Threats & Promises

Music News And Gossip

originally published April 19, 2006

Ahem, I say. Shake the sleep from your pollen-addled eyes and check out the hot stuff going on below.

Roll Your Own: Apparently the folks over at Zig Zag rolling papers have gotten into the rock promotion game, and to this end the company is the primary sponsor of the Zig Zag Live Club Tour. The local sweethearts in Boulevard are somehow involved in all this and have already been selected, along with 39 other bands, to compete for what will boil down to regional shows in Austin, Boston and New York. According to Harlot PR, which is currently representing the band, if Boulevard receives enough votes on-line, then it gets to play the CMJ Music Marathon, getting a cool $1,000 bucks in the process, and will open for a “national touring act.” I dunno, I love the band and all, but this thing is really confusing, and once you see the website, where you’re supposed to vote, you’ll agree. I guess it’s good for the groups involved, but I am perennially suspicious of these “competitions” that have a million different sponsors and are all hyped up. It just seems like a recipe for anonymity to me, but if you wanna vote, please head to www.zigzaglive.com/voting, click on “New York” and cast your vote for our boys.

Grab You One: New-ish local band Welterweight will play the Caledonia Lounge with Sleepy Horses and The Timeout Drawer on Wednesday, Apr. 19 and, hopefully, will have its free “pre-CD” CDs available. The deal is that the band is going to work on its new album through the summer, but will make demos available for free via CD-R copies. Also, you can always head over to bunchofbeatniks.blogspot.com and grab some free Welterweight material.

Because The Night: Organizers of this year's Take Back The Night event have an entire day of stuff planned for folks on Thursday, Apr. 20 at UGA's Tate Student Center plaza. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., they’ll be tabling and having various speakers from different advocacy organizations including Project Safe and the Lambda Alliance. The purpose of Take Back The Night is to spread the word about sexual violence, create a safe space for survivors of abuse to share their stories and, basically, raise awareness of abuse issues as they relate to women and homosexuals. From 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., local musicians Liz Durrett and Tin Cup Prophette will play , with the possibility of more acts and guest speakers being added along the way. After that, there will be a march through downtown lead by some local “radical cheerleaders," followed by a survivor speakout. This is a wonderful cause that should fall somewhere on your schedule that day (even though you and I both know that radical cheerleading is so 1999). All kidding aside, please support this.

Got Mental Health?: Nuçi’s Space has a special show coming up this week, so listen up. Songwriter, troubadour and former member of the long-defunct Sunbrain, David Dondero, will play Friday, Apr. 21, and close out a week's worth of shows dedicated to promoting mental health awareness. The newly organized Nuçi’s Space Student Organization put together this series of shows. How cool is that? Also sharing the bill are Clay Leverett and Richard Sherfey. Get yourself there.

Eat More French Fries: UGA organization Students For Environmental Awareness hosts a benefit show at Little Kings on Saturday, Apr. 22 featuring local bands Lionz and Newspeak. Proceeds from the show will go toward a hedge fund of sorts that will allow the University to purchase biodiesel for campus transit buses during price fluctuations. See, UGA has agreed to purchase the more environmentally friendly biodiesel from its supplier, as long as the cost is the same as regular petroleum. However, if the cost goes up, then UGA will go back to simply purchasing petroleum. If you care one iota about pollution or shrinking fuel reserves, you'd do well to support this cause. You know, think globally and act locally and all that. The SEA will also host its annual Earth Day celebration on Friday, Apr. 21 from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on UGA’s Herty Field, so you can get more info over there.

Listen Up: There’s going to be a listening party for the brand new Drive-By Truckers album at The Roadhouse on Saturday, Apr. 22 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. It costs nothing, and drinking in the afternoon with a new Truckers album on the stereo sounds like a mighty fine way to start the evening, doesn’t it? The album A Blessing And A Curse [see the review on p. 30] is out this week and is already being properly hyped and praised nationwide. All I can say is congratulations, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of folks.

Angels In the X-ray: Avant-metal band The Angelic Process has a couple of shows coming up that should interest people who are interested. First, the band will play a segment of “X-Ray Presents” over at the X-Ray Café on Saturday, Apr. 22, and next week, the group will play a Stickfigure Records showcase at Atlanta venue Lenny’s. In other news, the band will head over to Portugal this summer for a brief tour and London-based label Paradigms Recording is set to release the band's 2003 release Coma Waering. Hopefully, that will give rise to a proper European tour sometime. For those unfamiliar with the The Angelic Process, the briefest comparative description I can provide is that of Swans playing through the amps of Sunn 0))). Please check them out via www.theangelicprocess.com.

Two Lips: Phosphorescent just returned from a week-long trip to the Netherlands, where the Dutch government sponsored the local band to go over, play at the VPRO Dwars Festival alongside bands like Castanets, Boduf Songs and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone and spend a little time in the studio. Ask the guys all about it at the Caledonia on Saturday, Apr. 22, at the first full-band show in town since October. Dark Meat and Drakkar Sauna also perform.

Release the Hounds: That same night over at Tasty World, Atlanta band Elevado, which features some former Athenians on its roster, celebrates the release of its new 7" record. Featuring the tracks "Our Turn Came Tonight" and "Song of the Purple Man," the record is full of dancey, intriguing rock. Aviator and Pushbutton round out this bill.

Tweet: Musician Coy King, who moved to Athens earlier this year from Seattle and quickly enmeshed himself in local music, performs his first gig as Nightingale News at Flicker Theatre & Bar, where he also works the door. You can find him and opener Julien DeRocher's Druid City on Saturday, Apr. 22. Their show starts at 8:30 p.m.

Poised For Anonymity: Although the regular changing of the Athens population provides very little incentive for bar owners to be in any way creative when naming their joint, some stuff is just too obvious to let slip by. Sure, Tasty World is named in tribute and kinship with the long-defunct, but once premier, Athens-based national music magazine of the same name. Similarly, Lunch Paper is named after an early venture of X-Ray Café owner Paul Thomas. But what’s going on when Athens now hosts a place called The Mercury Lounge, which takes the name of a still very popular New York City club? While choosing a name that isn’t currently being used, or is only otherwise used hundreds of miles away, may be forgivable, the latest blank-out in the bar-naming scheme is that the place formerly known as The Annex will now go by the name The Loft Lounge. Well, hell that’s as generic and easily forgotten as anything else, right? True, except that there is already a newly opened venue in Atlanta named The Loft (located in the building that housed the also awfully named venue Vinyl) and the long-running Athens art supply store known as The Loft is still in full operation a mere two blocks away. Perhaps this is why so many cops are needed downtown around the bars on Clayton Street: each place is as indistinguishable in form and name from the next.

Free So Free: Remember, folks, that this Thursday, Apr. 20 will see the release of a WUOG 90.5 FM compilation CD of "Live in the Lobby" performances. The free celebration show takes place at Little Kings that night and will feature Telenovela and Col. Knowledge & the Lickity-Splits. If you miss the show, be sure to pick up a free copy of the CD in the normal piles of free stuff around town.

Well, boolah-boolah. Be sure to keep your news coming in and always mention either Threats & Promises or my name in the subject line of all emails. The boys are back in town via email to music@flagpole.com, voicemail at 706-549-9523, ext. 203, or by post at P.O. Box 1027, Athens, GA 30603.

Gordon Lamb

Gordon Lamb