Hot Town, Summer In The City

Local Publicity Company Team Clermont Clocks In 10 Years, Celebrates With Summer Festival, Annual Prom And Cheap Beer

originally published July 25, 2007

DAY ONE - WEDNESDAY, JULY 25

40 Watt Club

10 p.m. / $10

Starlight Mints

Oklahoma's glossy pop quintet released the swell disc Drowaton in the spring of 2006. The band's dynamic melodicism pairs well with Muppety vocals, but this disc elevates the Mints' sound beyond the simpler la-la-la-isms of their two past releases and into more winning territory.

The Ladybug Transistor

The sounds of Brooklyn's Ladybug Transistor suit hazy summer well; the blissful pop band fronted by singer Gary Olson has strong links to the Elephant 6 gang, sharing members with groups like the Essex Green and Great Lakes. Can't Wait Another Day is the group's newest offering, freshly dropped just a month back. It's a little more to-the-point than some of the band's lusher past releases, but no less solar.

Tin Cup Prophette

There's a Caledonia show next weekend, but this'll be one of your last chances to catch Amanda Kapousouz's Tin Cup Prophette and its looped-violin-and-refined-percussion sound for a little while. As after a year or so of constant touring, promoting and playing, the band will be keeping a low profile for much of the fall to work on new material.

DAY TWO - THURSDAY, JULY 26

Caledonia Lounge

10 p.m. / $6

Deerhunter

Though at a point now of being capable of filling significantly larger venues, Atlanta's much-improved Deerhunter returns to the club where one of its more memorable recent shows took place. To coincide with the local release of its hypnotically layered breakthrough Cryptograms, Deerhunter had 'em hanging from the rafters at the Caledonia last December, proffering up a psychedelic light show and some of the more accessible avant-garde stuff around.

Ham 1 & Liz Durrett

Kicking off a week-long tour up the East Coast together, local treasure Ham 1 and striking vocalist Liz Durrett pair up for support. Durrett's dusky vocals will find support with members of Ham 1 acting as her backing band, while Jim Willingham's exuberant band will spotlight songs of the September's upcoming album The Captain's Table.

King of Prussia

The ambitious pop of Athens' King of Prussia brings a lot of other bands to mind: Belle & Sebastian, New Pornographers, the Beatles, even the Moody Blues at times, thanks to frontman and songwriter Brandon Hanick's occasional Briticisms. The highly structured, infectious tunes have won fast fans, and it's no surprise that King of Prussia's debut Save the Scene will see an official release as the first new full-length album on the reborn Kindercore label.

Bottom of the Hudson

Philly's power-pop band Bottom of the Hudson swings through town for the first time, showcasing songs off the just-released Fantastic Hawk. Driving force Eli Simon writes the kind of unflashy indie-rock at home in 1997 or 2007: anthemic, pretty and forcefully back-to-basics stuff that draws on the likes of Sebadoh and Guided By Voices.

DAY THREE - FRIDAY, JULY 27

Caledonia Lounge

5 p.m. / FREE!

Summer Hymns

With last year's Backward Masks, Athens' Summer Hymns fully synthesized all past excursions - balmy folk pop, Neil Young rock, Jodorowsky-inspired psychedelic trippiness - into a cohesive and compelling package encapsulating the various obsessions of singer Zachary Gresham, who'll perform at today's happy-hour show with a stripped-down version of his band.

Aline Simone

An emotive, plaintive and cathartic vocal delivery sets Boston's Alina Simone apart from the rest of the hushed-voice girls with guitars. She's more in line with Spinanes singer Rebecca Gates, or even former local Annie Merkley. On Placelessness, out next month, Simone shows that it's a Cat Power world and she's just yowling in it.

The Folk Yous

What happens when two Athens musicians take a break from their other bands to work out cover versions of popular '80s hair ballads and play 'em on acoustic guitar and ukulele? What happens is this: charmers Courtnie Wolfgang (Big Gray) and Julie Dyles (Murder Beach) become the Folk Yous, recruit guitarist Jesse Flavin and develop a small but dedicated following of fans eager for good-times tunes not taken too seriously.

40 Watt Club

10 p.m. / $6

Cinemechanica

Offering a change in pace from the mellower, poppier sounds of much of Team Clermont's lineup, Cinemechanica hits hard and plays around aggressively with time signatures. Borrowing ideas from hypertechnical bands like Don Caballero and Faraquet, Cinemechanica's even been known to impress the ladies in the crowd dude's-dude genre. When not moonlighting as a live-video-game-cover-band (it's a long story), the guys find time to cobble together impressive recordings like last year's The Martial Arts.

Phosphorescent & Castanets

After four years in Athens, Matthew Houck moved Phosphorescent HQ up to the fertile grounds of Brooklyn. He's back tonight to play the spirited, rural, lovelorn tunes that captivate fans of Nelson, Kristofferson and Oldham. A new album on the Dead Oceans label is coming this fall. Castanets is Brooklynite Ray Raposa's project, and he trucks in artful '60s throwbacks and fragile noise constructions; his new disc In the Vines hits in October on Asthmatic Kitty. Raposa and Houck share a lot of musical proclivities and are playing together tonight; expect more guest collaborators.

Arizona

North Carolina's Arizona creates sparkly, lo-fi pop that relies on classic ideas as well as edgier sounds. The band's colorful third release is called Fameseeker and the Mono, and there are shades of Grizzly Bear and Badly Drawn Boy in there; click here for a review.

A Northern Chorus

Northern indeed: all the way from Ontario, Canada, A Northern Chorus creates spacey washes of sound over indie rock guitars and propulsive rhythms. The Millions Too Many, the band's new album, works strings into the mix to come across like a more meticulous Death Cab For Cutie.

DAY FOUR - SATURDAY, JULY 28

East Athens Community Park

11 a.m. / FREE!

Kickball Tournament, Calvin Johnson

See feature story here

Go Bar

3 p.m. / FREE!

Benjy Ferree

Handclaps, whistling, harmonica, tambourines. Washington, DC, guy Benjy Ferree plays chipper, jangly rock that veers between idiosyncratic White Album pop and more recent indie rock. He released the Leaving the Nest album in late 2006.

Abra Moore

Abra Moore was a founding member of Chicago's long-running Poi Dog Pondering, though she left that band 20 years ago to focus on her own subtle solo music. On the Way is the new one out, put together with frequent collaborator and producer Mitch Watkins. It's entrancing, uncomplicated and sweet-voiced.

40 Watt Club

8 p.m. / $10

The Blue Ribbon Ball

It's a common misconception that Team Clermont's annual Blue Ribbon Ball is a private event, or is geared towards the music industry folks who are in town for the weekend. Not so! they say. (Or at least Not anymore!) It's an all-night-long open-to-the-public celebration of Athens, of music and of getting dressed up to dance and drink discounted frothy beverages. Chicago rocker Bobby Conn [see here for a review of his new record] will perform a mixture of covers and originals, while Athens' own Dan Geller (Ruby Isle, ex-I Am The World Trade Center) deejays as Twin Powers afterwards. The theme for the evening? Expect to see drunken prom photos of folks in "James Bond attire" show up on MySpace shortly.