Nashville's Dead

So last week our buddies Arish and Mark [King Khan & BBQ] came to town with our lovely lady-friends Those Darlins. Rocking that hard should be against the law. Maybe it is? Just kidding, Kristin. Anyways, it was a great show from both bands. Those Darlins opened up the night and totally blew everyone away with a cover of “Lonesome Cowboy Bill” and the hits just kept rolling. Pretty much the perfect setup for a King Khan & BBQ Show show. The two, along with tour buddy Leo manning the keys, took the stage and killed it. Played all the jams. All of ’em. New ones. Old ones. Forgotten ones. Blah blah, here are the photos [courtesy of Bekah Cope, of course]

Oh, hey, the Splinters are just a group of 4 baby-ladies that love to rock in Oakland. That’s a lie. They’re way more than just 4 lovely ladies rockin’ on the ones and twos. We just meant to say that their not anything totally groundbreaking. Which isn’t a bad thing at all. When your songs sound like the best of the 90s riot grrrl, shangri-las-y, fuzzy-punky jams, how can you complain? They put out a 7″ on Double Negative for their song “Splintered Bridges” earlier this year and it blew us away [we’ve got one of the 40 hand-painted covers, suck it nerds.] If you ask us, you guys can keep your Vivy Gals, we’ll take the Splinters. No word as to when we can expect any other releases, but hopefully sooner than later. Aquarrius thinks they should do a split with Brilliant Colors, we can’t say we disagree.

Gutsies is a good name for a band. They’re a Brooklyn band featuring our good buddy Jacob [He drums for The Beets, but he plays guitar and sings in this band. Talented, yes? Yes.] Gutsies don’t get to play too many shows since The Beets are all the hooplah in NYC these days, but seeing them live is great. They load their guns with straight pop rock jams and they aim to kill. And they’re sure shots. Bullseye. As of right now, they’re yet to have any official releases, but we know they’ve got plans to put something out on Captured Tracks in the near future. Be on the lookout for it and love them with your hearts.

The sleaziest sleaze on the seven seas. Exactly. This Minneapolis punk band is one of the few bands we can think of who’s name is the only word that perfectly describes their music. So, if you’re not into fast, loud, snotty rock and roll, go ahead and skip this one. At first listen you’d probably think, “This has to be on the wrong speed. Let me try it on 33rpm. Oh shit, I guess it is supposed to be on 45rpm. Whoa.” Conor’s vocals are high-pitched and repetitive, but in the best way. As far as we know, they’ve only one got official release to their name [The Somkin’ Fuckin’ Cigs Single pictured above, available on Fashionable Idiots] and good luck finding it anywhere around here. We were lucky enough to pick it up in Chicago back in the Spring. The boys did a short tour earlier this year [Neglecting the southern states. C’mon guys, we’d throw the best show for you.] But they don’t often leave the Great Lake area. Yeah. Sleazy.