Contraction Distraction
For the second time in two weeks the A-List will cover a band with the center syllable contraction. What?! Last week it was Noot d’ Noot, this week it’s Tapes ‘N Tapes and their show tomorrow night at The Earl. But before I get there please allow me to ponder the ‘n in rock n’ roll.
What is that ‘n? We all know it’s short for “and” because after all the phrase originally uttered by Allen Freed was “Rock and Roll” (regardless of what his website says). If you will allow me to get grammatical for a minute, what we did was contract it (sort of like what is happening with economy right now ‘cept it’s less letters ‘stead of less dollars). Huh? A contraction. That’s what you call it when we combine a couple of words into one word or just shorten a longer word (as I did often in the last sentence). There was supposed to be a little tirade here about the origins of certain contractions, like ’twas and ne’er do well, to accommodate lyrical meter contrasted against the formal writing styles which reject the contraction as grammatically incorrect. But given the time of day (to say nothing of day of week, again) you don’t have to endure a second rate English lit paper before getting to the music.
Good Earl Bad Earl
I already mentioned youtube diarists Tapes ‘N Tapes Tuesday night show at the Earl which in a normal week might be the school night highlight of the week. This week, however, it might not even be the best show at The Earl.
Wednesday night, Plants & Animals will be at East Atlanta’s biggest live music venue (that’s The Earl). These Canadian indie rockers are coming off a sold out weekend in New York City with Blitzen Trapper (who will be at the 40 Watt in Athens on Wednesday night but not in Atlanta anytime soon). They will be followed on Thursday night by Tokyo Police Club – a decidedly more rhythmic, garage tinged style of indie than the preceding night’s show.
But the hits keep on coming at The Earl. Friday night Atlanta’s own psychedelic southern garage quartet, Gringo Star will lead a ticket that includes Birmingham’s more jangly Americana tinged Wild Sweet Orange. Both of these bands have been covered in this space before (A-List Archives 9/28/08 and 9/9/08), here’s another chance to see what you missed. And if that wasn’t enough former blogosphere darlings (but aren’t they all?) Annuals will finish a rockin’ week at The Earl on Saturday night.
And If I Don’t Know How to Find Flat Shoals Road?
There are other options if you don’t make it to East Atlanta. Auburn’s melodic country rockers, Hightide Blues, will be at Vinyl on Friday night. Good authority tells me that these boys put it all together quite nicely at a recent show in ole Oxford, Miss. If you’ve got a student id, or a little sister who will let you lend hers for the night, you can get in for five bucks – that’s recession proof. For a little sample of the bargain, check out the video for “I Can’t“.
What to do with Saturday night? Morrisey is at the Variety but gets no link cuz he already sold all his tickets. But tickets to Modest Mouse at the Tabernacle are still available and as always I recommend hitting the box office there and saving yourself about 20% in ticketing fees. If you’re working it out on a budget then traditionalist all-Americana bluegrassers Hackensaw Boys are at Smith’s Olde Bar where cash should be enough to get you in.
Finally, let me note Chad Radfords’ nice cover article in this week’s Creative Loafing – Damn Hipsters. In short, he makes that point that Atlanta refuses to recognize it’s own talent until Pitchfork or some out of town hipster cache machine tells us we should. While I am not on board with all of Chad’s metal love, I do buy his thesis. As Atlantans we need to be discriminating but also supportive. When a quality band is making the rounds locally stay with them, see them three or four times, tell your friends, tell the A-List, spread the word. One such local band who gets mentioned here often (check out this search result) is the Selmanaires. They will be at the 529 (still no real website) in East Atlanta on Saturday night. These guys are good on record – check out last year’s The Air Salesman – and they put it together live too. Go see them. Please let America know that we have something better to offer than John Mayer.
That’s Atlanta’s A-List. Let’s not get killed by ten million pounds of sludge from New York and New Jersey.
