May 30, 2018 (Wednesday) - The Basement hosts Thayer Sarrano and her band, as she plays in support of Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires, out there, along the Cumberland River, in Nashville, Tennessee. The Glory Fires are an Alabama-based band, bouncing back and forth now between Birmingham and Atlanta. Check out their "Sweet Disorder" from the Jam in the Van Series, where they meld and mutate southern roots rock into a flame-throwing preternatural cocktail worthy of early Motor City madness and early (but chronologically later) Clash. If the MC5 had been born in a more southerly environ it might sound something like this, in the best of ways. The Glory Fires' latest studio effort -- Youth Detention (2017) -- is number three in a tripartite catalog extending back to 2012. Also kicking out the jams this evening at The Basement will be International Friendly -- a Nashville-based four-piece. Check out their song "Found," from their Bridesmaid EP (2017), as found on Bandcamp. Between the fuzzy gospel dirge rock of Thayer Sarrano, the brimstone and fire of Lee Bains III, and International Friendly, it is heart-warming, indeed, knowing that the flames of music are alive and crackling. Just don't tell anybody on mainstream radio. They will learn about it eventually, when the pendulum finally swings back and away, from all its flossy pop, as it must. And it must. And if it mustn't, please, don't breathe a word. Bliss be ignorance on occasion.  

June 09, 2018 (Saturday) - We've got your hops. In case you're still in denial, summer and sweltering heat are upon you. Winter lasted all of a mid-morning. Regardless, Thayer Sarrano and her magic band play tonight at Creature Comforts in Athens. Eschewing her String Ensemble for the moment -- and sending her power trio scurrying under the carpet for another -- Sarrano offers a special full-tilt jam set in support of The Head, who are from Atlanta, which we Guildwater monks understand is a small, quaint village in Texas, where traffic jams are a thing of the future. Their hometown scarcely matters, though, any more than our myopic scriptorium scribal cartographers err, relying as is our medieval wont upon a Catalan Atlas from the fourteenth century, because The Head, most admirably, and much to their credit, tour in virtual perpetuity in support of their album -- Space (2017). Check out the video for the album's anthemic lead single "Tea Colored Radio." We dig it. Also getting in on this summer heat and summer hops will be Dead Neighbors, who are local Athenians. Far from supine, and scarcely recumbent, these Dead Neighbors indeed have a pulse, and are quite lively, active even -- in short, they rock -- having released their album Less in March of this very year of 2018. This follows their self-titled debut from 2015. Real music is alive and well. Lest ye doubt it, render yourselves on down to Creature Comforts. Sweat a little. They've got your hops.