Flow
When the words don’t flow and the ideas seem to be captured somewhere in the atmosphere, our solution here at Atlanta’s A-List is a malted combination of barley and hops. It has been suggested that this is the cause of – and the solution to – all of life’s problems. When it doesn’t work right away, the treatment plan calls for repeated application. You know it’s working when you can’t tell the difference between the A key…and, er…uh, the spacey bar…on the, ah…typer thing. Well…uh…let’s just get to the slows…I mean, shows.
The Right Place to Start
The annual 500 Songs for Kids event starts this Thursday night at Smith’s Olde Bar. The Songs for Kids Foundation will be taking over the upstairs room for 10 straight days. 50 different artists will take the stage each night to play the 500 Most Passionate Songs of All Time (makes a lot more sense than 100 days at 5 songs a day, right). All the proceeds go to the Foundation.
What does the Foundation do? It brings music to children in long-term care at hospitals across Georgia (and L.A. too). The kids sing with the musicians, play along, and even write songs. If you read last week’s A-List gush/review of the Alejandro Escovedo show at Eddie’s Attic (if you didn’t, go read it now so the rest of the sentence will make more sense), you know that a similar session was the inspiration for one of the A-List’s favorite songs, “Sad & Dreamy”.
If our execution can match our inspiration (treatment plan notwithstanding), we will be posting regular (but not daily) previews on the blog (that’s atlantasalist.blogspot.com for you newcomers). For those of you who follow us on Twitter, you will get live updates from (most of) the shows.
The event starts on Thursday, but the first weekend (uh, that’s Friday and Saturday) will feature some great local artists, so don’t save all your pennies for the last two nights. Also, if you’re really ambitious, or really cool, you can buy a 10 show pass for $200 ($90 is tax deductible) and guarantee entry every night, including the last night which usually has a line at the door before the first act even goes on. The event passes (as well as daily tickets) are available through Ticket Alternative and any authorized Ticket Alternative vendor like, say, Decatur CD or CD Warehouse (yes, it is okay for OTPers to make the trip in for this event).
Before the 500 Song Fortnight
We mentioned it last week to allow you time to get advance tickets, but if you didn’t you can still get tickets at the door tomorrow night for Magnapop at The Earl. Get there early they will probably go on right around 8:30. Lead singer Linda Hopper (give the video a second, or fourteen, to start) is a friend of a friend of the A-List, so that gets a double plug. This is driving guitar-laden power punk which becomes surprisingly melodic and accessible with Linda’s vocals. I particularly like “Slowly Slowly” from Hot Boxing.
Cross Canadian Ragweed will be at the Variety Playhouse on Wednesday night. These guys got most of their exposure a couple of years ago on CMT with a Lee Ann Womak duet, but they sound more like classic southern rock than nueveau country. I still like to take 2004′s Soul Gravy for a spin, so if you like that kind of 4 minute blues/rock/country song that you get from Skynyrd and Reckless Kelly, then this might be just right for you.
As a final note, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart will be at The Earl on Sunday night. I just picked up the CD and am considering a review. Should it be before, or after the show….hmmm. It only took me about two bars to decide that these guys will probably appeal to fans of The Smiths or The Cure. I tend to think these tickets will sell out before show time, so get to a Ticket Alternative vendor and get yours now.
Prescriptions & Predictions
The crystal ball is cloudy tonight so we can’t see too far into the future, but look for lots of inside info and on the scene reports from the 500 Songs fortnight at Smith’s starting Thursday.
One note for those who were disappointed that Blind Pilot didn’t make it to town on their recent Southeast swing, they will be opening for The Decemberists‘ June 3rd show at the Tabernacle. What a great bill.
That’s the A-List and above us is only sky.
