Monday, September 30, 2013

Mid-Week Music and Literary Picks: Shovels and Rope, Mike Coykendall, James Greer


Readers, as best as we can tell, the looming government shutdown will not immediately affect PBR prices or consumption, so let's take a look at what's going on this week.

It's a good week for us twangy, rootsy types.  This past Saturday brought the lovely Amanda Shires and Ozark rascals Ha Ha Tonka to the Bottleneck (read our Shires review from yesterday here).  And Tuesday brings Shovels and Rope along with Shakey Graves.

It's been too long since we quoted a bizarre Daytrotter band description, and this description of the duo Shovels and Rope is a doozy:

"They strike us as the kind of couple who sit around their John's Island, South Carolina, home giving each other shit in the most loving way possible, reading Howard Zinn books, stitching beans and rice onto an old J. Crew coat and generally living a leisure life, where some of the greatest parts of it are chewing the fat with their country neighbors and rubbing good old Townes Van Zandt Robinson's doggy belly until he just can't stand it anymore, as he lies by their feet."  (full description here).

Their live show is reputed to be a bona fide hootenanny.   Listen to "Birmingham" via Bandcamp here.




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Mike Coykendall hits the Replay on Wednesday along with LFK's The Harrisonics.  Among other things, Mike Coykendall has been part of She and Him.  Well, he's definitely not the She or the Him, but we'll take his word that he's in the band.  And we'll keep our fingers crossed that Zooey shows up too (though we've primarily moved on to other musical crushes these days).






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On Thursday, James Greer, writer and former member of Guided By Voices drops by The Raven to talk about his new story collection, Everything Flows, which features "color collages" by GBV's Mr. Bob Pollard.  Later that night Greer's band DTCV (we prefer to call it "Detective") performs at the Jackpot.

The site Curbside Splendor says of the story collection that "Greer mixes anachronistic pseudo-history  and unserious/serious digressions into pop culture, pop physics, pop philosophy and pop music (see: the title), to arrive at something both universal in scope and intensely personal."

They had us at "anachronistic pseudo-history."

 

Perhaps PBR Book Club should attend this event and spread around some merchandise featuring their new logo.  Actually, the merchandise may not be ready yet, but it's soon to adorn beer koozies and stickers near you.


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