Ben Meyercord's Live Music Picks for Thursday, January 6th 2011

Hello Dear Readers,

I stepped out for a bit. Again. I am sorry, but I got the chance to go to California for FREE. I could not pass up the opportunity. Anyway, I am back now. I have a computer. I have a Internet connection and plenty of free time at my "job". Let's do this! Umm...okay. Here are the shows that look good to me tonight:

Holocene is having a show with Nucular Aminals, Psychic Feline, Edibles, and Forest Park. I have not seen Nucular Aminals. I have hear their self described "mutated pop" and enjoyed it, but have not witnessed it in action. Though the shows that have been recounted to me have sounded great. They will be re-releasing their self titled record this June on K Records. This is quite an honor and I wish them well. I think that K will take them to the next level. Psychic Feline is another seemingly good band that I have not seen. The music that they have posted online appeals to me as a person who listens to "indie rock". The vocals are a bit lower and more crooned than that of a lot of bands in the huge blanket of "indie rock". Edibles is a project of Dewey Mahodd of Eternal Tapestry. It is trippy. They have a aptly titled piece called "Mind Fry". Forest Park is a young band that touch on a lot of genres while never fully embracing any of them. I would say that if you like post-rock or shoegaze or maybe just interesting and dynamic heavy music, that you should give them a listen. The show is a freakishly low $3 and starts at 8:30 PM.

Rotture is having a show with The Babies (Brooklyn, NY), Karen, and Virgin Blood. At this point it is impossible to mention The Babies with out the bands that share members with it: Vivivan Girls and WOODS. Both were much blogged about/talked about/popular? bands in the last couple years. I mean I read about them before I heard them. That's what they call "hype". I was did not fall in love with Vivaian Girls like I was told I would when I first heard them. But they were pretty good. WOODS I actually first heard when their cover of "Military Madness", the old Graham Nash anti-war song, was played on Democracy Now! (a great news site). I instantly liked the lo-fi fuzzed out folk of WOODS. The Babies sound like they are somewhere between the two bands. Karen is a band that I have written about before. They let me know that they are a band. Kinda. They recorded some demo's they sent my way almost a year ago. They never posted them to their myspace. But they sounded a lot better than the live stuff they have on their current myspace (which is mostly muddy sounding love recordings). Virgin Blood is a girl a autoharp and a lot of reverb. It sounds nice. I have not seen her play, though. She is part of the Black Summer Collective. The show is $5 and starts at 9 PM.

Plan B is having a show with Porches, Heartbreak Beat, and The We Shared Milk. Porches is a band I have been meaning to see for quite a while now. I know that it used to share members with Autopilot is For Lovers. To me the music sounds like folk music, if it were a lot cooler. It is moodier and a little bit bigger sounding than most music that would come from a singular porch which is probably why they mad it singular. Heartbreak Beat is Martin from The Minders new band. It has a similar feel to his old band. The Minders where, in my mind, one of the Elephant 6's most underrated bands. If you guessed that it is indie pop, you would be correct. The We Spilled Milk is a band that seems to me to be inspired a little bit at least by the brit-pop of the 90's at least vocally. It is something that I can get down with. Also one of the guitar players from World's Greatest Ghost is in the band. The show is at 8 PM.

If you see me at any of these shows please say, "Hi". It's the nice thing to do.

-Ben


Psychic Feline plays at Holocene tonight. Only $3!