Double Happiness

482 South Front
(614) 220-5558

$6 advance/$8 day of show

18+/Under 21 pay $2 surcharge at the door

Dope Body

Born in the gutter of Baltimore County, raised in the sludge of the Copy Cat. Dope Body was born ad mist the post-hype of Baltimore underground. They are a collage of musical styles (funk, dub, punk, hip hop, nu metal) encapsulated by a classic (noise) rock structure. Since there emergence in 2009 they have put out two full lengths, Twenty Pound Brick (Wtr Clr, 2009) & Nupping (Hoss, 2011) as well as splits with Nyc’s Orphan (Black Tent Press) & Detroit’s Child Bite (Forge Again, 2011). There new full length (Natural History) will be released May 2012 with Drag City.

200 Years

Did you ever wonder what would happen if Elisa Ambrogio and Ben Chasny got together and made a record in addition to making out? Sure, they’ve collaborated on each other’s music, with Magik Markers and Six Organs of Admittance, respectively, but it’s tough when you don’t have a project to call your own. Ever problem solvers, these two have done what everyone had hoped for– gone along and formed a new band. They call it, 200 Years– and we call it one of the freshest sounding new bands to hit the scene in the spring of 2011. If you think you know what this’ll sound like, think again, missy! You might be in for a super surprise.

Doesn’t spring-time seem like an eternity from now, given that winter is just upon us? If you’re impatient, you’ll be happy to know that the Six Organs of Admittance fan in you (or the fan yet to be in you, for those weird few still in the dark) will be satiated come February, 2011. That’s when the latest jem of a Six O jam, Asleep On The Floodplain, comes out to keep you warm down the winter stretch.

Outland Live

95 Liberty Street
(614) 744-0100

$13 advance/$15 day of show

18+/$2 surcharge for under 21

Battles

“When you see a band you really like, the reason you really like them is because you wish you’d had that idea. And when I saw Battles I thought, “Damn! Why didn’t I think of that?” Battles fan Brian Eno

You can often spot the best bands – the truly once-in-a-generation type – by their names alone. The all time greats usually come ready made with nomenclature that encapsulates their sound and ethos effortlessly. BATTLES are no exception. They are a rock group locked in conflict with the very limitations of what it means to be a rock group; conducting an all out assault on mediocrity and waging a fearsome campaign against genre conventions and pigeonholes. Their sound is that of an elite guard engaging in a series of complex sonic skirmishes. This is the sublime noise of equally talented musicians pushed to their limit – as interested in conducting synchronized audio attacks and ambushes on the listener as they are on each other.

If you are reading this, it means you’re about to listen to their new album GLOSS DROP, a remarkable second album by anyone’s standards… including their own.

BATTLES came together in New York in 2002 drawing together disparate strands of hardcore, avant garde tonal minimalism, neo-classical, techno and post rock, featuring drummer John Stanier (Helmet), guitarists Ian Williams (Don Caballero) and Dave Konopka (Lynx) and Tyondai Braxton. After a string of EPs, the group signed to WARP and released their debut MIRRORED in 2007.

The success of the album was immediate and profound. BBC Music called BATTLES “the best band on Earth today” and Pitchfork awarded the album an impressive 9.1, bestowing the Best New Music seal of approval on it. NME were equally enthusiastic, stating: “MIRRORED is the sort of album that the sharp rock kids will be citing as an inspiration in a decade’s time”, while TIME Magazine made it their # 7 album of the year.

During the winter of 2009, the band decamped to the Machines with Magnets studio in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, to start work on a follow up. They recorded nearly an entire album, and by Autumn 2010 were ready to start mixing when things came off the rails. It was at this point that Braxton realised he just couldn’t commit to the overwhelming touring schedule that was due to follow the release of their much anticipated second album and quit the band.

You only have to check the message boards to see how many thousands of unfinished and unrealised albums there are out there; tapes and CDs left in dark, dusty studio basements to become musical footnotes. It is down to BATTLES’ resolve and resilience that GLOSS DROP did not become one itself. John Stanier says: “After he left there was never any question of us stopping. We all knew we were going to carry on. It was almost to the point where I was beyond caring about anything else that happened. I was ready to squeeze my last drop of blood into this record… I became obsessed with not just completing it but having it be really good as well. It’s by far and away the greatest achievement of my entire life. It’s our grand statement.”

The existence of BATTLES revolves around one key construct: that Battles as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts…even if those parts all happened to be particularly beautifully constructed and intricately interlocking. BATTLES was bigger than any four of them individually and would continue.

With Braxton gone they began the unenviable process of unweaving all of his parts from the whole in order to construct something entirely new from what remained. The remaining three realized that they now had natural space on some tracks to invite guest vocalists to contribute. And only an endlessly curious band like BATTLES could have assembled such a variety of talented, well respected and diverse singers. Appearing on the album is the UK’s dark synth pop pioneer Gary Numan; Chilean born Kompakt minimal techno producer Matias Aguayo; cult indie rocker Kazu Makino of Blonde Redhead; and Yamantaka Eye, the messianic dreadlocked front man of Japanese cosmiche future beat unit, the Boredoms.

While there are a couple of precedents in the field of dance music with Massive Attack and Chemical Brothers roping in a cast of guest stars to sing, BATTLES had become the first major rock act to do anything similar.

It is true that GLOSS DROP is a bewitching, entrancing album that defies both categorization and easy analysis. Just as MIRRORED was a massive leap on from the early EPs that first got them noticed, this is truly another seismic shift, propelling them once more into uncharted territory. The opening track Africastle provides a bridge between their debut and a dazzling new sound. Some will undoubtedly be wondering if the three-piece BATTLES will now necessarily feel a lot lighter but this is the densest track they have recorded to date. It shines with fractal clarity and the closer you get to it and the more you examine it, the more glorious detail it reveals. Listeners could be forgiven for thinking they were listening to Glenn Branca conducting an army of twenty miniature BATTLES, all playing complex melodies and counter melodies in fiendishly interwoven rounds.

Ice Cream’s neat trick is to rope in the impish minimal techno DJ, Matias Aguayo, and use him solely on vocals. This track, which will be the first single, unveils a mischievous sense of fun that now lies at the centre of the BATTLES sound, coming on like the soundtrack to a raucous, moonlit beach party in Brazil, matching the inventiveness of 21st Century prog with the lilt of 1960s Tropicalia. Stanier, a former resident of Germany and techno aficionado, says: “Cologne is an amazing place to live. You can go out and see people like Michael Mayer two or three times a month. I lived on the same block as the Kompakt headquarters and started hanging out with them. I was always really into Matias Aguayo – I’m a really big fan of his, so we had to get him involved.”

My Machines features Tubeway Army’s soulful voice of dark future shock Gary Numan adding weight and clarity to an intensely muscular tribal rhythm section. It’s an audacious song and the band are still clearly buzzing when they talk about it. Williams says: “We had no idea if his vocals would fit with the music or not but when I first heard it, I came out of there like I was high. I was like, ‘Holy shit! Gary Numan is singing on My Machines and it sounds really, really good.’” The iconic singer responsible for the number one singles Cars and ‘Are Friends Electric?’ paid tribute to the group in return: “Working with BATTLES was an easy choice for me. They have a unique approach to making music and a clear idea of what they want. They are inventive, adventurous, unpredictable and I’m proud to be involved.”

Friend of the band, Kazu Makino of cult New York trio Blonde Redhead adds her breathless vocals to the itchy infectious dance punk of Sweetie & Shag, its easy tactile funk, showing yet again BATTLES’ peerless skill in reinterpreting dance beats as a rock unit.

Masters of delayed gratification, they save what is perhaps one of their most enjoyable moments to date until the last track, Sundome. Yamantaka Eye presides over what carnival music in Valhalla must sound like. His reverberating Shamanistic chanting, makes it sound like an interstellar ragga MC has just alighted from a passing mothership.

And it is this sheer sense of fun, unpredictability and inventiveness that sets BATTLES apart from every other contemporary group. Stanier sums this up succinctly: “I don’t think challenging, new music has to be super serious all the time. That’s really boring to me and pushing boundaries should not be boring.”

While other acts are content to deal in revivalism or stasis, BATTLES are still looking for far-off boundaries to study and then demolish, searching for new and exotic styles to mesh together. Stanier concludes: “When we’re writing songs, no one in this group has ever said ‘Wait, we’ve gone too far. This isn’t a BATTLES song.’ Because what is a BATTLES song? We don’t know. All I know is that there are no parameters and no boundaries. That is the whole point and has been since day one.”

Double Happiness

482 South Front
(614) 220-5558

$8 advance/$10 day of show

18+/$2 surcharge for under 21

* See these labelmates on the same stage!

Screaming Females

Screaming Females is a 3-piece DIY, rock ‘n roll punk band from New Brunswick, New Jersey featuring Marissa on vocals, King Mike on bass, and Jarrett on drums. They are signed to Don Giovanni Records. They’ve opened for Throwing Muses, The Dead Weather, Arctic Monkeys, and Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, plus have played with Jeff: The Brotherhood, Little Lungs, Cheeky, The Ergs, Shellshag, The Measure (SA), and countless other bands.

Laura Stevenson & The Cans

Laura Stevenson was schooled in the traditional music of her grandfather and grandmother (composer of “The Little Drummer Boy” and vocalist for the Benny Goodman Orchestra respectively) from an early age. It wasn’t until she started performing with Bomb The Music Industry in her teens, that she began writing on her own. Privately crafting songs on the softer side of indie rock and traditional folk, Stevenson was soon tapped as the band’s opener and, with the addition of Mike Campbell and Alex Billig in 2007, Laura Stevenson and the Cans solidified. Their live band grew into a quintet, often times swelling to eight members, and the following debut LP, A Record, won them fans far and wide having been downloaded over 25,000 time since it’s 2008 release.

Sit Resist, an album centered around never sitting stagnant, sees a matured band that has been continuously at work writing, arranging and touring for the past three years. Lyrically, Stevenson’s pen has a sharp, poetic tone, making it impossible not to be taken in by her stories. Where A Record crackled with Stevenson’s intimate voice alongside gentle acoustics, begging the listener nearer, Sit Resist commands the attention of all within earshot with its rich instrumentation and textured melodies.

Over the course of the album’s thirteen songs, you’ll hear the band weld a variety of musical styles that dreamily caress and nurture one another into a wholly unique rendering of Americana. “Master of Art” with its Phil Spector-esque, girl-group tease of an intro, explodes with the energy of Stevenson’s voice - an instrument that is as strong as it is lovely. ”Caretaker” conjures up ghosts and memories of homes inevitably / regrettably left behind. You’ll find major-key resolution in the juxtaposed tale that is “The Healthy One,” and “I See Dark” waltzes you, dear listener, into the lonely night, hand-in-hand.

The overall effect achieved by Laura Stevenson & the Cans is an album that’s as invigorating and life-affirming as it is quietly emotional and delicate. This is an intelligent, literate album crafted of fragments of fleeting memories of time and place, yet it manages to convey volumes. Sit Resist is a true piece of art! Out now on Don Giovanni Records.

Rumba Cafe

2507 Summit Street
(614) 268-1841

$12
$2 surcharge added for under patrons under 21

18+

Joe Pug
www.joepugmusic.com

For the moment, Joe Pug has it figured out, career if not life: Just write the songs that have to be written, play them for anybody who will listen, tour as if you had no home. Oh, and give your music away. Which isn’t to say he won’t be selling his debut full-length offering, Messenger (Released 2/16/2010 on Lightning Rod). But free is how he came to make it, more or less.

It worked like this, for Joe Pug anyhow: The day before his senior year as a playwright student at the University of North Carolina, he sat down for a cup of coffee and had the clearest thought of his life: I am profoundly unhappy here. Then came the second clearest.

Pug packed up his belongings and pointed his car towards Chicago. Working as a carpenter by day, the 23 year-old Pug spent nights playing the guitar he hadn’t picked up since his teenage years. Using ideas originally slated for a play he was writing called “Austin Fish,” Pug began creating the sublime lyrical arrangements that would become the Nation of Heat EP.

The songs were recorded fast and fervently at a Chicago studio where a friend snuck him in to late night slots other musicians had canceled. He was short on money, but his bare-boned sincerity didn’t require much more than a microphone and it dripped off of each note he sang.

The early rumblings of critical praise for the EP were confirmed when his first headlining gig sold out Chicago’s storied Schubas Tavern in 2008. As word spread, Pug struck upon an idea that would later prove to be one of the most significant in his young career. He offered his existing fans unlimited copies of a free 2-song sampler CD to pass along to their friends. He sent the CDs out at his own expense, even covering the postage. Inside each package was a personal note thanking the fan for helping to spread the word. The response was overwhelming, and to date he has sent out over 15,000 CDs to 50 states and 14 different countries. Without access to radio, Pug managed to turn his fans into his very own broadcast system. The offer still stands, and to this day it’s featured prominently on his website.

“Look, in the end, I just trust my fans, and the nature of people in general. I need to pay my bills like anyone else does. But I also don’t think it’s right to ask someone to pay $15 when they don’t know what they’re getting. So in a way by sending out these CDs, I’m wagering that they’ll like my music, and that if they do they’ll come to shows, buy CDs, and help me spread the word even further. And so far I’ve been proven right. Without question, the more sampler CDs I send out, the more music I sell.”

Nation of Heat took on a life of its own, passing from friend to friend and iPod to iPod. The crowds swelled and the media took notice. Tours with Steve Earle, M. Ward, and Josh Ritter followed, as did invitations to Lollapalooza and the Newport Folk Festival. He crisscrossed the country incessantly, traveling mostly alone in his 1995 Plymouth Voyager with no stereo or air conditioning. As the tours went on, he became closely linked to the burgeoning indie-folk scene that was coalescing loosely around Pug and his young contemporaries in bands such as The Low Anthem, Langhorne Slim, and Horse Feathers.

After over 200 shows, Pug took a brief respite to record his full-length debut. If Nation of Heat heralded the arrival of a talent to watch, Messenger assigns Pug a deserved spot among the finest songwriters of his generation. From the opening notes of the title track that leads off the record, it’s clear that the artist has no intention of retreating to the comfortable or the familiar. While the scathing war indictment “Bury Me Far (From My Uniform)” and the sparse, poetic “Unsophisticated Heart” illustrate that Pug is still a master of the guy-and-guitar song, it’s the supporting cast Pug brought on board that truly brings out the record’s subtle beauty.

From the haunting, ethereal pedal steel guitar that sneaks delicately under “The Sharpest Crown” to the barrel-house rhythm section that propels “The Door Is Always Open”, it’s clear that Pug is as comfortable exploring this new territory as he is solo. “The first record, it was a breeze,” he says. “Didn’t even know we were making it, just me and a guitar… the songs completely unadorned. This one, it’s like that thing where there’s an explosion and you realize how many options there are in the world.”

When his debut album was finally finished, the options only got more numerous for the 25 year-old-singer. The end of 2009 was spent touring Europe before he returned home to hit the road in support of Messenger.

Skully’s Music Diner

1151 N. High Street
(614) 291-8856

Presented by Celebrity Concerts

$10 advance / $12 day of show

All Ages / $3 Surcharge for under 21

Ace of Cups

2619 N. High St.
(614) 262-6001

$15

21+

Mike Doughty
http://www.mikedoughty.com/

Ace of Cups

2619 N. High St.
(614) 262-6001

$8 advance/$10 day of show

18+/$2 surcharge for under 21

www.twocowgarage.com

Two Cow Garage

A fierce and edgy alt-country band from Columbus, OH, Two Cow Garage takes the twangy melodies of vintage country music and fuses them with a muscular, amped-up attack that recalls Nirvana or Dinosaur Jr. as much as the Jayhawks or Blue Rodeo. Two Cow Garage was formed in the fall of 2001 by guitarist and singer Micah Schnabel, who was born and raised in the rural Midwestern community of Bucyrus, OH. Weaned on vintage country, Schnabel didn’t care much for the mainstream rock that dominated radio, preferring harder and edgier sounds. At 18, he moved to the relatively big city of Columbus and started playing with drummer Dustin Harigle. Chris Flint, a guitarist and lawyer who used to manage the Lilybandits, saw an early version of Two Cow Garage and was struck by their passionate energy and Schnabel’s songs; he signed on as the band’s manager and part-time guitarist, and with the addition of bassist Shane Sweeney the group’s lineup was complete. In the fall of 2002, Two Cow Garage released their first album, Please Turn the Gas Back On, through Shelterhouse Records; the band supported the disc with a relentless tour schedule that put 332,000 miles on their van’s odometer over the course of two years. 2004 saw the release of their second album, The Wall Against Our Backs, which received rave reviews from critics while the band kept up their punishing tour schedule, which was captured on video by fan and filmmaker John Boston in his documentary The Long Way Around: One Badass Year with Two Cow Garage. Two Cow Garage’s third album, aptly titled III, was released in April 2007. - ©2010 Rovi, All Music Guide

The Only Sons

The aptly titled, “WHEN THE NEW WEARS OFF”, is the 2012 album from Murfreesboro, Tennessee’s The Only Sons. The 10-song offering represents TOS at their leanest - as a three piece with contributions on piano & vocals by fellow Murfreesboro musicians Joey & Kelly Kneiser (Glossary). The album explores an early 70’s rock sound that ranges from the highly influential Big Star to Rod Stewart’s classic first solo efforts.

While the album is steeped in 1970’s production from the use of phasers, 12-string guitars, wurly pianos and the enormous sounding rhythm section of Blake Loftis (drums) & Jonathan Merritt (bass), it is far from a retro rock album. Kent Goolsby (guitar/vocals) maintains a youthful, and at times naive, outlook - from the wannabe lover of “Bully” - “When you got hitched, I got stoned - being your best friend,baby, makes me feel so alone…” - to the reflective lyric “I’ll be young until the day I die…” from the album’s center-piece slowjam “Untie The String”.

There is a ragged openness to the Ron Wood inspired guitar work that rounds out the sound - from the wall-of-feedback opener “Devil’s Circus” to the jangly melody of “None Braver”. The Only Sons have never sounded more like themselves. Sure, “WHEN THE NEW WEARS OFF” is a different TOS album, but if this album isn’t for you, maybe the next will be.

Double Happiness

482 South Front
(614) 220-5558

$8 in advance/$10 day of show

18+/$2 Surcharge for under 21 Defying monotony is the reason ROYAL BANGS exist. In recording their third album, Flux Outside, out March 29th, the band has proven their ability to challenge the tediousness that consumes the music industry today. With the new album they have reclaimed their identity: three high school friends playing inspired, kinetic rock and roll, and in the process, discovered the sound they’ve been looking for all along. “This record is not just another in a progression of little steps forward,” Schaefer explains. “It’s something different.” Under ROYAL BANGS and various other guises, frontman Ryan Schaefer, drummer Chris Rusk, and guitarist Sam Stratton have been making music together since their high school days. In 2006, they unleashed We Breed Champions, a home-recorded and self-released breakthrough album. The record’s potent noise-pop wormed its way into hearts throughout the southeastern US, eventually finding its way to Patrick Carney (The Black Keys), who reissued We Breed Champions on his own Audio Eagle Records in May of 2008. In February of 2009, ROYAL BANGS traveled to Tangerine Sound Studios in Akron, Ohio to record their long-awaited sophomore album. The studio quickly became home to the three obsessive musicians, who even found themselves sleeping there at night. “We just could not stop working,” Schaefer recalls. The result was Let It Beep, released on Audio Eagle in September 2009. It was the intense attention to detail combined with pure joy in songwriting and recording that first attracted Glassnote Records to the band when they saw them play at SXSW in 2010 and months later at Lollapalooza. Glassnote was blown away by the band’s powerful performance and it was soon clear ROYAL BANGS had found their new home. “It just felt natural,” Schaefer explains. To say that ROYAL BANGS have developed a saner work ethic since signing with Glassnote, would be to lie. If anything, the band has only become more focused and passionate. To record Flux Outside, they decamped to a friend’s restored Victorian house in Knoxville, where they spent a month exploring the unique acoustics of every single room. They’d already written much of the album holed up in their rehearsal space, an old methadone clinic. The resulting album is a beguiling, multi-layered collision of brutal, wittily arranged rock and roll. “Loosely Truthing” is a madcap blend of driving guitars and syncopated keys. “Back Then It Was Different” is an elegy to past desires set to the relentless throb of a defiant piano. But of all the album’s tracks it’s the bright-eyed frenzy of “Fireball,” that really captures the essence of this band. The “Fireball” demo was initially barely formed, just something Schaefer had recorded and then forgotten about. But they needed new material. After the loss of a few band members due to the rigors of touring, they began to question how they were going to continue on, especially with even more severe touring in the near future. “We had no idea how we would play these songs with three people,” Schaefer remembers. “It was depressing, trying to recreate things we’d already done.” Schaefer began to play with the beginnings of “Fireball,” and quickly, it became the band’s motivation to create. Once ROYAL BANGS focused on writing songs the three of them could play together, everything fell into place. After years of exploration and reinvention, ROYAL BANGS finally know who they are and what they’re about. In this state of reassurance, the band is eager to tour. “When you’re on tour it’s nice because there’s a schedule,” Schaefer says. “It’s not a tough schedule, but it’s a schedule, and we’re doing the only thing we’ve ever wanted to do.” Royal Bangs Daytrotter Session Royal Bangs on Letterman Spin Names Royal Bangs “Best Band You’ve Never Heard Of” Official Royal Bangs Website Facebook

Rumba Cafe

2507 Summit Street
(614) 268-1841

$10 advance / $12 day of show

All Ages / $2 Surcharge for under 21

Presented by Celebrity Concerts

Ace of Cups

2619 N. High St.
(614) 262-6001

$8

18+ / $2 surcharge for under 21

Quilt
http://quiltmusic.bandcamp.com/