Rock Candy: August 2007 Archives

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Friday, August 31, 2007 - 16:05:20

Friday To-Do: Hayes Carll

HAYES CARLL
9:30 p.m., Sticky Fingerz. $10.

Texas singer/songwriter Hayes Carll has a rabid local following. The Houston native went to college at Hendrix and his fellow alumni always come out full-force, and moreover, Carll specializes in that literate niche of alt-country carved out by folks like Townes Van Zandt and Steve Earle that people around here can’t seem to get enough of. That Carll named his sophomore album “Little Rock” hasn’t much hurt his local standing either. The title track on that CD mirrors Ferlin Huskey’s “Little Rock Callin’ ” in sentiment: Carll has traveled far and wide, always longing for home — “All these years of searching, finally found my spot/one way or another, Lord, I’m going to make it down to Little Rock.” Now that he’s back again, fans can expect more than a few new songs from the follow-up to “Little Rock” that Carll is currently recording for Lost Highway.

Posted by Lindsey Millar at 04:05 PM | Permalink | Comments [0]

Friday To-Do: Glossary

GLOSSARY
10 p.m., White Water Tavern. $5.

Joey Kneiser’s lyrics walk that thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning, between drunken revelry and clear-eyed redemption. On his song “Days Go By,” the Glossary front man sings “But I’ve got a Bible, baby/With the shape of a whiskey bottle cut out/A whole lot of living left in me/One foot in heaven and a dirty mouth.” The Murfreesboro band often gets tagged as alt-country, but aside from pedal steel and few plaintive ballads here and there, the band usually sounds more like Dinosaur Jr. than Steve Earle. Backing harmony courtesy of Kneiser’s wife, Kelly, adds a buoyant touch to the mix, too. Two Cow Garage, a charged-up rock outfit from Columbus, Ohio, supports. Micah Schnabel leads the group with a voice familiar to roots rock fans — booze-weathered, smokey and drawled. Both Glossary and Two Cow Garage appear at White Water en route to the Lucero Family Picnic. Kyoto Boom, a new local group built around former Mulehead-guitarist Dave Raymond and Ashtray Babyhead lead-singer Scott Cook, plays its first show as the opening act.

Posted by Lindsey Millar at 04:00 PM | Permalink | Comments [0]

Thursday, August 30, 2007 - 13:08:08

Clark Duke: closer to being on fire than last week

Glenwood, Ark. native Clark Duke continues to get big love from big media. Today New York magazine's "Vulture" blog interviews him. Noteworthy: He's forming a band with everyone's favorite teenage sleuth (RIP). Also, and perhaps this has been mentioned elsewhere, but it's pretty great that "Clark and Michael" was his senior thesis.

Posted by Lindsey Millar at 01:08 PM | Permalink | Comments [1]

Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - 15:00:32

Thursday To-Do: The Libras as Neil Young

THE LIBRAS
9 p.m., White Water Tavern. $5.

We live in a stratified world of cover bands. At one level, the top perhaps, there’s the large contingent of touring and local bands who make their bones playing straight-up, let’s see how close we can get covers. Then there’s a growing number of novelty cover bands, like the little people version of Kiss, Mini Kiss, or the all-girl Led Zeppelin tribute act, Lez Zeppelin. And then there are bands like the Libras, who offer neither verisimilitude nor weirdness. The local coterie, which includes members of Big Silver, the Boondogs, the Easys and the Greg Spradlin Outfit, leans more on a boozey, shambolic foundation — you might not know what they’re playing until the hook comes. They’re all crack musicians, though, so even when they’re just screwing around, they’re mighty entertaining. Over the last six or eight months, they’ve become the de facto house cover band for White Water, playing sporadically on Thursdays, usually taking on a different act each time. Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Tom Waits have been featured in the past. Tonight, Neil Young is on tap. Friends of the band Dave Easely (pedal steel) and Robbie Crowell (keyboards) will sit in, too.

Posted by Lindsey Millar at 03:00 PM | Permalink | Comments [8]

Afternoon Killer: Matt Besser is probably not going to be on an HBO show with Kanye, but...

Last week in A&E news we suggested that Little Rock-native Matt Besser was slated to star in a Kayne West-created comedy pilot for HBO as West's chauffeur. The show's now not likely to happen Besser tells me. To placate yourself of the genuine and unintentional hilarity that surely would've accompanied that show, check the video clips on Besser's myspace page, including several surprisingly pretty funny ones from "Stung," an MTV reality precursor to "Punk'd," that Besser developed with Method Man and Redman. Also, a tutorial from "Mark Dunn, King of the Three Way." Very NSFW.

Posted by Lindsey Millar at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments [1]

Conway Mural Project

Morton Brown, an artist-in-residence at the University of Central Arkansas, has begun painting a 26-by-36 foot mural on Conway City Hall. Brown, a UCA graduate who holds a master’s degree from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, is working with UCA art students on the mural, which will be dedicated on Oct. 6 during a day-long arts celebration. He'll give a talk at 7 p.m. on Thursday in McCastlain Hall room 143 about the mural.

You can follow the mural's progress at www.conwaymuralproject.blogspot.com.

After the jump: an in-progress shot and Brown's breakdown of the mural's significance.

Our resident art queen, Leslie Peacock, contributed most of this item.

Posted by Lindsey Millar at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments [1]

Monday, August 27, 2007 - 15:58:48