Salt Lake City Upcoming Concerts: Alternative Press Tour, Apples in Stereo, John Scofield,The Locust

By Brian Staker, 3-29-07

Alternate Press Tour

For the last twenty years, Alternative Press magazine has been one of the standard bearers in the alternative music press. So it’s just natural that they sponsor their own tour featuring ‘Bands You Need To Know.’ As with all music magazines, they have their own bias, ala Magnet’s scholasticism, Harp’s harpiness or Rolling Stone’s insistence on old fart hippy writers who don’t know anything about current trends in music. Or the Gucchiones’ creation of a magazine as second-rate in music (Spin) as their other magazine is in the skin trade.

Alternative Press has always been way less hip than they thought they were, even when they hired local uber-hipster John Peccorelli in the mid-90’s. But in this case, they somehow managed to have some bands it wouldn’t hurt you to have a passing familiarity with. Cute Is What We Aim For added much needed irony to the emo genre, as well as truth in advertising, as you’ll just want to give their cheeks a good squeeze. Circa Survive is one of the key bands of the new prog punk movement of the last several years. As Tall As Lions may be one of the few bands that could make you think twice about spending your live entertainment dollar on Apples in Stereo, updating that band’s timeless influence for the new kids. Newcomers Envy On the Coast are the only one of the bunch that don’t add much to their chosen genre, in this instance emo, but give them time.

March 31, In the Venue
Also appearing:
March 30, Boise ID (Big Easy)
April 2, Englewood CO (Gothic Theater)

Apples in Stereo **Staker’s Pick O’the Week!**

Apples (the fruit) have been a symbol of musical innocence lost and found as far back as the Beatles bequeathed their legendary label, on up to the corporation that crowned its benchmark product the MacIntosh and for many of us today, the main vendor of musical entertainment through its iTunes and iPods. So it’s fitting that Denver venture Apples In Stereo sprung from the same nomenclaturary tree, about a baker’s dozen years ago.

Maybe founder Robert Schneider hasn’t been quite as innovative as the Fab Four or Steve Jobs, but his musical invention has been influential far beyond just listeners of his own poppy band. How many musicians, even indie rock ones, have started their own movement? His Elephant 6 collective, loosely bound together by their own individualistic takes on sixties psychedelic pop, has engendered some of the most original and creative voices in indie rock in the last decade, from the musical cubism of Olivia Tremor Control to the surreal poetry of Jeff Mangum’s Neutral Milk Hotel to the dense musical miniatures of Elf Power (coming April 23). Even the names of these bands just conjure up hallucinatory images.

But back to the Apples. Schneider’s own band combines delicious harmonies reminiscent of the Beach Boys with crisp guitar riffs to create their own cloud-free tone. After several years on hiatus, they reassembled last year to release New Magnetic Wonder on actor Elijah Wood’s Simian label. Every once in a while a band’s sound will be described as infectious, but hearing this combo will render you incapable of not humming, and immune to any other band’s infestation (see the Locust). Watch for NewWestEvents’ Colin Hickey’s pal John Dufilho (ex-Deathray Davies) as new drummer. And keep an ear cocked for Schneider’s toe-tapping ode to Stephen Colbert, “Stephen, Stephen.”

March 31, The Depot
Also appearing:
March 30, Boise ID (Neurolux)
April 1, Denver CO (Bluebird Theater)

John Scofield

The 1970’s saw a renaissance in jazz guitarists, a new generation emerging largely from the Berklee School of Music in Boston. In addition to stylistic chameleon Bill Frisell and Pat Metheny, commonly mistaken for new age but far more intelligent and eclectic, there was John Scofield, the most rock-influenced of the bunch. So much so that he has worked with Soul Coughing and the hip-hop flavor of Sex Mob.

And 2005’s That’s What I Say (Verve) paid tribute to Ray Charles by way of an inspired set of covers. This is an exemplary set of his work to see what to expect live: he can turn at times from the obtuse and abstract, arcane yet lyrical lines, yet alternately straight-ahead and rhythmic. This is one more addition to the most time-honored showcase in town for the best of the jazz world.

April 2, Sheraton Hotel
Also appearing:
April 6, Boulder CO (Mackie Auditorium)

The Locust

Is it possible for the Locust to live up to their name? That is to say, can they create the musical analogy of an insect pestilence? Well, you know the punk rock name game; if it sounds unendurably painful or noxious, it’s good! Having formed in 1995, by now the Locust’s listeners have been enduring a ten-year plague. How to describe their sound? Take a bit of the California punk of the Dead Kennedys, the daftly theoretical artsiness of Devo, and some of the electronic squawk of mid-period Ministry, they take their combination of influences and push them further than any of their foregoers.

Wrapped tightly in black from head to toe, and especially head, making them indeed resemble some kind of insect from outer space, the Locust are a terrifying spectacle. With songs like “Full Frontal Obscurity” and “Tower of Mammal” from this year’s release New Erections (Anti), you can also see the wickedly dark sense of humor lurking behind the machinery.

April 3, Club Sound
Also appearing:
April 4, Denver CO (Marquis Theater)