4Play
By Don Allred
Benise
Wednesday @ the Palace Theatre
Miles Davis's "Sketches of Spain" proved revelatory to young American
ears, conjuring connections made with Eastern music via North African
Moors' conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. Nebraska kid Roni Benise
started his own global pop occupation of L.A. streets with performers
who sparked the genesis of his current stage saga, "The Spanish
Guitar." Singer-guitarist Benise travels through multi-media
evocations of Arabian deserts, ancient Indian Buddhist temples,
Havana's oldest streets, Brazil, Paris, Venice and (oh yeah) Spain.
Gorgeously versatile dancers best extend Benise's flamenco-centric
spin.
Bonded By Blood/Overkill/Gama Bomb/Forbidden
Wednesday @ Newport Music Hall
Having taken their name from an early 80s album by punk-influenced
thrash metal inspirations Exodus, BBB do their best to live up to
their chosen mission on "Exiled To Earth." Bobby Blitz's
indestructible wail heralds the no-frills thrills of Exodus peers
Overkill's 2010 "Ironbond." They're accompanied by sardonically
imaginative Irishmen Gama Bomb and even seldom-touring Forbidden,
whose "Omega Wave" queries whether Earth's final crisis isn't
culturally conditioned, self-fulfilling prophecy. Fortunately,
negative energy is still one rockin' resource
La Otracina
Thursday @ Carabar
Psychedelic power trio La Otracina believe in climate change. Drummer
Adam Kriney kicks off "Reality Has Got To Die " with the hearty cry,
"Hail fire!" It's the cue for us all to shed a little more skin, as
cold equations get fried and due processes get served another way of
rounding up usual and unusual suspects. Hungry young metal dinosaurs,
progressive cavemen, tasty classical comets, fluid druids and
jazz-rock schemes cruise boogie-blues convertible dreams through
wide-awake eyes and ears, on a star chart still being tattooed.
Adam Stephens/Felice Brothers
Friday @ The Rumba Cafe
Indie rockers Two Gallants' underdog persistence invigorates TG
co-leader Adam Stephens' solo album, "We Live On Cliffs." It's
elegantly distinctive, until soulfully bereft balladeer Stephens
starts illin' like a re-cycled Dylan. But compatibly with the real
Mr. D., Stephens can be cosmically/comically cranky and confessional ,
as his own muse steals him back for another last dance. The Felice
Brothers' streetwise Americana befits mountaineers who played the
subways in more ways than one. Check their self-titled debut and
"Yonder Is The Clock."
11-10-2010
4Play
By Don Allred
Brendan Benson/Posies
Wednesday @ Outland
Brendan Benson and the White Stripes' Jack White formed the
Raconteurs with members of Cincinnati's Greenhornes, determined to
shake their shared garage band roots free of stale nostalgia. On
Benson's solo album, "My Old, Familiar Friend", relationships rattle
chains and rainbows of 60s/00s style, as history and mystery go steady
and unsteady. Benson's currently backed by the Posies, whose own set
includes recent songs from "Blood/Candy." Their riverside reveries and
coded constellations take a sly, hungry look at sweet machines all
around us.
Pretty Lights
Thursday @ Bar of Modern Art
Pretty Lights is DJ/producer Derek Vincent Smith, traveling with
jazz/hip-hop drummer Adam Deitch. Smith seeded 2010 with metal
chestnut "Final Countdown", which becomes strenuously life-affirming
gospel science, right before J.J. Cale's "After Midnight" calmly
pursues Gregg Allman's "Midnight Rider" over spinning borders. "Making
Up A Changing Mind" 's poetic distortion is no more paradoxical than
the blues, as a mutating sample spells out: "I know you been hurt/By
somebody else/I can tell by the way/You carry yourself."
The Blow with Melissa Dyne
Friday @ The Wexner Center
The Blow is Khaela Maricich, whose storytelling and indie art pop
songs grow through each other on stage, accompanied by environmental
artist Melissa Dyne's funky sound and vision system. It's a tricky
process, but that's the point, especially when electro-beats lure us
though the gleaming surfaces and dilating depths of her current album,
"Paper Television." Some plausibly outrageous scenes could overwhelm,
if The Blow didn't sound so innocently, inescapably observant and
hopeful.And though some too-trusted, overworked conceits don't reach
the beach, she keeps a close watch on "the thin line/Between love and
delusion."
Bottomless Pit
Sunday @ The Treehouse
Sharp lines find their way through the mellow undertow of baritone
guitar and bass, as post-punk veterans Bottomless Pit's lead player
Andy Cohen murmurs: "Backwoods in my blood/Sure as sitting ducks." The
swaggering, jagged "Summerwind" finds him hustling city slickers, and
such skills even discover new ways to deliver sincere messages like
"Kiss Them All For Me", though the meter's always running. Subtle
vocals suggest that BT is potentially a world-class backup band, so
all you budding rock gods better check them out.
