A Sunday Conundrum
Most of the shows I feature here take place on Friday, Saturday, or the occasional Thursday. These are the typical “going out nights” of the weekend and, therefore, offer the biggest reasons to get out to a show. Rare is the Sunday Funday attraction but, oddly enough, this week has two of them and I wringing my hands over which one I am going to attend.
The first, and generally most obvious attraction to me, is The Reverend Horton Heat at The Spinning Jenny Friday night. For those unfamiliar, The Reverend is a Texas rockabilly god, adding punk and surf elements to a sound that is uniquely described as “psychobilly”. This is music that is brash, loud, and downright exhilarating with tracks like “Bales of Cocaine”, “Galaxy 500”, and “Baddest of the Bad” being everything I want out of music.
On a personal note, I first saw The Reverend at The Vogue Theater in Indianapolis in the early 2000’s and have lost track of how many venues and states I have seen him perform at since. I would venture to guess that The Reverend Horton Heat is in a three-way race with Todd Snider and Andrew Bird for the nationally touring artist I have seen live the most in my life. Oddly enough, however, I have not seen him live in over ten years and Sunday night at The Spinning Jenny gives me the perfect opportunity to rectify that lapse.
Not so fast, says Sunday night at The Radio Room…
When I was on this year’s selection committee for the Upstate Music Awards, one of the biggest surprises was how many local artists I was introduced to that I had never heard of before. I scour the local music calendar week in and week out for this column but somehow there were nominees that I had never heard of and had no idea even existed on the local music scene. Some of these, admittedly, were entire forgettable but a few stood out as artists that made me ask “Why the heck haven’t I heard this before?” Two such artists are playing at The Radio Room Sunday evening, potentially throwing a huge wrench in my Reverend Horton Heat plans.
Sunday’s headliner is Sawyer Norman whose single “Blood Moon” is an indie rock earworm of epic proportions that was one of the biggest surprises to come out of all of my UMA nominated listening. This track is written and produced far beyond what I would ever expect from a first single from a local artist and I have listened to it countless times since the first time I heard it. His subsequent EP, In Everything, Under the Surface! shows an immense talent that I cannot wait to hear more of. I have been looking for his name on a venue’s calendar for months and Sunday night that opportunity has finally arrived.
Just to add to the allure, he is accompanied by Aubrey Key who is another local indie rock artist who caught my ear and made me wonder if I am doing my job at all if such talent has eluded my radar on the local scene. Rather than beat myself up over that, I prefer to chalk it up to the depth of talent our local scene has to offer and one’s inability to keep up with all of it at once. We tell ourselves what we must in order to sleep at night, right?
So, the decision comes down to this… Do I take the rare chance to see the big name and one of my favorite artists ever after an over ten-year hiatus? Or, do I get out and support the emerging local artists and experience something brand new to me? I suppose I could clone myself and do both like that old Michael Keaton movie but I am not sure I have that kind of time between now and Sunday so I probably need to make a decision here.
Seriously though, I have no idea what show we are going to go see on Sunday and I like to file that under “good problems”. Both of these shows offer entirely different experiences and there are no wrong answers, although there will be a tinge of regret over whichever I miss. Either way, we are lucky to live in a time and place where we have these options, not to mention all of the other Upstate shows to look forward to in the week ahead. Check them out on the iOnGreenville music calendar and, as always, enjoy the show, wherever it may be.
