Atlanta Concert Calendar For February
Photo courtesy of Brett Kelly
Best February shows in Atlanta:
Wednesday, Feb 3:
Grand Prize Winners from Last Year, Los Buenos, Book of Colors @ The Earl
Giant Lion, A Lull, Gold-Bears @ Drunken Unicorn
Friday, Feb 5:
Authors Apology, Where’s Your Fire Tiger?, Kid Stuff, Chu Feng @ Highland Inn Ballroom Lounge
Saturday, Feb 6:
Retribution Gospel Choir (featuring members of Low), Jupiter Watts @ The Earl
Untied States, Gold Standard, The Sunglasses @ Highland Inn Ballroom Lounge
Umphrey’s McGee, Dubconscious @ The Tabernacle
Monday, Feb 8:
Odist, Vegan Coke, Sunglasses, Jungol @ 529
Furthur (featuring Phil Lesh and Bob Weir) @ The Tabernacle (SOLD OUT)
Wednesday, Feb 10:
Snoop Dogg @ Center Stage
Thursday, Feb 11:
Them Crooked Vultures @ The Tabernacle
Friday, Feb 12:
Goodie Mob Reunion @ The Tabernacle
Bowerbirds, Julie Doiron, Oryx and Crake @ The Earl
Saturday, Feb 13:
Siberia My Sweet, Attention System, Citizen Icon @ Vinyl
Sunday, Feb 14:
Tortoise, Disappears @ The Earl
Thursday, Feb 18:
Facehugger, Backpockets, Nomen Novum @ 529
We Were Promised Jetpacks, Royal Bangs, Bad Veins @ The Masquerade
Friday, Feb 19:
Screaming Females, JEFF the Brotherhood, The NEC @ 529
Saturday, Feb 20:
Laura Veirs & The Hall Of Flames, Cataldo, The Old Believers @ Star Bar
Yelawolf, Freddie Gibbs featuring Pill, Lucky Lamar Ft. Mama’s MoonShine @ 529
Wednesday, Feb 24:
Imagination Head, Dave Daniels & the PTA, Nerd Parade @ The Earl
Lee Harvey Oswald, The Biters, FKI @ Drunken Unicorn
Thursday, Feb 25:
The Clientele, Vetiver @ The Earl
Saturday, Feb 27:
Kid Stuff, Junk Culture, Living Rooms, Roman Photos @ 529
Twin Tigers, The Coathangers, Knaves Grave @ The Earl
Trey Anastasio and Classic TAB @ The Tabernacle
- Posted by Davy Minor on January 31, 2010 at 10:29 pm
- 3 Comments
Best New Atlanta Music: Nomen Novum – “Go Primal” EP
The prolific duo of David Norbery and Mark Godfrey have turned out yet another gem. Here’s a little info on it via facebook:
The new Nomen Novum EP, “GO PRIMAL” is finally finished! It is free and available in MP3 or WAV format via our website:
http://www.nomennovum.net/goprimal
The files come lovingly zipped with a PDF booklet of lyrics, notes, and photos.
The web page features a special visualizer composed of eleven video loops created and processed by Mark. Our goal was to convey the idea of primordial ooze using things from the kitchen (and a lot of glitter.) Thomas Barnwell of Orphins/Thy Mighty Contract fame helped us with the Flash programming. Thanks Thomas!
GO PRIMAL includes more field recordings than any other NN release to date, many of which were made during our tour of the West Coast last May. Many of you will recognize your own voices on “It’s In The Air,” whether you helped sing the chorus vocals or almost blew your face off at my Fourth of July party.
Oh, and we cover a Natalie Imbruglia song (sort of…)
The EP is another dose of pure musical gold from one of the best bands in this city, so go grab it up:
- Posted by Davy Minor on January 27, 2010 at 5:59 am
- No Comments
Religious Girls – “Open Your Heart To Fantasy”
That hiatus didn’t last long did it? I totally overlooked this Religious Girls record last year, and I noticed that not a whole lot of people on the blogogregatorsphere has even mentioned this California act. This would have been very high on my year end lists had I known about it before a few days ago. So, I figured I’d drop a quick mp3 and direct you to where you can get a digital download on the name your own price model. The sound is somewhere between Au and Blastoids. It’s the true essence of post-rock, deconstructing music and putting it together in an insane sort of way. It’s also the most unique take on, and furthest exploration of, the new brand of psychedelics Animal Collective has ushered in. It’s only 5 tracks clocking in under 28 minutes, but every moment of it is great:
Buy Open Your Heart To Fantasy
Alright, seriously, no more posts for a while…
At least until that new Nomen Novum EP drops 
- Posted by Davy Minor on January 21, 2010 at 4:41 am
- 2 Comments
Ohmpark on Hiatus
Today is exactly three years since I first launched this blog. Back when I started, I doubted that I would stick with it for more than a few months. I just wanted to learn about some new music and have something to distract me from paying attention to class. I really never thought that this would eventually become as successful as it has. But in the end, I couldn’t be happier with how this project turned out. I was able to vastly improve my music knowledge and writing ability from where I began. And with virtually no promotion at all, I was able to reach a significant audience in this city, and was able to provide many brilliant local artists a platform to reach that audience as well. I’ve been so lucky to have so many talented friends assist me in this endeavor in countless ways, and to live in an age where technology allowed me to accomplish all of this.
So let me explain what is going on: Over the course of 2009, I wrote a novel. It is the first book in a Science Fiction series that I have been working on in my head since I was about 12 years old. I am about to spend the next few months meticulously going through my draft and improving it until I get it as perfect as I possibly can. I’ve decided that I need to focus all of my energies on this project, and that if I continued with Ohmpark currently, both works would suffer.
I’ve also reached a point of being extremely burnt out with this music blog. I’ve been consumed with it pretty much non-stop for these last three years without more than a tiny break here and there, and I can’t maintain the necessary level of effort to keep up quality content anymore. I feel like I’ve accomplished almost all that I can from this. Also, I have grown completely obsessed with my new project as I have been working on it, and I have lost the passion I once had for this one. The gist of the situation is that I think my new thing is about a thousand times cooler than this blog, and now it’s going to be my priority. I’m ready for a whole new challenge to overcome.
For the time being, there won’t really be anything going on here at this site. The only thing I plan to keep up with is my concert recommendations, and only on a monthly basis. Kevin Griggs may occasionally post some of his photos here, but for the most part you can enjoy his amazing photography at Atlanta Music Guide. If something local comes out that is so incredible it compels me to write about it, then maybe I’ll do a post. But for the most part, Ohmpark will not be operating until I get this book 100% finished.
In the long-term, I have no idea what the future holds for this site. I may feel refreshed from a long break and want to jump back in it. I may move forward and never look back. My guess is that I will end up somewhere in the middle of those two, either scaling back the content, or becoming a free agent and writing for other people, or maybe finding a whole new role in the local scene. I’m actually hoping that journalists around the city pick up my slack and don’t give me a reason to come back. But it will be months before I even begin to ponder all of this.
While I know the target audience here may not match up exactly with people who read science fiction, I hope those of you that have enjoyed this site give my new stuff a whirl when I have it ready later this year, because I am very excited about it. For those of you interested, I have explained my new project a little better at my personal blog, and I will be documenting my progress throughout the year there:
Finally I want to thank everyone that has had a hand in this, because I could not have done this alone. Thanks Clint Miller, Jesse Peterson, Kevin Griggs, Loren Norman, Josh West, Charles Lumpkin, Eric Guenther, Anne Reade,
David McLendon, Jared Davis, Amanda Locke, Hannah Palmer, Joe Ennis, and Leah Melnick for your contributions. Thanks to everyone who has spent their Internet surfing time reading my junk, and thanks to the Atlanta music scene for giving me so much great stuff to blog about!
- Posted by Davy Minor on January 11, 2010 at 5:07 am
- 15 Comments
Ohmpark’s Top 40 Albums of The Decade
I wouldn’t claim this is the most comprehensive list of the ’00’s best albums, but everything on here I consider part of the canon. I spent months and months obsessed with each and every record on this list. These albums helped shape my music taste. They define a generation that might have produced the best art in pop music history. Here’s one last list:
Click here to read the entire post…
- Posted by Davy Minor on January 10, 2010 at 7:36 pm
- 1 Comment
What Up In The ATL?
Best shows of January in Atlanta:
Monday, 4:
Tealights, The Sour Notes, It’s Elephants @ Drunken Unicorn
Friday, 8:
Dead Confederate, Twin Tigers, Carnivores @ The Earl
Saturday, 9:
Between The Buried and Me, Cynic, Devin Townsend, Scale the Summit @ The Masquerade
Thursday, 14:
What Happened To Your Fire Tiger, Los Buenos, Blue Eyed Goodbyes @ 529
Little Tybee, Adam Arcuragi, Adron @ The Earl
Friday, 15:
Thy Mighty Contract, Club Awesome @ Highland inn Ballroom Lounge
Saturday, 16:
Noot d’ Noot, Grip Plyaz @ 529
Tuesday, 19:
Laertes, Merkava, Scaffolds @ WonderRoot
Wednesday, 20:
The Cribs, Adam Green, The Dead Trees @ The Earl
Thursday, 21:
Warning Light, Recompas, Nigredo @ Drunken Unicorn
Friday, 22:
Untied States, The Liverhearts, The Vincas @ The Earl
Saturday, 23:
Selmanaires, Social Studies @ 529
Friday, 29:
Today The Moon, Tomorrow The Sun, Club Awesome, This Piano Plays Itself @ Picaflor
The NEC, All The Saints, Predator, Jovontaes @ 529
Saturday, 30:
La Chansons, The Orphins, The Gold Party @ Drunken Unicorn
- Posted by Davy Minor on January 3, 2010 at 7:43 pm
- 2 Comments
Ohmpark’s Top 50 Albums of 2009
As this decade comes to a close, there is no doubt it will be remembered for the rise of Indie music and the enormous influence the Internet has had on the course of music history. 10 years ago the independent music scenes of the United States were fragmented by location and genre. But thanks to technology, they have all coalesced into one huge melting pot phenomenon unlike any other before it. There was no giant explosion as with underground scenes of the past. It was a slow, steady crawl that still goes unnoticed today by a large portion of pop culture despite unlikely widespread commercial success from weirdos like Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear. And thus 2009 marks the high point so far in this golden age of music. The money may be draining out of the industry faster and faster, but the art is getting better, and there’s a whole lot more of it.
Last year I felt other Blogelites’ end of year lists were rewarding commercial viability over music quality and I was worried that Indie music as whole may have been moving towards the mainstream a little too much. It turns out my slight pessimism may have been unfounded, at least for now. This year I agree with the hipster consensus picks for the most part, and my list lines up with others’ lists much more so than in the past two years. I still think things are moving in a poppier direction overall, but that may not be all that bad of a thing if it results in albums like Merriweather Post Pavilion, Veckatimest, and Bitte Orca, all of which were the most accessible efforts to date from their respective artists. You have to figure this Indie thing is going to eventually burn out and something else is going to come along, but so far there is no sign of it slowing. I continue to suspect that there is something fundamentally different about this music movement than its predecessors.
Up until this year, one phenomenon that was prevalent in former scenes that was not a primary characteristic of the Indie world was artists collaborating and teaming up with one another. But in 2009, that seemed to change. Two of the greatest compilations of all time came out this year, Dark Night of The Soul & Dark Was The Night. Both Dark comps featured a vast cast of Indie stars all working together in new configurations, and the music world began to fell a little smaller and more tightly knit together. You had My Brightest Diamond joining The Decemberists and Beach House joining Grizzly Bear. There was Karen O’s Kids, there was the Monsters of Folk, there was Zach Hill working with as many artists as he can. Certainly there have been plenty of team-ups before, but this year it just felt different to me.
Last year’s trend was the No Agey distortion lo-fi sound, and that bled into 2009 for a bit helping propel Wavves into Indie celebrity. This year’s trend would be “chill-wave”, characterized by bands like Real Estate, Neon Indian, and Washed Out. This stuff sounds nice, but for the most part it is way too boring to amount to anything more than a passing fad.
Even though I agree with the P4kish lists more this year, I still think there are plenty of overrated records getting way too much love. Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Fever Ray bored me to death. Girls was good for a crappy punk record, but that’s like winning the Special Olympics. The new Baroness was weak, and I think people were overcompensating for overlooking the stellar 2007 Red Album. And you’ll find my list absent of any hip-hop records for the first time, as I could not find a single one that felt special. I absolutely hate that I cannot find anything worthwhile in a genre I used to love, but all I hear is unimaginative garbage or borrowed styles done better 15 years ago. One thing that always appealed to me about hip-hop was how one beat and one rhyme could express so much, but now I feel this style is overwrought with limitations and constricting expectations. Innovators could always come along and revive this thing, but right now I don’t hear a heartbeat.
In years past, I flexed my writing muscles by doing individual write-ups for all 50 albums on my list, but this year I decided to spare you readers the overkill. For the most part, I’ve already said everything I want to about these records, and if I haven’t the other 5 billion bloggers sure have. Enjoy the final product of a year’s worth of research:
Click here to read the entire post…
- Posted by Davy Minor on December 29, 2009 at 7:13 am
- 3 Comments
Merry Christmas
I’m just about done with my Top 50 Albums list for 2009, and that will be my last post of the year. At the beginning of January, I’ll post a few Best of the Decade lists up. For now, here’s a little gift bag of mp3s from records I liked, but didn’t get a chance to talk about:
Deastro : Friends
Washed Out : Feel It All Around
Animal Collective : What Would I Want? Sky
Omar Rodriguez Lopez : Desarraigo
Royal Bangs : Poison Control
Emeralds : Geode
Shugo Tokumaru : Rum Hee
Sin Fang Bous : Clangour And Flutes
I decided I wouldn’t be able to top my Christmas mix from last year, so if you want some good holiday tunes all indied out, go here. Also, I’ll be erasing every mp3 on the server except the mixtapes in the new year, so grab them while you can. Have a happy holiday everyone!
- Posted by Davy Minor on December 25, 2009 at 3:45 am
- 1 Comment
