After four years with House Call Entertainment, talent buyer Darren Olsen has left to work in-house for Subterranean and Beat Kitchen—two venues where House Call has been booking for years. Olsen plans to open them up to other promoters and bookers alongside House Call. “It’s kind of a grand experiment,” he says.
Since 2010 local powerviolence band Sea of Shit has been barfing minute-long chunks of hate and punishment into our ears, but Gossip Wolf hesitates to call them “songs”; they’re more like brutally concise musical temper tantrums. Their new 15-song self-titled ten-inch (on Chicago label Diseased Audio) flails, grinds, and blasts like Infest or Crossed Out—imagine an entire shelf of hardcore records crushed into a brilliant, diamond-hard punk turd. Sea of Shit play a release show Thu 11/14; e-mail diseasedaudio@yahoo.com for venue info.
According to English Softhearts drummer and singer Marc Arcuri, the local trio don’t feel like being called garage rock anymore—the handwritten press release he gave us last week with their bumblingly brilliant new album, Bloke, says they’ve been “playing mumblecore since 1997.” We think they sound like the Television Personalities or Swell Maps after a few too many beers. The album will be released on Magic Spot, the label run by guitarist Rich Salamander; for now you can download it free via Bandcamp. As for live shows, Arcuri says none are pending “due to depression, mental illness, and confusion.” Stay strong, guys!
Still in need of a good plan for Halloween night? This wolf recommends the Hideout for reunion sets by the cultishly beloved Manishevitz (their first show in seven years) and cryptic goofballs Detholz! (returning after a two-year absence). First Manishevitz will play their 2003 album City Life, and then headliners Detholz! will revive their “Jukebox of the Dead” show, playing soft-rock hits “retooled for a funeral setting.”
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