Stefan Hillsheim plays The Alamo this Monday for the Illinois Central Blues Club-sponsored Blue Monday performance.
I started last week’s column with a nod to the chilly weather, but this week it’s downright frigid, to put it nicely. The good news is both last weekend and the upcoming one brings a warmup just in time for all the live music action. Let’s go scrape the frost from the music listings and see what’s out there.
We begin our exploits with a nod of admiration and a shout of exhilaration to Marina V, a familiar name in our music scene, even though she’s been living in Southern California for decades making her music work in the industry. Last week the talented and industrious singer-songwriter and musician released her latest song, “Symphony and Metal,” worldwide on all music platforms. The lyrics deal with “resilience and never giving up,” and was co-written with her husband, drummer and collaborator, Nick Baker. The recording band also brings aboard longtime Marina V friends and well-known musicians Bruce Kulick from KISS and David Ellefson from Megadeth, along with composer Steve Horner arranging the strings plus garnering producer credits. Check out the song and share, add and all that stuff as much as you can, helping out our friend and shining light, while treating yourself to cool music as well.
Warming up on Friday night, as the temps rise so do the number of gigs with a solid 17 shows in the listings including Smokestacks riding the classic blues wagon into George Rank’s, Branded burning one at the Curve Inn, 3’s Company moving into Weebles, Blue Note Quintet jazzing it up with legendary saxophonist Buddy Rogers at Lime Street Cafe (they’re on for Saturday night as well) and Revel in Red roaring right down Motorheads’ big stage to name drop all the local bands in town.
Saturday is back on top these days as the leading contender for most music happening with some 30 spots on the calendar ranging in all kinds of musical directions. There are a couple of fine singer-songwriter styled acoustic shows going on in Petersburg with Ethan Taylor Stephenson at 1st & 3rd Wine Boutique (3-6) and Devin C. Williams and Cody Lee Moomey at Broadgauge (7:30 start time for the last event for now at this wonderful venue). The Blue Grouch goes heavy into the metal with a three-band extravaganza of Scattergun, Master Bastard and Black Season Witch, while BuK brings on the bang at Mowie’s Cue and Jeff Young and the Bad Grandpas tear it up at Brookhills (4-7). The blues duo of John Drake and Chris Camp roll into Buzz Bomb Brewing Co. and Thomas J. Beverly and Geoff Ryan do their duo at Bloom Wine for downtown gigs, while Kyle Valtille delivers his solo acoustic hits at Harvest Market Farmhouse Brews.
Sunday rhymes with funday so let’s commence with Frank Parker’s Jambalaya Jam at the remodeled Brewhaus (4-7) featuring jazz cats doing their thing with invites to performers to come sit in. Frank ran the original Jam/Jam on Mondays for years in the old Brewhaus days and is now back with his horn, making the live music magic live again.
We hardly ever make it to Monday, but you know, it also rhymes with funday, so here we go with Stefan Hillesheim blues-ing up the Alamo and Silas & Joel hosting their open mic at Brewhaus, just a block away from each other, while Al Kitchen cleans up at Fulgenzi’s.
Welcome to the thaw and see you next week.
