FURIOUS FOLK | Good Morning Bedlam
Wed. Oct. 23
5 p.m.
Free
Edmund’s Oast Brewing Co.
The Minneapolis quartet Good Morning Bedlam has a recording-studio side and a live-performance side — and they’re quite different. On album, the band plays acoustic, bluegrass-influenced folk with dazzling vocal harmonies and a skillful instrumental approach. Onstage, they are essentially a sweet-sounding wrecking ball, pouring their hearts and a good bit of sweat into their live performances. The name they’ve chosen for what they do is “furious folk.” As beguiling as it can sound on their albums and singles, the most recent of which is the spare, fiddle driven ballad “The Haunting,” all bets are off once they get onstage. The vocal harmonies are still immaculate, but the approach is far more frenzied, though in a good-natured way. It’s probably the best approach for an indie band of any kind trying to earn their stripes: Develop a killer live show that puts your material across, so that you can make enough money to record said material. So that’s what Good Morning Bedlam has done, and they’re really good at it. That’s not to say that the band’s albums shouldn’t be investigated; they’re quite enjoyable, in fact, but it’s an entirely different experience from seeing them live. This is a band that was born for the stage, and they’ve crafted their acoustic-daredevil sound to be tight-but-loose, ragged-but-right, and high-wire precise. In fact, their sound is so full that it’s hard to believe there are only four of them up there. They often sound like a packed open-mic bluegrass jam session taking flight. —Vincent Harris WEDNESDAY
BLUES ROCK | Allman Betts Band
w/ Joanne Shaw Taylor and JD Simo
Wed. Oct. 23
8 p.m.
$35-$42.50
Charleston Music Hall
Duane Betts, Berry Oakley Jr., and Devon Allman might all be in the family business, but their new supergroup is not intended to be a tribute to their fathers’ legendary outfit. In fact, the Allman Betts Band has begun to create a musical legacy of its own with this year’s carefully-crafted LP, Down to the River. Recorded at the famed Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield, Ala., the album showcases an assortment of soulful tracks, including a convincing take on Tom Petty’s classic “Southern Accents.” During a recent phone conversation, Allman revealed that his own influences as a songwriter are all over the map: Iron Maiden, B.B. King, the Cure, Wings-era McCartney, and the literary works of J.D. Salinger, to name a few. When it came to music, Allman said that his dad always gave him enough space to be able to find his own way, and was never pushing any unsolicited advice. “He did tell me that you should never try too hard. Always do what feels natural.” That bit of wisdom is the ethos that guides the Allman Betts Band. “We wouldn’t be doing this if it didn’t feel right and we didn’t have a real chemistry between us,” Allman insists. As for the live show, Allman considers it an honor to be able to pay homage to the Allman Brothers Band with a few well-chosen covers over the course of an evening, so long as it’s done with integrity and class, and never becomes the focal point of what they do. —Kevin Wilson WEDNESDAY
PROGRESSIVE INDIE | Cubéo
w/ Kid Lake, Cicala Band, Child Blue Yonder
Thurs. Oct. 24
9 p.m.
$5
CBD Social
Cubéo is a recently formed band and they’re setting the scene for what they call “progressive indie rock,” with backgrounds in jazz, indie, and math rock. Their new EP, Follow Through, emphasizes that their guitar, accompanied by atmospheric language through instruments and vocals, is for the most part grandiose. “We all have ADHD, so staying focused on one vibe within a song isn’t really representative of what’s going on in our head all day long,” says singer/guitarist Landon Carter. “Get Down,” one of the three songs on the new EP, incorporates elements of psychedelia, progressive transitions, and melody to create an impressive track. The vocals are matched consistently with the transitions laid out through the five minute song, creating a vibrant sound. Although the band is currently inchoate, they have been performing at local venues in order to promote their distinct indie rock sound. “Indie rock is the kind of music we don’t feel is around yet,” says Carter. “We want to be a part of the start of it.” The four-person band hopes to become a better known entity in the Charleston music scene, which will make it all the more interesting to watch them grow to their set potential. —Matthew Keady THURSDAY
SOUTHERN SOUL | Jordan Igoe
w/ Danielle Howle and She Returns From War
Thurs. Oct. 24
9 p.m.
$8
The Royal American
Since 2014, Jordan Igoe has been giving her hometown music to enjoy. The Charleston-native multi-instrumentalist has a knack for capturing notes of soul, blues, and rock, intertwining them with her Southern roots. Her raw talent is undeniable and her ability to blur the lines between genres plays a role in each and every song. Her music covers the bases of relatability and leaves room for all emotions to be felt. “Pain is the easiest way to inspire writing,” Igoe says. “It’s definitely been a therapy for me my whole life.” She wants her music to be therapy for fans as well. “I hope people sing and dance to it, laugh and cry to it,” says Igoe. Coming from a family who created and consumed music, Igoe knew early on that the music world was the place for her. “I submitted a demo I made with a karaoke machine and a cassette tape in high school to the guitar club and started playing concerts at school,” Igoe says. The songwriter has always been dedicated to making music, and her new EP, Sober and Sorry, is a continuation of her passions. She’s ready to share her new music with us now, though we might not be the first to hear it. “I write silly jingles to myself and constantly sing to my dogs and cat, Sandwich, though they seem unamused,” Igoe says. Maybe even Sandwich will join the show on Thursday. —Abrie Richison THURSDAY
INDIE ROCK | Mt. Joy
Sat. Oct. 26
8 p.m.
Show is sold out
Music Farm
In late 2016, two high school friends named Matt Quinn and Sam Cooper put four songs that they’d recorded in producer Caleb Nelson’s living room on Spotify. They used the band name Mt. Joy (named after a mountain in Valley Forge National Park near Cooper’s childhood home), and it was a low-key launch by two guys who simply wanted an outlet for what they’d written. Neither of them had any plans to make Mt. Joy a permanent proposition. The two were headed in different directions; Cooper as a law student in their native Philadelphia and Quinn studying music management in Los Angeles. But a funny thing happened on the way to their separate lives; one of Mt. Joy’s songs, “Astrovan,” started getting added to playlist after playlist. The song, a laid-back, loping rocker that hinges on Quinn’s soul-soaked vocals and the lyric “Jesus drives an Astrovan,” paints a picture of a pleasantly stoned lord and savior following the Grateful Dead around. Over the next year, the song developed a life of its own, eventually racking up over 4.8 million streams. It was a gradual process, but Mt. Joy, a band that was essentially defunct, began attracting a lot of attention. Enough attention, in fact, that it drew the duo back together from their respective day jobs to write more songs, just in time for Rolling Stone to call the band “your new folk-rock heroes,” and for NPR to name Mt. Joy one of their Favorite New Artists of 2018. —Vincent Harris SATURDAY
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