Keep them ‘doggies rollin’
Judge, we’d like to present you with Exhibit A: the book cover. The above photograph is quite indicative of the music you are about to hear.
Or would hear, should you venture out to Lakeview on Wednesday night. Moondoggies are modern, Southern rock personified, hirsute practicioners of what Gram Parsons liked to call “cosmic American music.” Tidelands (Hardly Art), Moondoggies’ October release, stretches out in a bucolic nowhere, yawning while watching either the sunrise or sunset and not caring which. Before anyone could say “My Morning Jacket,” the band cottoned to fans taping and trading shows, and should be receiving a golden invitation to Bonnaroo any day now. (Wednesday@Schubas with Miles Nielsen and Tacoma Narrows.)
Johnny Flynn and Sussex Wit are like Republicans and Democrats: both ostensibly represent the same things (in their actions, at least) but connote polar opposites. When you ask for Flynn, you also get the SW, who are a package deal that Flynn’s agents decided to suppress when marketing his debut, A Larum (Lost Highway). A name like “Johnny Flynn” certainly sounds dangerous enough: a T-shirt-and-jeans, cigarettes rolled up in one sleeve, take-no-shit raconteur. Sussex Wit? British countryside wisps. Reality is the latter, fronted by their Shakespearian-actor namesake. Flynn & Co.’s latest album, Been Listening (Transgressive), has been swept up with the Mumford & Sons/Laura Marling fever in the Queen’s folk revival ’10 – it’s nearly impossible to read about Been Listening without reference to either, partly because both opened for Flynn pre-stardom – but the comparison is misleading. Sussex Wit are a sort of Midlands Calexico, while the trumpet-toting Flynn can’t swallow enough pride to make a full-bore crossover stab. That said, electric guitars appear and a punkish energy appear on the second half. (Thursday@Mayne Stage with Owen.)
– Steve Forstneger
Category: Featured, Stage Buzz, Weekly
