On the cover of her newest album, Hole in My Head, color spills out of Laura Jane Grace’s freshly tattooed scalp, the final piece in her full-body work from Japanese tattoo artists Gakkin and Kenji Alucky. After a decade of work, Gakkin marked the completion of the tattoo by giving Grace a black hollow-body Gretsch guitar hand-painted with swirling white and silver lines, on which she proceeded to write the album’s fourth track, “Birds Talk Too.” Grace, who is a Georgia native, became interested in punk music at the age of 13 and ingrained herself in the scene through her band Against Me!, delving immediately into political, environmental and social themes, and later singing about her experience as a transgender woman on Trasgender Dysphoria Blues. Grace now works as a solo act, but she will be joined by her band, The Mississippi Medicals, which features her wife, Paris Campbell Grace, and members of Drive-By Truckers and Ergs. Philadelphia ska band Catbite and Alabama singer-songwriter Taylor Hollingsworth will open the show.
WHO: Laura Jane Grace & The Mississippi Medicals, Catbite, Taylor Hollingsworth
WHEN: Wednesday, Sept. 11, 7 p.m. (doors)
WHERE: 40 Watt Club
HOW MUCH: $25 (adv.), $30
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