It's been 5 years since the Barfly cartoon
began appearing in the pages of NUVO Newsweekly.
After drawing over 250 strips reviewing local music, Birdy’s Bar
and Grill, has put together the fourth annual showcase of live music
hand picked by me as a sampling of the best live music Indy has to
offer. The August 2nd multi-genre show begins at 9:30 pm and boasts
a diverse lineup that includes Indy’s best rock, Ska, Metal and Punk.
The Barfly strip was born four years ago after I drew a band flyer
for local blues-rock cover band Karen and The Beast. Instead of a
traditional band flyer I drew one in the form of a comic strip.
The strip was reprinted in NUVO Newsweekly and soon became a regular
feature in its music section. The line up for the August 2nd show
consists of five bands:

Prizzy Prizzy Please: Best Art Punk.
This band is so original and different and yet still grounded in a
punk attitude. I can think of no better way to describe them other
than “Art-punk”. They fuse elements of Soul, jazz and punk into a
rhythm heavy energetic sound that defies description. They’re arguably
the hottest buzz band in central Indiana right now. Come out and see
why you don’t want to be the last to jump on the Prizzy Prizzy Please
bandwagon.

Up!Scumbag: best local CD release.
Up!scumbag are easily the most prolific punk to come out of
Indianapolis. With 5 full lengths and a DVD released in a little over
5 years they are a songwriting machine. Their newest effort though
stands head and shoulders above all their previous releases. Every song
from beginning to end is a solid, catchy slice of punk energy.

AMO JOY:
The super hot buzz band will also make a special appearance before
embarking on a month long tour monday.  Amo Joy are a festive,
whimsical band  that should appeal to fans of  XTC, They Might Be
Giants or even Modest Mouse.  They’re known for handing out instruments
to the audience and getting them involved making every show a unique
listening experience.

Beta Male: Best Dance Rock.
When you take Vess Ruhtenburg (The Pieces, The Lemonheads, Action
Strasse) and P. David Hazel (Extra Blue Kind) and have them cook up a
stew of Alt-rock, electronica and glam you get the high energy, sexually
charged dance rock of Beta Male. The crowds for each Beta Male show
seem to grow exponentially as the word gets around that these guys are
the “next big thing”.

Hey Hey Melodica: Best Songwriting.
Most reviewers pigeonhole them as Folk because of their heavy use of
acoustic instruments. I think that doesn’t even begin to scratch the
surface of this Art-rock collective that uses a Melodica and
Glockenspiels while cooking up the most endearing and heartfelt songs
to come out of Indianapolis in a long time.

Hope you can make it!
-Wayne

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 7:42 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.