Brad Paisley's performance June 15 at Comcast Theatre in Hartford is included in this year's Country Megaticket, on sale Feb. 10.
It’s all the country you can handle, from some of the big names in country music: this year’s Country Megaticket at Comcast Theatre gets you in to see concerts by Lady Antebellum, Brad Paisley, Rascal Flatts, Jason Aldean and Toby Keith.
Lady Antebellum performs May 18 with Darius Rucker; Brad Paisley is there June 2 with the Band Perry; Rascal Flatts shares the bill with Little Big Town, Eli Young Band, Eden’s Edge June 15; Jason Aldean is there July 13 with Luke Bryan; and Toby Keith (who plays tonight, Friday, at Mohegan Sun) lights it up Sept. 21 with Brantley Gibbert.
The megaticket goes on sale Friday, Feb. 10, at 10 a.m. via livenation.com. How much, you ask? Brace yourselves: The reserve-seat gold package goes for $599; the lawn package costs $150 $175 (says a revised press release), plus service fees.
Mandrake Mechanism, a funk/electronica/hip-hop act from Collinsville, plays Friday at Sully's Pub in Hartford. (Photo by Daylynn Richards)
Here are a few shows this weekend featuring Connecticut bands:
FRIDAY, Feb. 3
Joey Batts & Them and the Mandrake Mechanism at Sully’s Pub, 2071 Park St., Hartford. 9 p.m. Underground rapper Joey Batts, a University of Hartford alumnus, has years of experience in local bands, including Pedagogy and Zigs & Batts Circus. Now he delivers smooth, skillful rhymes over eclectic samples on a series of releases inspired by the seven deadly sins, including last year’s “Wrath” and “Sloth.” The Mandrake Mechanism, a rap/funk/electronica collective, comes from the Collinsville section of Canton, of all places. The group plans to release an album, “Monetary Artforms,” later this year. With Signs of Rozetta. Admission is $7.
Logan’s Run, with the Silver Things, Thank Me Later, Nothing2Simple, Henry Sidle and TOTHERESCUE at The Space, 295 Treadwell St., Hamden. Doors at 7 p.m. What happens when pop-punks unplug for an acoustic show? Find out Friday when Stamford band Logan’s Run and Cheshire’s Thank Me Later unplug for the first time, with help from West Haven foursome Nothing2Simple, New Haven-area guitarist Henry Sidle, the emphatic Southington quintet TOTHERESCUE and New York folk-pop group the Silver Things, who, for some reason, has the only bandcamp page among them. Admission: $10.
SATURDAY, Feb. 4
Supergreen at the Main Pub, 306 Main St., Manchester. 10 p.m. A self-described “funktified rock band” from Manchester, Supergreen piles scratchy guitar riffs over deep bass grooves and adds vocals and trumpet to top it all off. Expect a modest cover charge.
Rapper Young Jeezy performs March 6 in Wallingford in the Dome at Oakdale Presented by Toyota, also known as "the lobby."
Tiësto, the Dutch electronic musician, becomes the first DJ to headline Mohegan Sun Arena when he performs there March 24; tickets go on sale Friday, Feb. 3, at 10 a.m. for $59 for general admission on the floor, and $49 and $39 for reserved seats. Tickets are available via www.ticketmaster.com.
Rapper Young Jeezy performs March 6 in the Dome at Oakdale Presented by Toyota (otherwise known as the lobby); tickets go on sale Friday, Feb. 3, at 10 a.m. for $25. Atlanta metal band Mastodon co-headlines with Opeth April 10; tickets go on sale Friday, Feb. 3, at 10 a.m. for $29.50. Tickets are available via www.livenation.com.
Slipknot and Slayer headline this year’s Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival, which stops Aug. 5 at Comcast Theatre in Hartford. There’s no on-sale date yet, though a pre-sale starts April 6. Plan accordingly.
Chicago plays April 29 at MGM Grand at Foxwoods; tickets are $55, $45 and $35 via www.foxwoods.com.
Maynard James Keenan wasn’t the man behind the curtain, exactly, but he certainly drew little enough attention to himself Tuesday when his band performed to a capacity crowd at Mohegan Sun Arena.
There were no illuminating spotlights, no casual between-songs patter (or, in fact, any patter at all): Keenan spent most of the set in the shadows near the drum setup at the back of the stage, focused intently on the music during a set that sprawled past 90 minutes on just 10 songs.
With no centerstage rock-star ego trips, the music was the main attraction: intense, virtuosic music at once heavy and nimble, and darkly compelling. The songs shifted through distinct sections, anchored by primal, pulsing instrumental patterns that seemed to alternate between guitar, bass and drums.
John Fries & the Heat is one of 15 bands on a new compilation of New London-area artists by Good Sponge Records.
Last week we learned about all the Connecticut acts with new albums on the way, and while you should listen to and/or purchase as many of them as you can, there’s no denying that would represent a significant investment of time and money.
So why not start with a new Americana-heavy sampler of 15 New London-area acts, compiled by Good Sponge Records? Hear new tracks by the Rivergods, John Fries & the Heat, Lauren Agnelli, the Sue Menhart Band, the Franklin Brothers, Dave Rave and Amalgamated Muck, which may well be the second-best band name in Connecticut.
“The Good Sponge Sampler, Vol. 1″ is available now in digital form, with a physical release on CD, and a CD-release party, coming March 31 at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Rose Barn in Waterford.
You can also hear the album in its entirety tonight at 7 p.m. on the Deranged Radio Show on WCNI-FM, 90.9. Host Anne Castellano, who is among the artists on the comp, will be joined in the studio by other artists from the album.
LISTEN
Kathleen Edwards' new album, "Voyageur," is more atmospheric than earlier efforts. (Photo by Todd V. Wolfson)
Discussion of Kathleen Edwards’ new album, “Voyageur,” seems to fall into one of two categories: people who like the subtle new direction her sound has taken thanks to her collaboration with boyfriend Justin Vernon of Bon Iver; and people who still like her old sound just fine, thank you.
We’ve got one of each on the latest episode of the Sound Check podcast, back after a too-long hiatus rooted in scheduling difficulties, freak blizzards and equipment malfunctions. I love Edwards’ new sound (reviewed here), while Meghan Maguire Dahn isn’t convinced. Stephen Busemeyer, having just discovered Kathleen Edwards, likes what he hears, but doesn’t know her earlier music.
What do you think?
Let us know in the comments, or by e-mail. Suggestions for future podcasts? Let us know that, too. Previous episodes of Sound Check are available here and for free via the iTunes music store.
Edwards performs April 27 at Pearl Street in Northampton.
Download
Podcast — Kathleen Edwards’ “Voyageur”
Shabazz Palaces performs April 12 at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton. (Image by Leif Podhajsky/Original band photo by David Belisle)
It’s no wonder Shabazz Palaces reminds people of Digable Planets: the Seattle hip-hop group is what Digable Planets member Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler does with the rest of the time.
He’s doing it well: Shabazz Palaces’ full-length debut, last year’s “Black Up” (the first rap album released by indie powerhouse Sub Pop Records), is one of the most eclectic and absorbing “alternative rap” releases in a while, full of slashing beats, layers of weird keyboard parts and rhymes that play with meter and rhythm.
The group today announced a tour that includes a stop April 12 at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton (tickets are $12.50), and released a new video for ” “Are You… Can You… Were You…? (Felt)”
Lana Del Rey is the ideal embodiment of a hollow culture on
The knock on Lana Del Rey is that she’s all style and no substance, a pouty product placement trading on unearned hipster cred that was essentially manufactured by a major-label marketing machine.
Put another way, she’s the ideal embodiment of an age of grasping artifice on her new album, “Born to Die” (Interscope). It’s a fascinating blend of calculated naïveté, cynical nihilism and naked ambition, sometimes juxtaposed one line to the next on songs that mix swirling string arrangements with hip-hop beats; retro-chic with a shrewd, modern self-awareness.
In fact, it’s hard to figure out whether the vitriol directed at Del Rey (nee Lizzy Grant, 25, an alumna of Connecticut’s Kent School boarding school) stems from a sense that she’s phony, or from discomfort that her alleged phoniness is a more accurate reflection of our values than we like to admit. She’s either superficially authentic, or authentically superficial, and neither is much of a credit to the ribbon-for-participation cohort to which she belongs.
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Thurston Moore, shown here with guitarist Keith Wood, performed Saturday at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. (Photo by David Emery)
Thurston Moore drolly referred to his solo music as “soft rock” Saturday night at the Wadsworth Atheneum, but it’s not the sort of soft rock you’re likely to hear floating wanly through the recessed speakers in the waiting room next time you’re at the dentist.
Come of think of it, some of the music wasn’t even all that soft.
The Sonic Youth guitarist, a Bethel native and Northampton resident, played a selection of songs from a pair of solo releases in front of a sold-out crowd (including his mom) in the little basement theater at the museum, pausing between songs to read poems or tell stories about his teenage years in Connecticut, which mostly seemed to involve going to concerts: seeing Kiss at the Springfield Civic Center in the ’70s remains one of his top-five shows, Moore said.
He switched between 12- and 6-string acoustic guitars on songs with lush, flowing arrangements augmented by another acoustic guitar player, a violinist, a harpist and a drummer. The combination of rich, resonant 12-string guitar and the wave-like swell of violin resulted in deep musical texture on “Blood Never Lies,” while the harp added a sharp, chiming element to the dark, sprawling “Orchard Street.”
There are only so many places blues-rock can go, but Johnny Boots visits all of them on his latest self-released effort, “All or Nothing.” Boots — aka Fairfield resident John Giannicchi — shows his chops on guitar as he and his band blow through 9 solid originals and four classic covers, each with an azure tint.
The band draws on the Stevie Ray Vaughan school of guitar bombast with thick, juicy riffs on the loping 12-bar opener, “Stone Cold,” and digs into spooky old-school Delta blues on a more-than-credible acoustic cover of Son House’s “Death Letter Blues.” Giannicchi burns up the fretboard with his licks on the chugging Texas-style rocker “Strings Attached,” and the band boogies through Elmore James’ “Shake Your Moneymaker” with fiery reverence.
Boots and the boys — Peter Bennett (or sometimes co-producer Paul Opalach) on bass and Darro “Sparkie” Sandler on drums — dial it back on the lovey guitar-soaked slow jam “Someone Like You,” and Stacy Williams gives Johnny a hand with vocals on “It Takes a Big Girl to Cry.”
They’re fine musicians in fine form, and they’re clearly having a blast, which means there’s an excellent chance that you will too.
Johnny Boots performs with Andy Aledort Saturday, Jan. 28, at Black-Eyed Sally’s, 350 Asylum St., Hartford. Music starts at 9 p.m. Information: 860-278-7427.
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