Michael Franti and Spearhead

Thursday and Friday, [...]]]>

Okay, don’t really do that. But plenty of fans will at least be yelping with joy that Michael Franti will be returning to the Wilma with his band, Spearhead, for another two-date engagement at the end of August. Here are the details from the show’s promoter:

Michael Franti and Spearhead

Thursday and Friday, August 30^th-31st

Wilma Theatre

Missoula, MT

Doors – 7:00 pm                   Show – 8:00 pm

Tickets On Sale Friday, May 18th @ 10am

Tickets: $38.00 General Admission

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Korn

With Special Guest: [...]]]>

Nu-metal act Korn has announced a date at the Big Sky Brewing Company. Not my bag, but given that the band has sold 19 million albums, I know there must be some Korn-nuts around the area whose Monday just got a little brighter. Here are the show details….

Korn

With Special Guest: Sluggo and Jdevil

Wednesday, June 27^th,2012

Big Sky Brewery

Missoula, MT

Doors – 6:30 pm Show – 8:00 pm

Tickets On Sale Friday, May 11th @ 10am

Tickets: $36.00 General Admission

Tickets are available at Rockin’ Rudy’s, by calling 877-4-FLY-TIX,

Online at www.Ticketfly.com or www.KnittingFactory.com.

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On Thursday, the Missoula Osprey announced that legendary comedian Steve Martin will bring his band, the Steep Canyon Rangers, to Missoula’s Ogren Park at Allegiance Field for a concert on July 20. Tickets [...]]]>

The Father of the Bride is now the leader of the band, and he is coming to Missoula this summer.

On Thursday, the Missoula Osprey announced that legendary comedian Steve Martin will bring his band, the Steep Canyon Rangers, to Missoula’s Ogren Park at Allegiance Field for a concert on July 20. Tickets go on sale Friday, March 30, at 10 a.m.

Best-known for his acting roles in such comedies as “The Jerk,” “Father of the Bride,” and “Roxanne,” Martin has seen his lifelong love for the banjo blossom into a late career. His band’s 2009 album, “The Crow: New Songs for the Five String Banjo,” won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. The record featured guest performances by such stars as Dolly Parton, Vince Gill, Earl Scruggs, and Tim O’Brien.

Tickets to the concert are general admission, with two levels of ticket prices.  A limited number of field-level tickets are $59.50. Tickets in the seating bowl of Ogren Park Allegiance Field are $39.50.  Those prices do not include ticket convenience fees that will apply.

Tickets will go on sale at the MSO Hub Box Office, located at 140 N Higgins in downtown Missoula, on Friday, March 30 at 10 a.m. Concertgoers may also call (406) 543-3300 to reach the MSO Hub Box Office. Tickets will also be available through Ticketfly.com.

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On Monday, Bolton’s [...]]]>

Night after night, in the shadowy light of the Badlander bar, Aaron Bolton’s relaxed smile beamed from behind the sound board. He was in his element, there in the bar that he bought with a trio of friends in 2007 and helped transform into a cornerstone of Missoula’s nightlife scene.

On Monday, Bolton’s friends in the music community struggled to cope with the news that his body had been pulled from the icy waters of Seattle’s Elliot Bay early that morning.

“He was simply the nicest person I ever knew,” said Justin Lawrence, owner of Hellhouse Sound and the regular sound-man at the Palace Lounge, a music venue in the basement of the complex of bars at the corner of Ryman and Broadway. “(He) never had a cross word to say about anyone or anything.”

Details of Bolton’s death remain sketchy. According to Seattle Police spokesman Jeff Kappel, police fielded a report at approximately 6 a.m. Monday of a body floating in Elliot Bay, near Pier 57 in downtown Seattle. Bolton’s body was fished out of the water by firemen around 7 a.m.

Kappel said that no cause of death had been determined, and would not confirm Bolton’s identity.

The King County Medical Examiner’s office also declined to confirm Bolton’s name, and said that an initial report on his cause of death would be released at approximately 4 p.m. Mountain Time on Tuesday.

While early news reports in Seattle said the body was found wearing a life jacket, that proved not to be the case.

Bolton was a fixture of Missoula’s music scene long before he got into the bar business. Chris Henry, one of the co-owners of the Badlander complex, first met Bolton in the spring of 1994, when the two were fellow students at the University of Montana. Bolton was living in a house nicknamed the Badlander, one of the first unofficial hubs of Missoula’s electronic dance music scene.

“They were really pushing it, doing these amazing parties,” said Henry.

Henry and Bolton became fast friends, and in 1998 they joined forces with local musician John Fleming to run EarCandy Music, an independent record store that specializes in obscure independent and electronic releases.

Fleming said he didn’t know Bolton well before he approached him to help out with the store.

“After the store opened, I realized I had to get some electronic music in there and I didn’t know about it, but I knew he did, so I approached him one day and asked him,” Fleming recalled. “He really knew his stuff and was just great to work with.”

But Bolton’s first love was the drums. Over the years, he played in several local bands — including a couple with Fleming. In 2001, he moved to Seattle with the aim of becoming a professional drummer.

Bolton eventually returned to town in 2005, to help build an online store for EarCandy. Two years later, Henry heard through an old roommate that two acquaintances, Mark McElroy and Scott McIntyre, were looking to buy the former Hammerjacks bar. Eventually, the four joined together to purchase the entire complex of bars, which now include the Palace Lounge, the Golden Rose, and the Savoy Casino.

It was tough going at first.

“He put in about three years of just a grinding schedule, seven days a week, always there,” said Henry. “It was just a maelstrom of stuff to deal with – the whole event production side, he’s the sound guy and manager and artist liaison and he’s managing the building – and yet, oh my God, he’s just phenomenal at it. He was built for this work.”

Henry said that Bolton’s natural ease in the face of dizzying duties was a calming influence on him and the other owners of the bar complex.

“He rarely if ever stressed out; always had this relaxed, positive attitude about everything,” said Henry. “Stuff could be going crazy and he would have an even keel. He was constantly sprinting around the building all night dealing with multiple sound systems, and yet he always had that smile on his face.”

Henry said that Bolton traveled to Seattle with his step-brother over the recent weekend to pick up new speakers for the Badlander’s sound system. Around 11 p.m. Sunday evening, Bolton left his step-brother at their hotel, telling him he intended to visit Re-bar, a downtown music venue located at 1115 Howell Street.

The fact that Bolton’s body was found more than a mile away from the nightclub leaves a gap in the events leading up to his death. However, Jeff Kappel of the Seattle Police Department said that Bolton’s death was not being treated as suspicious, noting that anyone who fell into the bay at this time of year probably wouldn’t last long in the frigid waters.

“This time of year if someone fell in there, there’s a high likelihood they’re going to get hypothermia relatively quickly,” he said.

Regardless of the circumstances of his death, Bolton will be remembered for his contributions to Missoula’s music community, said Colin Hickey, a longtime friend of Bolton’s who serves as booking manager for the Badlander and Palace.

“He opened the door for all sorts of talent at the Badlander, he was a hell of a drummer and just a hell of a guy,” said Hickey. “It’s just a huge loss.”

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Looking at the mastheads of the rags and blogs that have weighed in on the band’s sophomore album, “Where the Messengers Meet,” one would assume [...]]]>

In the world of marketing, it’s said that no press is bad press. Seattle’s Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band is testing that truism in its own, indie-rock way.

Looking at the mastheads of the rags and blogs that have weighed in on the band’s sophomore album, “Where the Messengers Meet,” one would assume MSHVB is a new darling of the indie music world. Pitchfork weighed in, as did Paste, Spin, and the Onion A.V. Club.

Not bad for a five-piece band signed to Dead Oceans, a small Indiana-based label.

Or is it?

“It’s almost like MSHVB are going out of their way to go unnoticed, as there’s just so little to grab onto here, in terms of either hooks or texture,” snarled critic Ian Cohen of Pitchfork. “It’s a punishingly monochromatic listen.”

Ditto, said the Onion A.V. Club.

“Frankly, a number of these songs could be B-sides from Cursive’s emo-chestral post-hardcore monument ‘The Ugly Organ,’” wrote critic Chris Martins. “At this rate, MSHVB will be onto Trail Of Dead’s ‘Source Tags And Codes’ by late 2011.” Even for those of us unfamiliar with the obscure touchstones, the message is clear: this stuff kinda sucks.

So why all the press, if the band isn’t any good?

Well, for one thing, MSHVB does have a certain claim to fame – or, at least, to pressworthy intrigue.

Back before anyone had ever heard a single recording by the band, its members published a series of unabashedly awful infomercials on Youtube, warning about the dangers of homeostasis, boredom, and other bland topics.

It was a clever trick, building an audience eager to hear what the band was actually about while giving music writers an easy angle on which to hang a story.

Unfortunately, it didn’t guarantee a good story.

The main rap on MSHVB is that their sound is derivative. It’s hard to take issue with that assessment when listening to tunes like “Albatross Albatross Albatross,” which careens through disjointed moments of math-rock, Franz Ferdinand-esque jangle-disco, and a sweeping, synth-soaked sequence that sounds like a mashup of Granddaddy and Modest Mouse, capped off with a little AC/DC flourish at the end.

Albatross, Albatross, Albatross

Still, it’s hard to grok why the band has become a punching bag in a realm where originality isn’t exactly rampant. How many bands sound somewhat like Modest Mouse these days? There are other Seattle-area acts with a strikingly similar sound to these guys – I’m thinking Minus the Bear and, to a lesser extent, Death Cab for Cutie here – who get all kinds of critical plaudits.

Music is always derivative. The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin brazenly borrowed elements of southern blues. George Frideric Handel raided his own music – often verbatim — every time he sat down with a pen. This is the only age in western history when performing musicians have been expected to focus on their own, “original” songs.

Unfortunately, I think what all this MSHVB-bashing ultimately reflects is the way in which the media tends to follow its own lead. One hipster-focused magazine writes about a new band; soon enough, they all do.

And – here’s the irony I’ve been aiming for – they all tend to fall in line with a consensus of their own making.

Their opinions, in other words, are derivative.

Exceptions abound, of course. And I can’t claim immunity myself.

But I’ll say this: MSHVB sounds neither more nor less derivative than plenty of awesome bands. They have great energy. And if you don’t like what they’re playing, give them ten or fifteen seconds; they’ll be off on something different quick enough. Pitchfork dismissed it as “blog-rock,” a mushy and now oft-derided label of the mid-aughts; but I’d call it Twitter rock: brash, short-attention-span music that is mostly insubstantial yet full of self-importance.

In short, it’s the kind of stuff that will surely go over well in the crowded, party-ready context of tonight’s KBGA End-of-Thon celebration at the Badlander and Palace complex. Joining the band for tonight’s two-stage show will be Portland’s Hosannas, locals the Magpies and King Elephant, and djs Eskmo, Kris Moon and Logisticalone.

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