I jacked this photo from new Tree Bar owner Ryan Haye’s Friendster page … or was it MySpace? Hmmm. As we reported a few weeks ago, the infamous tree that gave the former Andyman’s Treehouse it’s name has been removed. Seeing The Tree Bar without the tree is sort of like seeing Kiss without their makeup for the first time – a bit shocking, but we’ll all get used to it.
Work continues on The Tree Bar to get it ready for the sneak preview opening on Dec. 23 with performances by The Kyle Sowashes, SPD GVNR, Low Men, Ghost Shirt and Two Cow Garage.
The weekend’s not over until the alarm clock goes off on Monday morning. It’s been a weekend full of great music in Columbus and Sunday night finds Albany, NY’s Severe Severe bringing their paranoid, art-rock sounds to the cozy confines of The Treehouse.
The trio’s latest release, Break Up the Dance, was released June 3 and you’ll hear lots of early ’80s new wave/post-punk in the Joy Division/The Cure/Wire/Sonic Youth-influenced music.
DJ Fitzgerald (St. Moses the Black) is opening the show with a solo set around 10 and Severe Severe should be on around 11.
If you didn’t catch Joe Pep covering every single Beatles song in one night at the Treehouse on Tuesday, here’s a little flavor of what you missed, courtesy of Super Desserts’ Justin Riley. Photos below, also from Riley — some from cellphone and some from his camera with a homemade fisheye lens.
For Columbus folks who missed out on the Bill Fox show at the Treehouse last Saturday, or if you were there and just want to relive, it, the technologically talented Scott Johnson managed to record a few songs from the set. Enjoy.
In other Fox news… a pdf of that legend-furtheringBeliever piece by Joe Hagan can now be downloaded at Hagan’s website here. Fox had previously requested it not be on the Internet. In the piece, you’ll see Hagan reference an archive of a radio show with Fox. I dug around and found it here. It’s a gem. On a 1998 episode of KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic hosted by Nic Harcourt, you can hear Fox play a few untitled and/or unreleased songs (like “Ode to Charlie Rose”), “Pastures of Plenty” by Woody Guthrie, “My Baby Crying” off Transit Byzantium and “Junked Lot Serenade” off Shelter from the Smoke.
Listening to Decibully’s 2005 release Sing Out America! again today for the first time in years, I’m reminded of how much I loved this album the very first time I heard it. I had to do some digging around but thanks to Archive.org I was able to find something I wrote about Sing Out America! on Donewaiting back in early 2005.
Got a copy of Decibully’s first CD, City of Festivals, in the mail when it was released a year or two ago. Thought it was okay but found the Wilco comparisons to be a bit misleading. Saw Decibully at SXSW last year (first of 44 bands that I saw that week) and discovered the magic (particularly in “On the Way to Your Hotel” which haunted me for the duration of SXSW, certain lyrics stuck in my head like corn between my teeth). Have given a precursory listen to the band’s forthcoming CD, Sing Out America!, and have added Decibully to the list of “Must see bands at SXSW 2005″. First 3 songs are dreamy in a country-cornfield sort of way.
Decibully has spent the last the last 3-4 years working on new material. The lengthy delay in releasing something new is discussed in this article from The Onion back in November 2008.
Decider: What have been the chief causes of the delay? William Seidel: We have spent the majority of our adult lives in Decibully. I feel as if we came to a crossroads after the end of the Sing Out America tour cycle and we each needed to reclaim a little bit of our individual lives. We started on new adventures, fell in and out of love, began new careers, and basically rediscovered ourselves outside of the group identity. We continued to work on new material and we played the occasional show, but slowly and with broad strokes. Now, with the record finished and without a label to release it we are looking into alternative routes to get this record heard. And the delay continues.
The new CD, World Travels Fast, still hasn’t been released as far as I can tell though keep your fingers crossed that the band has copies (maybe CD-Rs?) to sell at the show tonight.
Also on the bill, Early Day Miners from Indiana who stunned me with their 2006 EP Offshore. I’ve always thought it takes balls to open a release with a lengthy instrumental track because if you listen to music the way I do, the first minute or two of a CD is the most important in determining whether or not I’ll even bother with the rest of the CD. At 9:12, “Land of Pale Saints” was so incredible, I listened to it multiple times before even digesting the rest of Offshore.
The band releases it’s latest album, The Treatment, this week on Secretly Canadian Records and will, no doubt, draw heavily from that album in tonight’s setlist.
9PM start time for the show tonight at The Treehouse. Locals Bird and Flower will open. $8 will get you a fantastic night of music in the intimate confines of The Treehouse.
