious and demand more music to follow the group’s 2000 sophomore release Stepping on the Crowtche Owf Your Americain Presidaint. There are rumors these guys were allegedly investigated by the FBI (after September 11). This could be due to the aforementioned CD depicting an Arabic child holding a machine gun in front of the White House. While parody may be misconstrued when packaged and spread worldwide, their live performance was understandably in good fun and entertaining.

-Review and photo by Alex Adan

Equal Rights
Reggae 4 A Reason, Gold Bug Island
Mount Pleasant, SC
May 7

At Reggae for a Reason, a benefit for Florence Crittendon Programs of SC, a small crowd huddled in a pavilion on Goldbug Island. All afternoon, storms had been predicted, tornados a possibility. The Dave Landeo Band (DLB) of Knoxville opened — Dave Landeo as lead, Aram on bass, and Matt on drums. Landeo’s trio maintained a festive mood “jumping all over the board and mixing it up.”

The trio’s set included covers of Marvin Gaye, the Beatles, and Van Morrison blended with covers of contemporary pop by Matchbox 20 and Eagle Eye Cherry. They closed with the unexpected rarely heard new wave song “Falling in Love” (Flock of Seagulls). Rarely do bands try this style, but it was a nice surprise to the 30-something parents in the crowd. It was only the beginning of surprises that continued with Charleston’s Equal Rights.

Equal Rights peppered their act with Marley standards. The rest was original material, including “Nice It Up” and “Living for the Season.” Mike sang passionately, playing cowbell with a guiro stick, blowing a trumpet one-handed, or stroking the beads of a cabasa. All the while, he and Speed danced in place, as did the audience.

Reggae is a rarity in these parts, yet Equal Rights is intimately familiar with the genre’s melodies and instrumentation. Without knowing they’re locals, their talent implies Caribbean roots. Mike Godfrey (vocals, horn, percussion), Karen Speed (bassist, vocals), and keyboardist Alvin Brooks have played together for 18 years backed by Tim Campbell, drums, and Julius Broughton on second keyboard.

During ER’s performance, the sun eased out of its cloud cover, and the rain seemed to have all but given up.

-Kathleen Wehle; photo by Dereck Shawn Curry

Hot Young Priest / Soft Collision / Hubcap City
The EARL
Atlanta, GA
May 13

Starting things out for the evening was Hubcap City, a mellow way to begin a night that eventually became electric as the evening progressed. The band has been known to play unusual “venues” such as a tunnel underneath Moreland Avenue or a half demolished building. Think of Tom Waits improvising with his friends at a late-night party in a living room full of acoustic guitars and bongos.

Taking the stage next was Soft Collision. Singer Michelle Cox, equipped with cowboy hat and all, belted out her lyrics proudly, her voice conjuring PJ Harvey and older Blonde Redhead. Soft Collision showed just how prolific and entertaining it could be at its best. Susannah Byrnes kept the rhythm section honest playing the violin and switching over to bass at times as well. All in all, Soft Collision made for a good appetizer before the meat and potatoes.

Right around midnight, Hot Young Priest came out to an anxious crowd that had waited four months to hear new songs and just listen to the band they’ve been craving. Beginning with the upbeat, head bobbing anthem “In the Basement,” you could tell the band wasn’t fooling around and that this wouldn’t be the usual show.

Mary Byrne’s voice is probably the most distinctive in the Atlanta area, and not just because she can hold a note, but because it’s unmatched as far as melodic voices go. Bassist Daniel Winn harmonized with Byrne very little because of this fact. Besides, Winn had his hands full with other elements such as playing the clavinet on the song “Soft Focus.” Rounding out the band on drums, Chris Jansen followed with his straight-ahead throbbing beats.

These kinds of musicians deserve attention whether or not they intend to keep pursuing the dream — but we all hope they do. On the song “Bear the Scars of Old,” Winn asked the audience to clap along in unison with the snare drumbeat. Byrne said with a laughing sneer, “we’re serious.” I don’t have to tell you how the crowd responded. Hot Young Priest did not disappoint during the band’s CD release.

-Review and photo by Kenneth Gambill

Tim Brantley
Andrews Upstairs
Atlanta, GA
May 12

On a romantic spring Friday night in Atlanta, there is no better way to spend a first date or night out with friends than under the dim lights and comfortable atmosphere of Andrews Upstairs watching Tim Brantley. Wearing a grey newsboy cap, denim vest, and red shirt, Brantley played with cool confidence for a crowd that varied in ages from your grandma to the newest sorority girl pledge.

Roy Carson, who sat in for this performance, joined the hometown crew. The novice ear could not detect Carson was not a regular, as the band sounded well rehearsed. While Brantley has mainly tapped into the acoustic realm, this performance featured songs that started off delicately and exploded into rock. Each song featured guitar riffs and solos galore. One of the most-welcome sounds was Brantley’s piano play, which was incorporated on the third song of the night. While most of these songs began with relatively under-stated intros, these song forms soon transformed into more intricate jams. Yet the great irony of Brantley’s performance was that even the hardest jam sounded melodic and subtle with the addition of the piano interludes. Brantley seems to have evolved from a folksy guitar player into something more innately concentrated, like a modern Peter Murphy.

The entire evening was frenzied yet lyrical. Brantley seemed at ease not only in front of the crowd, but also jumping around from instrument to instrument while singing. Brantley’s voice itself sounds powerful yet edgy live. This seasoned performer connected well with the crowd, which was at times dancing and other times stood still enthralled by Brantley’s performance. Mellow and upbeat, yet all the while intensely energetic, Brantley and his obvious love of performing pleased old and new fans alike.

-Allyson Wells; photo by Christina Oroche