- Richard A. Smith
- Richard Buckner
When kids start to go back-to-school shopping, there’s always a feeling that it’s about time to rein in your summer recklessness. It’s harder to justify a late night when even the kids are up and at it the next morning, ready for grade-school responsibilities. Ignore that feeling. Follow the lead of your bachelor friend Soundboard. There are shows to be seen.
Monday night you can catch reggae veteran Beres Hammond at the Shrine or, if it’s more your style, Porn and Chicken at Evil Olive, where they celebrate their third birthday. Sam Wagster and Ben Boye headline this month’s installment of Glad Cloud, a night of ambient music at the Whistler.
Tomorrow, prog-metal band Survival, which includes Hunter Hunt-Hendrix of Liturgy, plays at the Empty Bottle, and Journey comes to the Ravinia Festival for a two-night stay.
On Wednesday, you can see long-overlooked UK pop auteur Nick Garrie at the Empty Bottle and the heavy shoegaze of Whirr at Quenchers.
More Soundboard picks below.
Mon 8/19: Richard Buckner at Schubas
Richard Buckner says that his forthcoming album, Surrounded, can be read in nine different ways, and it’s not just because his poetic songwriting tends to leave so many blanks for you to fill in—the album’s lyric sheet includes phrases Buckner doesn’t even sing. Whether you can puzzle through the words or not, Peter Margasak writes that the album succeeds musically, praising Buckner’s “streamlined singing, sorrowful melodies, and sparse instrumental work.”
Tue 8/20: Hunters at Subterranean
Brooklyn band Hunters broke through in 2011 with their debut EP, Hands on Fire, whose scuzzy grunge made you feel like you needed a shower. The group’s upcoming self-titled full length is friendlier and more accessible, writes Kevin Warwick: “The guitar lick in the verses of ‘Street Trash,’ for example, is pure Cobain.” But Hunters still feel most at home when they let loose and go full sludge. Hunx & His Punx headline.
Wed 8/21: Mary Gauthier at City Winery
Nashville outsider Mary Gauthier didn’t get serious about music until she was 35, but a life of struggling with drugs and alcohol has rendered her singing and songwriting raspy and intimate. Peter Margasak compares her Live at Blue Rock to the work of scrappy Texas troubadours such as Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark. She shares the bill with the similarly tough and unsentimental Ray Wylie Hubbard.
Wed 8/21: Hookers at Reggie’s Rock Club
Louisiana metal-punk veterans Hookers have been making music for nearly two decades, and their most recent record, Horror Rises From the Tombs, occupies an evil middle ground in the group’s catalog. Kevin Warwick writes that it “perfectly blends the straight-up nasty punk from their ’98 debut, Satan’s Highway, and the more metal-flavored horror rock ‘n’ roll of 1999’s Black Visions of Crimson Wisdom.”