Free Immaculate Machine tickets

Immaculate Machine is coming to town on Saturday, February 2, and I've got a handful of tickets to giveaway.

As if Immaculate Machine, a band with connections to New Pornographers, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Tegan and Sara and others, isn't enough to haul your butt to the club, also on the bill are the Brides of Obscurity and Department of Energy are also performing. So, it'll be a good night of pop music.

If you'd like said tickets, just send me an email and you can lay claim.

Here's an Immaculate Machine video as a bonus.

Your plans for this evening..

... should include, if not be completely planned around, coming to the Mars Bar for the SPB Powerpop Night.

The show kicks off at 9pm with The Femurs and their mix of a The Ramones-like sound with a Violent Femmes-like texture. The Upskirts come on at 10pm in what appears to be their farewell show. The Hungry Pines close out the evening in their rocketship to local celebrity and renown.

Andy Werth, The Lonely Forest, SSA photos

The Mars Bar hosted a show with The Lonely Forest, Andy Werth and Shake Some Action last night. Of course, being in SSA, I was there. So, I snapped some photos. It was pretty quiet, most likely due to the Cap Hill Block Party going on (the same could be said for the Scheme/Dept of Energy/Riffbrokers show on Friday). But, it was still a fun night of music.

The Lonely Forest opened the night and perhaps purchased themselves the crown of "loudest bass/drums/piano trio on the planet." Seriously. It was a good show, but they're a punk-rock-volume piano trio! I snapped some photos. But as is often the case when I shoot photos, they were not good shots. So, when in doubt, play around in photoshop.

For example, I made the bass player look like that scene out of Star Wars when Han Solo gets frozen by Jabba The Hut. Compare below:

Han Solo:


Bass player from The Lonely Forest:


Pretty close, huh? :)

Here's a less science fiction shot of their piano player:


Andy Werth and his band came on second, and they had a good contingent of friends, family and fans in attendance. One thing that I think is great about Andy (beyond his great songwriting) is that he is able to appeal to folks who don't normally just hang out at rock clubs.

Anyway, the two regular trumpet players were not able to make the show due to separate emergencies. So, Andy had two other fellows sitting in with him. Apparantly they just got together a few nights ago and charted out their stuff. But, it sounded great even with them being new.


Andy's trumpet players (sorry, I didn't catch your names)


Andy Werth

Shake Some Action took the stage last. We decided to make this a night of "b-sides and rarities." So, instead of our normal set, we played four new songs, three cover tunes and a few tracks from the record that we don't play as often, like "Orange Peel" and "You've Got It Made." It was a pretty sloppy/rockin' set, but it was a lot of fun.

I snapped this shot of James as we walked off of stage. Being drenched in sweat is usually a sign of a good show.


Shake Some Action - James Hall

August 4 powerpop night announcement

You might have already noticed the snazzy new poster to the right --->

But, I thought I should also make a more formal announcement of the next Powerpop Night at the Mars Bar. This one is special for a lot of reasons. For starters, it's the first time that every band name starts with "the." :) I'll be talking more about it over the coming weeks. But, it'll be a fun night. So, mark your calendars!

Cafe Venus and Mars Bar
Saturday, August 4
The Hungry Pines
The Femurs
The Upskirts

Photos: The Box Social

I headed down to the Mars Bar last night to take in the Young Sportsmen, The Box Social and Speaker Speaker. It was, in fact, my second night in a row at Mars Bar, as I played there the night before with The Scheme.

So, before I get to last night, let me talk about Friday night. Model Photographer was added to the bill late, after The Colors Bars had to drop out. Well, it wasn't a let down, because they did a great set of catchy tunes. Someone said they were reminded of Sebadoh. I could see the comparison. But, they were tighter, more in tune and more controlled than Sebadoh. What popped into my head was a more-likable Lemonheads. In any case, they were good.

Now, onto last night. If there's one thing that the whole world should know about the Mars Bar is it's a small-ish space with bad acoustics. They have a lot of good shows there and of that I'm appreciative. But, facts is facts, and the sound is rarely great there. So, the concept of going to see the Young Sportsmen, who are probably the loudest powerpop band in town, there was initially off-putting. But, to my surprise, the Sportsmen sounded balanced and in no way harsh. Wesley told me they dialed their amps back a bit. But, it sounded great. In fact, I could hear them 20,000 times better than that last show at the Comet (which perhaps isn't a rining endorsement of the sound system at the Comet... but still!).

But, The Box Social then proceeds to load some ludicrously large gear onto the stage. I don't blame them, as they're on tour and possibly playing many venues that merit a full SVT bass rig and a Vox-powered Marshall cabinet guitar and such. But, in this setting it turns out that it was they, not the Young Sportsmen, who were too loud for the room.

That's not to say they were bad... just loud. Remember that old KISS saying, "if it's too loud, you're too old"? Well, I'm too old, apparently.

I did enjoy their set quite a bit. I'm not overly familiar with their music, other than what's on their myspace page. But, they did that material justice. They also did a cover of a Talking Heads tune, which always gets someone points from my book.

Here are some photos I snapped of them. Another thing that the Mars Bar shares with The Comet is that there is very little lighting to work with for photos, and frankly my camera just sucks with bad lighting. So, bear with me. If anyone out there wants to buy me a nice digital SLR, it's never too early to start thinking about Christmas gifts.


The Box Social


The Box Social


The Box Social

Young Sportsmen, The Box Social and Speaker Speaker tonight

The Mars Bar is hosting a cool show tonight (Saturday, June 23) featuring Young Sportsmen, The Box Social and Speaker Speaker. I've written a ton about Young Sportsmen and Speaker Speaker here. But, I'm quite excited about seeing The Box Social, who are from Madison, Wisconsin and are just touring through town.

I really dig the sounds on their myspace page. They're somewhat close to the pop-punk side of the world. But, I don't think they're nearly as snarky as a lot of pop-punk bands. They will fit really well in between the Sportsmen and Speaker Speaker, since I can hear shared influences with both acts.

Here's a video from about a year ago of them performing a tune called "Hot Damn."

Model Photographer tonight at Mars Bar

Alex Rose is a busy man. Last I checked he was playing with Heather Duby, Minus the Bear and Model Photographer. The latter band is his own songwriting. But, due to the hectic schedules of the former, the latter hasn't been playing much lately.

But, that changes tonight as they are playing at the Mars Bar with The Scheme and M Bison (full disclosure: I play bass in The Scheme).

Model Photographer made a record that was intended to be a regularly released disc. But, as Alex got more and more busy with Minus the Bear, they decided to release it for free on the web. I posted about it about a month ago. But, here are some links to my favorite tracks.

Before You Drive Away

Secret Club

March 10 SPB Powerpop Night annoucment

It's time to make the formal annoucment about the next SPB Powerpop Night. Here are the details:

Saturday, March 10
Mars Bar & Club Venus
SPB Powerpop Night featuring

Vanilla
The Riffbrokers
Kurt Hagardorn

I'll have the formal graphic up soon. It's a ripoff/tribute to Andy Warhol. :)