Memory Tapes, They Might Be Giants, Acoustic Anarchy, Southern Belles, Dean Fields

Hope you are all enjoying Spring Break this week. Been out of work for a couple days with the kids. Ready (kind of) to get back to work tomorrow. Will also get back to the Late Night Pick tomorrow as that is my little break at work.

Onto this weekend's bands. We'll start with classic jam rockers Trongone Band at Cary St. Cafe for their usual Thursday night show. Show starts at 10 PM and there is no cover.

Friday night, Southern Belles are at The Camel with Itchy Hearts and Farm Vegas. The show starts at 9 and it's $7 to get in. Besides their own, excellent tunes, Southern Belles always do a few choice covers and here they are doing The Band classic, "Shape I'm In" at Rapture in Charlottesville in January.



Over at Tobacco Company on Friday night, People's Blues of Richmond will rock your face off starting around 9 PM. There is no cover charge. Here's the band doing "Nihilist Blues" down in SC last month.



Folk-pop singer Dean Fields will be out at Ashland Coffee & Tea on Friday night. Show starts at 8, tix are $8 in advance, $10 day of show. Here's Dean's press blurb:

1000 shows, 9 years, and 200,000 miles have passed since Dean Fields went on the road to pursue a career in music. During that time his address changed from Miami to Nashville to Boston until most recently returning to his hometown of Richmond, VA. Now, back in Nashville, he hits the road again to promote his most recent release ‘Under A Searchlight Moon’ . His recent homecoming has found Fields selling out shows in Richmond VA, as well as nearby Washington DC. “Dean Fields writes lyrics like Leonard Cohen and sings like Jeff Buckley. It’s no surprise that there’s a serious buzz on this Virginia singer-songwriter.” (Free Times) While continuing to feed his passion for music, Dean is fueled by a single-minded love to perform, sharing the stage with KT Tunstall, Blues Traveler, Rosanne Cash, Eric Hutchinson, Colin Hay, Bob Schneider, Auqualung, Hootie and the Blowfish, John Hiatt, Cake, Bruce Hornsby, Rusted Root, Madeleine Peyroux, Carbon Leaf, among others. In addition, Fields’ maturity as a writer and performer is brought to the fore by some of the region’s finest musicians including members of Mandy Moore, Sparklehorse, Agents of Good Roots, KD Lang, Carbon Leaf and Modern Groove Syndicate.

Here's Dean's video for "Forever Never Knowing":

Saturday, it's an early show at Strange Matter with dreamy, ambient, electronic pop artist Memory Tapes, the alias for Davye Hawke. It's $10 in advance, $12 at the door. It's an early show so it will start at 5 PM and be over no later than 9 PM. Here's Memory Tapes remix of Pendentif's "Embrasse Moi":


If you want to see how some classic punk rockers have aged, head to Capital Ale House on Saturday night for the Acoustic Anarchy tour featuring Glen Matlock of Sex Pistols, Sylvain Sylvain of New York Dolls and  Dave Brockie of GWAR. There is limited seating available (that just seem wrong), and tix are $13 in advance, $15 day of show. Here's the New York Dolls on their recent reunion tour doing "Personality Crisis":



Sunday, the quirky pop of They Might Be Giants comes to The National. It's $20 in advance, $23 at the door. Doors open at 7, show starts at 8 with opener Moon Hooch. If you and the kids are a fan of their children's music (which is quite awesome for child and adult alike), do not bring them to this show. No one under 14 will be admitted. If you've ever wondered how often TMBG use certain words, someone has created a word frequency chart for their songs. While they've only used the word "Marty" in five songs, that's 78.43 times more common than in printed English. Here's their latest video for the song "You Probably Get That A Lot":



Here's the 11th best video of 2012 according to Paste Magazine. It's Aimee Mann with guest star and Rolling Stone cover boy, Jon Hamm, recreating, in a way, her classic video with Til' Tuesday, "Voices Carry":



Have a great weekend!

Tony Jordan