2007 Blowout Preview

Blowout. MCR faves The Prime Ministers play tonight at the New Dodge Lounge, 11:30 p.m.. Check out a performance the band did for Fox 2 News this week.

If you’re too lazy to scroll, Click Here for El Mateo Grande and Senor Garo’s Blowout 2007 picks, complete with pretty pictures and everything.

Here’s more Blowout Preview from mysterious MCR contributor D.C. Charlie: (Text is good because reading is fundamental – we’ll put some pretty pictures up in a bit, sweeties)

D.C. CHARLIE’S PICKS

THURSDAY

Wildcatting – Polish Sea League, 12:45 a.m. – The…most…wildly…talented band…in the city…going on world! Mostly instrumental, but this is mind-melting, hysteria-inducing, body-shaking eruptions of hard-driving, feedback heavy, hallucinogenic calamity! So tight in their wandering jams, so forceful, so spacey…total sonic destruction…and yeah yeah, this all sounds like the same old melodramatic mumbo jumbo…but the facts are that this band leaves me speechless. This is the band that makes me grab the person next to me, my eyes still transfixed on the glorious monstrosity on stage, and laugh hysterically as though I were Frankenstein himself reveling at the wonders that the coincidental lighting had rendered for me.

The Muldoons – Knights of Columbus, 11 p.m. – Okay…it started out as a quasi-novelty…people I speak to out in the trenches still don’t know quite what to make of them, but most of them haven’t seen the Muldoons lately – this is the greatest garage band in the city…I mean, for what it’s worth, the sound of garage rock is more alive in these two kids, Hunter (age 13 and already an amazing talent on guitar) and Shane (age 9 who falls somewhere between the noise experimentations of Lee Renaldo and the in-your-face presence of Sid Vicious.) Yes…they’re that young and they’re already that good…most people going out to see them are still going for the sake of ‘What the hell? Kids playing punk rock? Doing covers of Chinese Rock?’

The Big Brother Show – Baker’s Streetcar, 12:45 a.m. –
A light-hearted, rockabilly sound sung with Cobain-esque murmur from the mouth and mind of Royce Haas, otherwise known as Big Brother – the embodiment of vehement protest-music in this hand-shaped state in which we live. He’s a one-man onslaught (on guitar with two drums laid at his feet to beat) on a mission to awaken the nation (but for this week, he’ll start with Hamtramck) to the horrible atrocities of the political corruption gripping our nation…And his friends dress up as George Bush and a giant Pink Bunny and dance around in the crowd…

FRIDAY

Freer – Small’s, 9 p.m. – Razorblade punk meets lush-piano-laded dream pop…meets pure guitar wizardry, bop-bop-bop-beautiful pop-tastic rhythms and heart-wrenching screams…good golly – this band is all over the place. Raised on soul and blues and Chopin, the boys of Freer are crafters of a smooth-sliding pop while never forgetting the beauty of a good scream, a good dose of mayhem and the spirituality of music.

The Brothers Cortez – Jean’s, 9 p.m. – A glam-rock revival trio brewing the sound of sexiness, these boys come off as cartoonish but when the beat drops from their Mexican wrestler percussionist, the Brothers whirl into action with wavy riffs and crashes of funk-heavy, mind-blowing guitar solos.

Siddhartha – Knights of Columbus, 10:15 p.m. – Freewheeling, swaggering barrage rock…with so much soul it’s scary. It would be hard to find any band that is more exhilarating to see live…band members jumping out into the crowd, often losing articles of clothing, hanging from the rafters (if there are any) and providing tribally danceable rhythms underneath shredding, exuberant guitars. This is the kind of band that can possess an audience with their music. See them now before they go on tour and we lose them to the world…

Carjack – Knights of Columbus (Lounge), 11:30 p.m.
A band started by one man and his robots…originating from the ex-planet Pluto before tragically (yet, strategically?) crash-landing somewhere in the ‘burbs north of Detroit…brandishing straight-forward, hard-hitting, ass-shaking beats from a drum machine underneath delicious and dirty punk-ass riffs, anarchistic swords of synth and catchy, anthemic choruses. Mechanical mayhem of the highest order: with robots viciously taking it upon themselves to march forward from their base upon the amps of Carjack and descend onto the crowd to attack any and all who are caught dancing.

Questions – Carbon Lounge, 12:45 a.m. – Tribal, dark, spooky, romantic, supernatural, volatile…Drew Bardo and his astonishing passion as a performer with the tall, mohawked Will Linna on percussion, this duo is an otherworldly enigma seemingly born from a haunted, cobwebbed inter-dimensional wine cellars, striding along with their own unique sort of punk-blues jaunt with a cane and an eye-patch and an animalistic howl. The embodiment of a sinisterly charisma…a
frightening but enlightening journey into theirs and your own sordid psyche.

The High Strung – Paycheck’s, 12:45 a.m. – This trio brings a straightforward pop-rock with flares of a quirky kind of punk an excess of sincerity and vocal melodies that swoon like the slickest speaking suave shooter in the joint. The High Strung are an energetic live band with freewheeling anthems of summery exuberance.

SATURDAY

Duende – Kelly’s Bar, 9 p.m. – Torchbearers of the Stones and the Velvets…a veritable super-group of musicians who’ve been paying their dues in many underground acts of the past decade. Psychedelic Americana with haunting blues twinges and dueling lead guitars that wander off into their own unique flavors of rambunctious dissonance.

The Oscillating Fan Club – Baker’s Streetcar, 10:15 p.m. – Psychedelic brit-pop misfits with unkempt hair, funny t-shirts, lots of pick-ups in their guitars and fuzzy pedals to manipulate the sultry sounds of their surfy-swingy guitar acrobatics. Howling crescendos over moods of both 60’s tropacalia and 90’s indie-rock…with built-in folklore of robotic dinosaurs, ancient wind ghosts, tragic yesterlores and secret penchants for the Yakuza.

Troy Gregory & The Stepsisters – Holbrook Café, 1 a.m. – The blood-thirsty Satan Clause himself, clad in black with shaggy hair and bags under his eyes, strumming along and singing while backed up by the lovely step-sisters and a devious drum machine. One of the most prolific songwriters in town now forging basement ballads with a new kind of new-wave-kraftwerky-punk-pop swagger.

Thanks to D.C. Charlie for his help today!