WHAT: Boneyard Arts Festival
WHERE: Champaign-Urbana (Various Venues)
WHEN: Thursday, April 7th – Sunday, April 10th
Boneyard Arts Fest has rolled around again, and brings with it a ton of music in places that don’t usually host shows. Some of our favorites include Morgan Orion in a law office, percussion whiz Jason Finkelman at 10,000 Villages, a Friday-night warehouse party somewhere in Champaign, local trumpeter Ray Sasaki making his return to the Iron Post and a monster ten-hour (!!) show at Paradiso on Thursday, which features the awesome scuz-garage of Deathtram, among other acts. Take a gander at the full list of venues and performances over at the 40 North Site.
WHAT: Small Black, Iron Tigers
WHERE: Canopy Club ($8 adv.)
WHEN: Thursday, April 7th at 7:30 p.m.
Small Black got some major blog attention a little while back for the tune “Photojournalist“. The group’s debut full-length New Chain expands on the song’s hazy chillwave to great effect. Keep watching SP for an in-depth interview on Thursday morning. We also recommend sticking around late at Canopy if you’re feeling adventurous, as the somewhat elusive local act Elephants on Parade will play a rare show.
WHAT: Withershins, Brass Bed, The Poison Control Center, That’s No Moon
WHERE: Cowboy Monkey ($5)
WHEN: Thursday, April 7th at 9:30 p.m.
Louisiana’s Brass Bed are familiar to some as frequent Elsinore tour-mates, and Withershins and That No Moon is pretty awesome as far as local support goes, but the main attraction here is the Poison Control Center. The Iowa band play the same timelessly bouncy indie pop that everyone from Gentleman Auction House to Architecture in Helsinki has drawn from, and seriously, tell me this doesn’t look like a good time. It seems like there was a lot more of this stuff in town a few years back, so this marks a welcome return.
WHAT: Midnight Buffet Benefit with Duke of Uke, TomItAba, School for Designing a Society Players
WHERE: Red Herring ($5 or 1/2 hour dish duty)
WHEN: Saturday, April 9th at 10:30 p.m.
Benefit shows at the Herring tend to be extraordinary affairs — many of my best nights in high school were spent slugging down one dollar bottomless coffee and dancing my ass off in the Channing-Murray basement. You also get food (by the Catholic Worker House), face-painting and a kissing booth. Oh, and the Duke of Uke is playing.
WHAT: Daedelus, Tokimonsta, Shlohmo
WHERE: Canopy Club ($10 adv.)
WHEN: Sunday, April 10th at 9:00 p.m.
Daedelus has been making his brand of expressive electronica since long before Flying Lotus and Brainfeeder meant anything to your average hipster. His discography can be a bit challenging, but I recommend the excellent Exquisite Corpse if you’re a newcomer. The opening acts, San Francisco’s Tokimonsta and L.A. export Shlohmo are nothing to sneeze at either. If this is your sort of thing, you aren’t going to do much better than a bill like this.