Music Events Search – CL Recommends
The Steel Wheels, Anna Egge
Fri., May 24Country/Folk
ANA EGGE
Given her unusual upbringing, Brooklyn-based folk troubadour Ana Egge was bound to be a free spirit. Raised on a hot springs hippie commune in rural New Mexico, Egge learned to build her own guitar from her alternative school’s astrology teacher. Egge still plays that guitar today, singing about self-sufficiency, restlessness and the road in a clear, warm alto which suggests a harder edged Gillian Welch. Even when she’s being playful, as with her 2007 covers collection, Lazy Days, which focuses on songs about idleness, Egge’s catchy Americana harbors a haunted nourish streak. It’s this combination of easy-going panache and underlying edge that led peer Lucinda Williams to call Egge, “the Nina Simone of folk.” Egge’s road took an even harder turn in 2011 when she teamed with producer Steve Earle to create the LP Bad Blood, a clear-eyed examination of the mental illness that runs in her family. Even tainted with the ravages of madness, Egge’s songs retain graceful composure, effortless melodicism and a sense of hope. Consciously avoiding shock and melodrama, Egge’s unflinching examination of the heartland’s dark underbelly is tempered with acceptance and understanding.
$17.50
704-372-10006th Annual Snug 600
Fri., May 24, Sat., May 25 and Sun., May 26Pop/Rock
THE WOGGLES
Formed in Athens, Ga., in 1987, The Woggles are essentially a four-piece living-breathing-singing-jamming Nuggets box set impervious to the passing of time. From the matching outfits and preponderance of 7-inches to the stage-names — Professor Mighty Manfred, Flesh Hammer, Montague and Zorko — the mid-’60s are still the font of all things swinging. That also means there’s little difference in the garage-friendly blend of soul, big beat R&B, rock and surf from the band’s 1993 debut TeenDanceParty to its latest, this year’s The Big Beat. It’s all good fun, especially live in a packed sweaty club with a beverage or two under your belt. But, at least on record, it’s equally impossible not to sometimes wonder why you’re not listening instead to the early progenitors (“Maximum R&B”-era Who, Mitch Ryder, The Yardbirds, et al.) who did it first. So, you know, point being, see ’em live and quit thinking about it so much; better to just let the rock wash over you for the night and cleanse the bullshit away. With Temperance League, Modern Primitives and more as part of the 6th Annual Snug 600 which runs through Sunday; Vroom-Vroom!
Dillinger Escape Plan, The Faceless, Royal Thunder, I For One
Wed., May 29Pop/Rock
THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN
One of the most intriguing bands in all of metal, the DEP’s explosion of rock is interlaced with frenetic hardcore, prog rock and percussive inflections. The unrelenting noise will repel casual observers, but keen ears will be rewarded with a manic trip laden with shards of sounds. It’s an inventive barrage to be sure, but isn’t that the point when a band of musicians writes and plays music on their own terms, not bending even a millimeter for commercial gain? Over the years they’ve honed the sound and while the musicianship remains precise, even calculated, what ensues is the din of a restless herd of wild horses suddenly let loose out the gates. The freshly released recording, One of Us is the Killer, continues the momentum.
$15/$18
