INDIE | Joseph Coker EP release
w/ FALINE
Thurs. Nov. 18
7:30 p.m.
Free
Craft Conundrum
Comedian, podcast host, and jiu jitsu instructor Joseph Coker proved that he can do just about anything earlier this month when he dropped his debut album After the Volcano, a beautifully arranged six-song collection awash with violin, piano, lap steel, guitar, and falsetto vocals. Beginning with “Pompeii,” the album is a personal and poignant look at the past few years of the singer’s life. “‘Pompeii’ is one of the more recent songs I wrote,” he says, “and the lyrics are still so fresh to me. I know they will fade, but there is a deep satisfaction with articulating a hurt. It’s the healthiest way to self-validate.” Written several years ago, the final track “When the Swelling Goes Down” reflects on Coker’s time in Copenhagen, where he lived for five years. “While there I had a year of tragedies,” he says. “My brother died, certain family members stopped talking to me, and six months later I realized my wife at the time didn’t want to be married anymore. All my certainties were gone. I picked myself back up and got accepted to Berklee College of Music, but then was prevented from going due to lack of student loans. I moved to Charleston angry, hurt, and ambitious. Everything I have now was built on the ruins of all that. As the days passed and my life here slowly took shape, the anger I had slid into place like a disc injury that healed. I wrote this as my soothing for my ex and for me.” —Kelly Rae Smith THURSDAY
ROCK CRUISE | Long Miles, Del Sur, The Black Mags, Little Stranger
Sat. Nov. 19
6:30 p.m.
$20
Charleston City Marina
Five years ago, Heather McDonald, an adjunct professor at the College of Charleston, decided to inject a little realism into her Music in the Marketplace class. She had her students create and run a real, not-for-profit record label called 1770 Records. “I wanted to teach a class that got students some hands-on experience with a record label,” she says. “And I was really inspired by Belle & Sebastian, who released their first record through a label at a college, and I thought that that would be a good model for the students to follow. Every semester the class listens to demos and decides which artists to work with. We release one single a month and put on a release show for whatever we’re putting out.” To celebrate 1770’s fifth anniversary, McDonald and the students called on a few bands to play a three-hour cruise on the Carolina Queen, all of which have a connection to the label. “We were lucky enough to get bands that had members that were in the first 1770 class five years ago,” McDonald says. “That includes some of Long Miles and Little Stranger, and one of the guys in the Black Mags. And the students in Del Sur took the class last semester. It’s exciting to get people who were involved in the class to come back and play a show to help promote the label.” —Vincent Harris SATURDAY
DJ/A CAPELLA | Collective Disparity
w/ The Chucktown Trippintones
Sat. Nov. 19
10 p.m.
Free
Boone’s Bar
Last Summer, DJ Jared Aaronson, a.k.a. Collective Disparity, toured hospitals and cancer centers, spinning sets for terminally ill patients and their families. Aaronson, a cancer survivor himself, was so inspired by the response he got that he’s decided to pursue the idea full-time. And that means that after five years in town as a DJ, a student at CofC, and a member of the college’s a capella group the Chucktown Trippintones, he’s decided to leave town to follow his dream. “I’ve seen firsthand how powerful sound can be in that environment, and I’m looking to take the next step and pursue that as my living,” he says. “So I kind of feel like I need to take a break from Charleston for a while. I’m going to take a month or two to gather my thoughts and set up in a new spot and make my plan from there. I just feel like I’m ready to explore a change of scenery.” He plans on pulling out all the stops for his farewell show, however, and he’ll even combine his twin musical interests. “I’m going to let loose on an intense, uplifting DJ set,” he says, “but there’s also going to be an after party for the Chucktown Trippintones. They’re having a reunion show. So I’m thinking I can do some pretty cool improv looping with the vocal stuff at the end.” —Vincent Harris SATURDAY
TRIBUTE | Lowcountry Music Hall of Fame
w/ Ronnie Garvin Tribute Band
Sun. Nov. 20
2 p.m.
Free
Hanahan Amphitheater
Ye Old Music Shop owner Michael Davis founded the Lowcountry Music Hall of Fame last year in order to highlight and give proper praise to figures who’ve been important to the history of Charleston’s rich music scene. This weekend he’ll honor a long list of new inductees, including Ronnie Garvin. “He was really the first rock ‘n’ roll star to come out of Charleston,” Davis says. “He played in a band called Stranger, and they had a hit song called ‘Swamp Music’ back in the ’80s.” Other inductees include 96 Wave founder Woody Bartlett, Windjammer owners Bobby Ross and Malcolm Burgis, original owners of the Music Farm Kevin Wadley and Carter McMillan, and Joe Wilson, who owned Modern Music in the ’70s and is, according to Davis, the best jazz guitar player in South Carolina. Davis will also induct TJ Phillips (“Probably the biggest DJ in this area for 30 years”), Customs 4+2 (“The longest-running band — 55 years — in the state”), Fat Cat Productions’ Bubba Taylor, and Bob Shipley. “Bob was a huge promoter who used to own Desperado and the Plex and was very instrumental in the initial 96 Wave concerts,” Davis says. “He’s done a lot for the whole music community.” There will be one posthumously awarded accolade for Duke Roberts. “He was a famous guitar player in the ’50s and ’60s in Charleston,” Davis says. “And people still talk about this guy. He was a tremendous talent.” Bryn Wilson, David McIntyre, Mark Blewer, and Joe Fisher will perform at the award night as the Ronnie Garvin Tribute Band, and Uncle Miles Crosby and Richard Todd, former 96 Wave personalities, will co-host the evening. —Kelly Rae Smith SUNDAY
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