Jaw Knee Vee is a one-man band from Duluth, Minnesota, playing Buzz Bomb Brewing this Friday.
Maybe it was because of the late Easter date or the fluctuations in weather from below freezing to 80 degrees, along with windy, rainy, sunny, cloudy and a few other “y’s” days as well, but April sure seemed to come and go in a hurry. Regardless of how the time flies by, let’s see what’s meandering around in the music scene during this last weekend of April.
Thursdays are our beginning place and I see a couple of very good music highlights populating the first stop in our column. At the Curve Inn we have the Travis Ried Band, and that includes Travis, a traveling bluesman originally from the Burlington, Iowa, area who is based in Springfield now, on guitar and vocals. He’s worked with James Armstrong and other major blues cats, while now out on his own mostly, using a selection of cream-of-the-crop local musicians including Max “Loudnurse” Grevenbrock (from Berlin, the one in Germany, not western Sangamon County) on drums and Jeff Cunningham (the one and only) on bass plus Dave Littrell (another one and only) joining on sax and second guitar for this gig. Expect exceptional music, and you won’t be disappointed.
Next up at the recently remodeled Mother Road Diner, experience lifetimes of musical experience when the Harris Brothers from Bustin’ Loose, Little Big Shots and other incarnations of the Family Harris. take the stage area. What can you say, it’s Allan, Shawn and John who’ve been playing together for, shall we say, a long time, and are still having fun making great music together that is full of joy and incredible musicality. Go enjoy the show please, because they sure do.
Moving on down the road to Friday, you get to pick from some 30 acts on our listings page including several shows now out of doors with the warmer weather upon us. That would include John Drake bringing his blues and roots music on guitar and vocals outside to the Bar Bella deck, Tater Soup Band dishing it up at Boone’s in its very nice beer (plus food and cocktails) garden and 3’s Company holding court at Longbridge Golf Course.
Plenty of popular local bands grace the bars including The Brandy Kristin Band at Curve Inn, Rick Mari Band at Mowie’s, Jay Larson Band at the Bird Tavern, Angel Brown’s Smooth N’ Blue Band at Lime Street and Off the Wall at Weebles.
We have a few outsiders coming to town including RADO, a four-piece “psychedelic groove rock” band from Denver at the Blue Grouch, Jaw Knee Vee, a one-piece “deep-fried lo-fi rawkabilly punk blues surf trash boogie woogie stomp” setup at Buzz Bomb and Raynes, a British-American “pop/folk/rock” trio from Los Angeles via North Dakota and England at Danenberger’s Family Vineyards with our very own UNCHAiNED opening the show.
Cruising into Saturday, we have only (?!) 42 things of the musical variety for you to choose from in the central Illinois vicinity, so I recommend you take a peek at the listings while I move on to Sunday where there are just a mere 19 (at last count) shows to peruse.
In the “helping out others” category, the Curve Inn (special thanks to Ami Merchant for offering up so many Sundays for so many good causes) hosts Ruffs and Riffs, a fundraiser for the WILD Canine Rescue organization with music by Deja Voodoo (1-3) and Lick Creek (3-6), plus many ways to donate to this most excellent group helping save dogs and place them in good homes. Please look at all the other goings on going on as well.
Gotta go now. See you in May, maybe