This week is graduation weekend, a perfect time to find out if American Dumpster can toss its tassel from left to right, and make a name for itself outside of our comfortable university town. The band’s management team, AfterParty Artist Management, is going to make sure the answer is yes, yes, yes! AD has the tunes and the talent, and already has a commitment to provide at least one tune to the soundtrack of local indie film Deer Baby, which is scheduled to show at Sundance. (AfterParty, by the way, also recently signed Ian Gilliam’s excellent Fire Kings to a management deal.)
The Dumpsters are having their CD release party this Thursday night at the Satellite Ballroom. Besides the band playing tunes from its deep repertoire, the evening promises a lot of sit-in musicians and bon temps. (Out of sheer coincidence, the same evening, Ivan Neville’s band—get this—Dumpstaphunk will be appearing at Starr Hill.) You can also catch our Dumpsters at Fridays After 5 the next day.
The Satellite Ballroom sure is presenting an interesting array of musical acts in the next couple of weeks, and not all of them will be at their usual location. Tonight on the Corner, you can see British rockers Art Brut, who will play two nights at The Knitting Factory immediately after the Satellite that are said to be sure sell-outs. This Friday, the Satellite is putting on a special midnight show with avant-garde punk rockers The Liars at the Jefferson Theater. Thom Yorke’s blog site says that their most recent release, Drum’s Not Dead, is one of his favorite new releases. This show was moved Downtown because of graduation weekend hysteria, but would also make the start of a nice summer series. Openers The Apes are a “guitarless quartet from Washington, D.C., who create a raw and primal bombast of hard-rock mysticism and thunder.” Van Halen Morrison.
And later this month, a hip-hop side project of RJD2, Soul Position, will be appearing at the Satellite. Club booker Danny Shea says that RJD2 sells out the 9:30 Club in D.C. on his own, and that the Charlottesville performance is possible because the DJ wants to get his project with MC Blueprint out on the scene.
And coming in June, The Coup, a very funky and very political hip-hop group on the ever-interesting Epitaph label will land at the Satellite, as well as the Swedish prog/psychedelic band Dungen. Get out and support a truly independent club bringing all kinds of music to town.
Word has it that John Adamson of The Mellow Mushroom is one of the investors in a big new club in Richmond. Located Downtown near the River Walk, Toad’s Place is a sister of the long-standing and revered New Haven club of the same name. With its new digs in the Lady Bird Hat Factory Building, Toad’s 1,500 capacity venue will be bigger than the 9:30 Club. The Richmond music scene has always been fairly eccentric, so it will be interesting to see how the new club shakes out.
Josh Rogan has just returned from recording in Nashville with Scott Kidd, son of local drummer and producer Curtis Kidd, who has a nicely appointed studio of his own here in town. After listening to the rough mixes, I have to say that, minus the music business weirdness, Rogan could do really well on the songwriting circuit there. His stuff is made for modern country music, which is really not country at all.