Scott Lucas hasn’t given up on his baby, the 2-man band Local H, but when he found himself with an armful of songs that didn’t quite fit in the post-grunge mode, he grabbed a bunch of friends and recorded a “solo” album under the name Scott Lucas & The Married Men.

Based out of Chicago, The Married Men are composed of current or ex-members of bands like The Cells, The Tossers and a personal favorite, Caviar. On their way out to NYC for some shows, Scott and band stopped by Electraplay to play a few originals and a cover for us. And the sound, as you’ll witness when watching these videos, is pretty far-removed from the bash-and-pop of Lucas’s Local H.

MP3: Scott Lucas & The Married Men – Absolute Beginners (David Bowie cover)

Bonus: Read an interview with Scott from Feb. 2010

Interestingly, Island Records has just released a “best of” Local H album called, fittingly, Local H: The Island Years. For those who have somehow only managed to hear “the copacetic song” (“Bound for the Floor”), this is a must-have purchase though I must warn you that this collection of tracks will undoubtedly serve as a gateway drug to not only the albums Local H put out on Island but the albums they’ve put out on other labels.

Listening to the dozen tracks on this compilation is like listening to a soundtrack of my mid-to-late-20s – songs like “High Fiving MF”, “All the Kids Are Right”, “All Right (Oh Yeah)” and “Fritz’s Corner” are permanently tattooed in my musical memory banks sounding as urgent and angstful today as they did when I first listened to them 10 – 15 years ago.

Scott and his Local H partner, drummer Brian St. Clair, are currently touring to support this package. The closest show to Columbus is in Akron this coming Friday night. Here’s the full list of tour dates:

4/14 – Ann Arbor, MI – Blind Pig
4/15 – Akron, OH – Musica
4/16 – Pittsburgh, PA – Altar Bar
4/17 – Milford, CT -Daniel Street Club
4/18 – Allston, MA – Brighton Music Hall
4/20 – Brooklyn, NY – Knitting Factory Brooklyn
4/21 – New York, NY – Mercury Lounge
4/22 – Philadelphia, PA – North Star Bar
4/23 – Long Branch, NJ – Brighton Bar
4/24 – Washington, DC – Rock And Roll Hotel
4/25 – Durham, NC – Casbah
4/27 – Atlanta, GA – The Masquerade
4/28 – Nashville, TN – Exit / In
4/29 – St. Louis, MO – Firebird
4/30 – Dekalb, IL – Otto’s
5/1 – Chicago, IL – Metro

MP3: Surfer Blood – Swim

CMJ breakout band Surfer Blood will play the Summit on Wednesday night. It’s good timing — see ‘em before you’re sick of hearing about ‘em. The Florida band’s debut, Astro Coast, is out on Kanine January 19. It’s good.

Detroit’s Terrible Twos open. $5, 18+. Under 21 pay $2 surcharge at the door.

This should be a great one. Blitzen Trapper‘s Furr (Sub Pop) was one of my favorites from last year, and the Portland band has a new EP, Black River Killer, out on Oct. 6 (eponymous mp3 below). Songwriter Eric Earley says here that the EP is completely separate from Blitzen Trapper’s upcoming album. A snippet:

So there’s been alot of questioning about the songs on the BRK EP, thought i’d do some explaining… Silver Moon is near four years old, recorded around three times in differing formats, Preacher’s has about the same timeframe, Black Rock and Shoulder are older dating back to the old house on 69th and Long where garmonbozia was recorded in ’02 and ’03 roughly. Big Black Bird was originally an instrumental track recorded at the 69th house for the soundtrack to a film we made entitled Who is Manfred Milner? or something like that, it ran during the final credits, the complete soundtrack i’ve never released, around the time of Furr or previous I recorded the version you now hear adding lyrics and other notable soundz… The BRKiller EP is in no way a linear follow up to Furr and is in no way exemplary of the new record which I’m working on and of which i’ve only spoken of in a few interviews and that mostly inaccurate and amusingly misleading.

That’d be a good show by itself, but Merge Records’ Wye Oak is on this Donewaiting/BenCo bill, too. I’ll let Chip tell you more about them soon…

We’ve got a pair of tickets to give away for this show, too. To enter, send a blank e-mail with the subject title BLITZEN OAK to contest@donewaiting.com. A winner will be randomly chosen on Oct. 12. And, of course, you can always purchase tickets in advance.

mp3: Blitzen Trapper – Black River Killer

“Black River Killer” video after the jump. It’s worth a watch.

We told you before about Stuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville, and even gave away a pair of tickets to Steve Earle. And now we’re excited to say we’ve got a pair to give away for the legendary Yo La Tengo on Sept. 24. To enter this contest, send a blank e-mail to contest@donewaiting.com with the subject YO LA TENGO. Winners will be randomly chosen on Sept. 23. And for those who want to make sure there’ll be seats waiting for them, you can purchase tickets here.

Here’s a track from Popular Songs, Yo La Tengo’s new one out Sept. 8.

mp3: Yo La Tengo – Here to Fall

Oh, and Columbus’s own The Beatdowns open the show. Nice. And Pat Radio has their just-released Old 3C single,”Disconnected Girl,” here in mp3 and aiff.

Full Yo La Tengo tour dates after the jump.

September 15 Winooski, VT Higher Ground
September 16 Boston, MA Wilbur Theater
September 17 Washington, DC 9:30 Club
September 18 Durham, NC Carolina Theater
September 19 Atlanta, GA Variety Playhouse
September 21 Asheville, NC Orange Peel
September 22 Knoxville, TN Bijou Theater
September 23 Louisville, KY Headliners
September 24 Nelsonville, OH Stuart’s Opera House
September 25 New York, NY Roseland (NYC)
October 02 Montreal, QC Le National
October 03 Toronto, ON Opera House
October 05 Cleveland, OH Beachland Tavern
October 06 Chicago, IL The Vic
October 07 Minneapolis, MN First Avenue
October 09 Omaha, NE Slowdown
October 10 Denver, CO Ogden
October 11 Solano Beach, CA Belly Up Tavern
October 12 Salt Lake City, UT Urban Lounge
October 14 Phoenix, AZ Marquee Theater
October 15 Los Angeles, CA Avalon
October 16 San Diego, CA Soma
October 17 Santa Cruz, CA Rio Theater
October 18 San Francisco, CA 100% Equal Festival
October 20 Portland, OR Crystal Ballroom
October 21 Vancouver, BC Commodore Ballroom
October 22 Seattle, WA Showbox

Earle is touring solo behind his new Townes Van Zandt tribute album, Townes. I saw him at the Southern Theatre last May, and the man is at his best when his songs tell stories, which bodes well for a show heavy on Van Zandt covers. His wife, Allison Moorer, will kick off the night. And lucky for you, dear Donewaiting reader, we’re giving away a pair of tickets to this show. To enter this contest, send a blank e-mail to contest@donewaiting.com with the subject STEVE EARLE. A winner will be randomly chosen on Wednesday morning, 8/26.

mp3: Steve Earle – To Live is to Fly (Townes Van Zandt cover)

Harnetty rarely plays live, so catch him when you can. The Black Swans and Super Desserts open the show.

mp3: Brian Harnetty – Sleeping in the Driveway
mp3: Brian Harnetty – Silent City

Here’s how Monolithic Cloud Parade describes the concept behind its debut: “The album tells the story of a pack of turn-of-the-century carnival freak show children with wolf heads who escape their wagon train in a deadly accident one night and head off into the forest to fend for themselves, where they are confronted with fears both real and imaginary.” If you like Neutral Milk Hotel, you’ll dig these guys. Corey Fry has created an ambitious, lo-fi concept album that succeeds much of the time, bizarro storyline and all. Not bad for a guy who couldn’t even play an instrument a couple years ago.

MCP’s record release is at the Scarlet and Grey Cafe with The Lost Revival and Darynyck. It’ll also serve as Darynyck’s farewell show.

mp3: Monolithic Cloud Parade – Airplanes Full of Flames

Another debut concept album, Wing & Tusk’s The Secret of Toadflax Tea tells a story from three different viewpoints: an old monk, a young monk and a doctor, all of whom are on a European island stricken with the black plague, for which the only cure is a drink called Toadflax Tea. But that cure is known only to the monks… Betrayal, murder and heroism ensue.

Along with Harnetty’s Silent City, this is one of my favorite Columbus releases of the year so far. Singer Josh Rea reminds me a lot of David Bazan, a good thing in my book. Wing & tusk takes its folk-rock foundation and builds on it till it reaches the ether, adding strings, horns, beautiful harmonies and such along with way. Epic stuff.

mp3: Wing & Tusk – Home, Sick Home

Concert posters after the jump. Wing & Tusk’s is particularly cool/creepy.

Sometime earlier this spring while we were standing around the Newport waiting for the Heartless Bastards to do their thing, conversation turned to debriefing on favorites from the recently-concluded SXSW festival. Shane mentioned Theodore. He was right. Duffy kinda couldn’t shut up about this band The Low Anthem that he’d seen like 80 times down there. And man, he was way right too. It’s coincidence that the two recommendations are similar in texture and tone, but after grabbing their two most recent albums I really gravitated to the beautiful Low Anthem recordings. They’ve continued to be staples in my stereo since, so I’m excited about their stop in Columbus on Friday at The Summit in support of a new record. Jeff Prystowsky from the band was nice enough to talk to for a bit and tell me a little about their story and recent doings, so more of both my thoughts and his after the jump.

The easy way out is to describe the three member band with the now somewhat garbled term ‘folk’- it has that acoustic, Americana organic vibe familiar to the genre. While the trio swaps a slew of duties, songs are generally heavy on the strummed guitar, harmonica and a beautiful clarinet. The instrumentation is far more strings and reeds than transistors or chips, and harmonies are sung with a delicate and sometimes forlorn beauty. But I think it’s a better descriptor to focus more on the ‘lore’ that is implied with folk. The songs are intimate and poetic stories, full of history and conjuring a sense of place. The mood is captured perfectly on the spiritual and elemental recording of Oh My God, Charlie Darwin.

In addition to the more sparse songs (“To Ohio”, “Ticket Taker”) they throw more than one Tom Waits-ish foot stompin’ growlers in there too (“Horizon Is a Beltway”). So while not every track is quiet enough for your parents, these are records you and dad might actually be able to agree on. When I asked about their audience, Jeff confirmed that they’ve had broad appeal to young and old. Feeling equally at home playing festivals, theaters and rock clubs means it’s often the venue which dictates the crowd more than the music.

In a fairly rapid succession to 2007’s What the Crow Brings, the Providence, RI band also self-released the first version of Oh My God, Charlie Darwin in September of 2008. While playing shows in New York to support the record during the early part of this year, the band attracted the attention of Nonesuch Records, which recently released a re-mastered and re-sequenced OMGCD. The support of Nonesuch allowed the band to build on their success in the northeastern states and expand the mission to touring the country. Along the way, they’ve been making waves and getting fantastic praise from reviewers also representative of the diverse audience- from internet hip to NPR. I asked Jeff to describe what that ascent (from recent college graduates starting up through multiple albums to a label deal and national tour in just a short two and half years) has been like. I’ll do some really choppy paraphrasing here, but regarding the transition from screen printing hand-made CD covers to big label support and a national audience, Jeff said ‘Nonesuch made us realize that not all record labels were bad. Their philosophy is to scout good bands, then allow them the freedom to let them make their records without typical contractual constraints…of course we can’t screen print every t-shirt and album cover anymore- time and economics of a national tour won’t allow it, but we intend to continue to have that same hands-on approach to the creative process (in the future).’ An ambitious goal, if current demand is to be any gauge.

In an excellent pairing, the Low Anthem will be joined on Friday by Langhorne Slim, who has also drawn upon a more traditional sound, but paired it with a young man’s rocker edge. The seemingly disparate musings of old-timey stomp and a punk ethos are compiled and on the 2008 self titled album put out by the equally eclectic Kemado Records. A graduate of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, Langhorne’s live shows are a burst of energy, far outstripping the singer/songwriter tag that he’s often given. A little Woody Guthrie, a little old blues, a little bit garage punk, a little bit 2009. This is going to be an excellent night.

Columbus’s own Couch Forts will be kicking things off Friday, August 7th, The Summit, 2212 Summit Street.

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Elvis Perkins