The Last Summer Weekend of 2013

After a record season of rainfall, and not a named hurricane to speak of, summer in Charleston is finally coming to an end ~ but that doesn't mean the fun has to! Check out our list of happenings throughout this last weekend of the summer, and enjoy this beautiful city of ours!


THURSDAY ~ Sept. 19
Don Merckle & The Blacksmiths streaming live on The Woodshed
8:45p ~ FREE
Want to get your weekend started early, but still have to get up for work in the morning? Tune into The Woodshed Archives tonight at 8:45p to catch a live stream of Don Merckle (vox + guitar) and The Blacksmiths, including Jason Brachman (guitar), Kevin Pettit (bass), Chris Lawther (banjo) and Stan Gardner (drums). Kick back on the couch and enjoy the new, energetic grassroots line-up as they bring the music to you!



FRIDAY ~ Sept. 20
TEDx Community Presentation
9a - 5p ~ FREE
Charleston County Public Library ~ 68 Calhoun St.
TEDx is a non-profit movement that brings together technology, entertainment and design. Independently organized events take place across the globe, and this Friday at the Charleston County Public Library, you can join Dan McCurry of Charleston record label Hearts & Plugs as he presents his talk, entitled "Roll With the Punches, Go With the Flow...Or Whatever." Dan's portion of the presentation begins at 11:30a

Metronome Charleston One-Year Anniversary Bash
6:30p - ?! ~ $7
Tin Roof ~ 1117 Magnolia Rd.
It's already been a year since Metronome Charleston launched as the city's biggest independent music blog, with its interviews, music news, reviews and photo galleries. Come help the Metronome team celebrate their successes with a 6-band bash this Friday at Tin Roof! Festivities kick off w rock n roll trivia, and bands include Jordan Igoe (who will also be celebrating her birthday!), Lindsay Holler + the Western Polaroids, Fairy God Muthas, Columbia-based The Unawares, ELIM BOLT and the Boring Portals. 

"Blast from the Past" 40th Birthday Celebration of Folly Beach
8p ~ FREE
Folly Beach Pier ~ 1 Center St.
Forty years ago, Folly Beach became incorporated as its own city, separate from Charleston! Help our not-so-sleepy little beach town celebrate by coming out to the pier this Friday for a special showing of the documentary History of Folly Beach, followed by a Moonlight Mixer - Shaggin' on the Pier! Festivities will continue throughout the weekend, so read through the Saturday and Sunday event listings to get details about the family and pet-friendly activities, events and musical line-up!



SATURDAY ~ Sept. 21
Record Store Day / Charleston Record Expo
10a - 5p ~ FREE
Monster Music & Movies ~ 946 Orleans Rd.
Support your local bands and record stores with Monster Music & Movie's Charleston Record Expo #6, this Saturday! Vinyl dealers will be selling records priced from $1 to $100, and will also be available to appraise your own record collection. SpaceCraft Studios will be on hand teaching a crafts workshop at 11a, with proceeds benefiting Girls Rock Charleston; at 2p, Papa Robbie's Reggae All Stars will perform, and Refueler's Mobile Cafe will be there to feed the masses. Parking is free and aplenty, so come out and get some new-to-you tunes for your record collection!

"Blast from the Past" 40th Birthday Celebration of Folly Beach
9a ~ FREE
Tides Hotel ~ 1 Center St.
The day begins with a pet-friendly walk/run/bike/skateboard/rollerskate 5k, with all proceeds benefiting the Folly Beach renewal process. Pirate wear is encouraged! The day will continue with live music, food and plenty of entertainment including carnival rides and other games.

Awendaw Green Rhythm and Brewfest
3 - 9p ~ $40 adv/$45 dos
Sewee Outpost ~ 4853 Highway 17
Join the Awendaw crew for a celebration of Charleston's craft breweries! Westbrook, Holy City, Palmetto and Frothy Beard Coast Breweries will be on tap to serve up the brews while you enjoy a barn jam-style showcase of live music including Merri Creek Pickers, The Bent Strings, Simple Syrup, Everybody-Doug-Jones, The Train Wrecks and Flatt City. The first 250 ticket holders score a free t-shirt, 8 oz. brew mug and eight beer tickets!

Dangermuffin and Old You
9p - 1a ~ $10adv/$12 dos
The Charleston Pour House ~ 1977 Maybank Highway
Fresh off their Canadian tour date w The Avett Brothers, Dangermuffin returns home to Charleston! Come out and support their Album of the Year (as voted by the CPMAs), Olly Oxen Free, and get a FREE digital copy of the album when you buy an advanced ticket for the show! Sharing the stage will be Old You, the energetic and bluesy acid rock 4-piece named the Up-and-Coming Act of the Year by the CPMAs.



SUNDAY ~ Sept. 22
Carolina Green Fair
12 - 6p ~ FREE w $1 parking admission
James Island County Park ~ 871 Riverland Dr.
The 6th annual Carolina Green Fair has moved to the James Island County Park, and has a variety of new exhibits - along w some old favorites - including live music from the Chickasaw Mud Puppies, a New Belgium Beer School, a Green Building + Energy Conservation Tent presented by SCE&G, cooking demonstrations, a green market and tons of kid activities. 

"Blast from the Past" 40th Birthday Celebration of Folly Beach
Classic Car Show
12 - 4p ~ FREE
West Arctic Street
Folly's birthday festivities continue on Sunday w a classic and antique car show! All cars will be pre-1973, and can be seen on display along West Arctic Street. If you have a classic ride that you would like to register for the show, you can still try giving Kelly Carroll at call at 478.3026.

TROM 4-year Anniversary
9 - 1p ~ FREE
Tin Roof ~ 1117 Magnolia Rd.
Open mic comedy. Free pizza. Crafty concoctions courtesy of Lesley and the boys. What else could you want on a Sunday night?? Come out for the 4th anniversary party for the Tin Roof Open Mic comedy night! Bring your friends, bring your belly laugh, bring your beer goggles - it's gonna get good n weird!

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It's a brave new world for Brave Baby

With roots that delve deeply into the rich Carolina soil, Brave Baby has released its debut album, "Forty Bells" (courtesy of Charleston-based record label, Hearts & Plugs), an adventurous and soaring ode to the fleeting nature of childhood nostalgia and the dreamscapes of early love. And it comes at a poignant time in the band's career, on the precipice of new beginnings and with a solid, new line-up.

Featuring the astral guitar work of Christian Chidester, and anchored by the lockstep precision of bassist Jordan Hicks and drummer/producer Wolfgang Zimmerman, "Forty Bells" has a surprisingly electronic influence; yet Brave Baby captures an organic emotionality that tends to be lost on most electronic-fusion bands. On songs such as "Living in a Country", "Last Gold Rush" and "Denmark", Steven Walker's synth pop keys reveal hints of The Killers and newcomers Walk the Moon. But it is Keon Masters, topping off this treasury of talent as the band's vocalist, whose voice and lyrics provide much of the mood and set the enchanting tone for "Forty Bells".

The record opens with "Magic and Fire", an energetic track with an irresistible beat and lyrics that paint an image of longing. "Take me home / it's where my heart is / Don't let me go / we've come too far now." The chorus uses a chiming, rhythmic guitar hook with percussive accents that sweep the song along into a beautifully, reverb-laden ending, only to suddenly erupt into the next track, "Nothing in Return", a straight forward tune with an unhinging, apathetic drive. The record proceeds with this element of surprise, intriguing the listener and stirring a curiosity that leads from one song to the next. 

The album's title track is the longest on the record, coming in at 5:31, and showcases Chidester's atmospheric and cascading guitar work. The stripped down vocals are beckoning in their honesty, with Masters penning such lines as "And maybe all we need is love / maybe all we need is love for ourselves / Maybe all we want is more / I want it all myself." The record changes direction again with "Lakeside Trust", a swift and upbeat song with a playful bass line, steadied by Zimmerman's solid percussive work. This could be a tune by Arcade Fire, evoking all the excitement of a late summer evening with friends and first loves. 

The acquiescent "Days of our Youth" introduces some adolescent frustration into the otherwise wistful and saudade album. "So why should I be good / when he is not? / Why should I get territory rights / when nothing here is mine?" The bottom drops out at the 2:30 mark, just long enough for Masters to lament, "There's a sad story growing / but you don't want to know it." When the bass and drums rush back in, heavy and full, the weight of the song beautifully illustrates the sadness of a heavy heart.

Lightening the mood is the simple and sweet "Grandad", complete with a Bossa nova-style snare tap and sliding, surf rock guitar lines that drip with reverb and delay. "Cooper River Night" is a love letter to Charleston, a fresh and spirited song that makes clever use of time and phrasing. "It was a Cooper River night / We ditched the cars / and rode our bikes / to watch the ships / sail out of sight," Masters sings, really showing off his range and stepping nimbly out of the Bon Iver shadow that many critics and music writers are quick to cast onto him. "Living in a Country" (the first single off the album, released Nov. 2012) slips back into the darker side of the band, exposing a vulnerability and regret that we all feel at one point or another, while "Foxes and Dogs" is possibly the most ambitious tune on the record. With fantastically pretty chord progressions and layers of vocals, there is a lush softness to the creative and sentimental lyrics on what has grown to become my favorite song on the album.

"It's a civilized sacrifice / when nobody knew / that foxes and dogs play, too / that I will come back for you."

"Last Gold Rush", as mentioned earlier, is one of the more synth-heavy songs, with a rolling drum cadence that calls to mind The Killers's "Believe Me Natalie" (from their debut record "Hot Fuss",  released in the U.S. on Island Records in 2004). The shortest track, "Denmark", employs its fair share of Walker's synth pop as well, but in a much different way. Coming in at just 2:31, the track channels late 90s Prince sensibilities, with some Fleet Foxes thrown in for good measure. Featuring a soulful backing chorus and a cleanly executed Masters falsetto, this song bestows an apt closure to the gallery of emotion that is "Forty Bells", gently laying to rest the days of adolescence and bravely looking over the precipice, into what is sure to be an illuminating and auspicious future.

Catch Brave Baby this Friday, 1.17.13, for their "Forty Bells" Album Release Show at The Charleston Pour House. Joined by Octopus Jones and label mates ELIM BOLT, it's sure to be a great show. Doors open at 9p and the $10 cover charge includes a copy of the new record.

Brave Baby website: www.bravebabymusic.com
Brave Baby on Facebok: www.facebook.com/bravebabytheband

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ELIM BOLT's "Nude South" - A sentient trip down Nostalgia Lane

There's a lot of good music happening all around us, and across Charleston in particular, musicians are coming out with some very cunning and intelligent work. And every now and then, an album will leap forth from the woodwork, grab you by the shoulders and rattle your bones.
 

On Tuesday, one album did just that, when local record label Hearts & Plugs released "Nude South", the freshman release from Charleston's own trippy croon-rockers, ELIM BOLT.
 

Opening with the track "Only You", ELIM BOLT's lush sound is brimming with love, longing and missed (or misdirected) opportunities. Singer Johnnie Matthews makes his debut as a true frontman, having previously played with the bands Sequoyah Prep School and Company, and his melancholy baritone carries all the edge of David Byrne, backed with the richness of Roy Orbison. Tempered with a shivering vibrato, Matthews' voice offers a dreamlike quality that immediately gives "Nude South" a nostalgic air of familiarity.
 

"Field" is a jangling ode to the lonesome youth of South Carolina, while "Farm Kid", the first single from the album, is an apologetic love song with lyrics that moan, "All I want to do / is truly love you / But all I seem to do / is deeply hurt you." With a soaring guitar line laced throughout, "Farm Kid" is easily the album's selling point, but every song on this 7-track record deserves the listener's attention and should be played several times to allow your ears the opportunity to wade through all of the alt-Parsons orchestration. The layers of guitar and the clockwork drumming (the duties of which alternate from one track to the next between Michael McCrea and Ryan Zimmerman), create a vast, swaying field over which dance the delicate harmonies of Matthews and his solid backing vocalist, Amber Joyner.
 

"Myers Farm" is, upon first listen, a lovely and traditional country tune - but as you sift your way through the lyrics ("My self destructive ways / have thrown my joy away / But on the brightest days of the year / I shine like a chandelier"), it is evident that the beauty and breadth of ELIM BOLT goes much deeper than its cosmic alt-country veneer. In "Alright", the shortest track on the album, the vocals of Matthews and Joyner swell together in the doomy, coercive chorus, while "Batshit Crazy" is an upbeat, drum pounding song about - you guessed it - batshit crazy love.
 

"Blue Jays", the last track on the album, is at once a dusty torch song and a lamenting lullaby. The most rueful of all of the songs, "Blue Jays"' despondency clings to your soul the way that a thin cotton sheet will stick to warm skin. And this is, perhaps, the timber of ELIM BOLT - naked emotion, haphazardly draped with all the sentience and stoicism of a much older soul.
 

Or maybe I'm just a sucker for sad songs and reverb...
 

Website: www.elimbolt.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/elimbolt

Twitter: https://twitter.com/elimbolt
 

 

 

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