Coming Distractions

After a Rocktober that I felt lucky to survive, I'm kind of glad that November looks to be a little more low key. Here's what seems to be going down these days:

The King Khan and BBQ Show are playing the Star Bar this Wednesday, November 4th. After overdoing it for Halloween weekend, I need to behave myself at least until Friday, so I'm going to have to pass on this one. They put on a phenomenal show, though. You won't regret going to this one if you can make it happen.

The Kinks Choral Collection is slated for its U.S. release on November 10th. It's essentially a bunch of re-recorded Kinks classics with new arrangements; each song contains a choir. Yawn. I heard "Days" on the radio yesterday, and it was pretty boring. You can listen to samples of all of the songs on the Amazon link.

The show I'm most looking forward to this month is Nigels with Attitude. It's an XTC tribute show featuring a pretty impressive group of musicians, including Tim Smith and Peter Stroud from Sheryl Crow's band. I couldn't be any more indifferent towards Sheryl Crow's music, but Stroud is a really good guitar player. Watching him do this demo for Electro Harmonix is the reason why I bought this particular distortion pedal for myself.

I was planning on writing a mini-rant about how Smith's Olde Bar hadn't booked anything in several months that struck my fancy, but I just noticed that Ian McLagan is playing there on Sunday. I think I'm going to have to check that one out. I don't know if he's going to be doing a bunch of Faces/Small Faces material or not, but he is one of my favorite keyboard players of all time.

Edit - I looked at this wrong; McLagan is playing on Monday. I'm still probably going to go, though.

Speaking of places that only book shows about which I don't give two shits, I wonder how Lenny's stays open. I'm pretty sure there isn't going to be a band playing there in November that I've even heard of.

Drunken Unicorn books a lot of pretty decent act, but boy do I really have to like a
band to go there and put up with the 18+ crowd. Customers are playing there later this month, so I might consider going to that.

Speaking of the Unicorn, the last show I saw there was the Strange Boys. I really wish they would come back to Atlanta. I would gladly put up with an 18+ crowd again. I just looked at their Myspace page for the first time, and it looks like Matt Hammer is no longer their drummer. That's too bad, as that kid has been fantastic all three times I've seen these guys, but I'll hold off all judgment until I've seen them play again.

My favorite Atlanta band, The Howlies, are rumored to be working on a new album, and I've heard it should be out in early 2010. Maybe by that time, their debut effort,the fabulous Trippin' with Howlies, will finally be able to stay off my turntable for more than a few days. Maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it.

I'm keeping an eye out for new releases in November, and nothing is jumping out at me yet. There is another Time Life box set of previously unreleased Hank Williams stuff, but I may hold off on that for a while.

That's all I got for now.