Singer-songwriter

Rob Martin - Outside
Rob Martin - Speak
Rob Martin - To The Lighthouse

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Three folk-pop fruitcakes from the woods of North Carolina; for fans of Joanna Newsom, Devendra, and the Decemberists. Hometown indie-folk duo Birdlips open.

Bowerbirds - Beneath Your Tree
Bowerbirds - Northern Lights

Birdlips - Tire Chains
Birdlips - Some Kind Of Death

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CD release show for the new EP from the guitar-grit indie rockers and self-avowed space-cadets; “It’s definitely indie dance-rock, but there’s almost a minimalist style to it,” says new drummer Kyle Woolard, who you might also know from his other band Uncle Jemima. “It’s watertight — there’s nothing there that doesn’t need to be there.” Nonetheless, some of the new Brenner-produced tracks come off harder than he describes, somewhere between newer Muse and pocket-protector STP. Similarly celestially-minded local quartet Corsair and songwriter Travis Elliott open.

Newly re-recorded:
Astronomers - Or Maybe It’s Nothing
Astronomers - Perpetual Emotion
Astronomers - Stratagem

Older:
Astronomers - The Singularity
Astronomers - Shoes
Astronomers - My Hologram
Astronomers - Fermata

Corsair - Last Night On Earth
Corsair - Space Is A Lonely Place
Corsair - Starcophagus

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Photo by Andrew Shurtleff

Space-lovers who take their cues from Iron Maiden and 70’s rock. The Great Eastern and Bowie-loving glam-rockers Red Satellites open.

Corsair - Last Night On Earth
Corsair - Space Is A Lonely Place
Corsair - Starcophagus

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Eight-legged indie-folk somewhat fashioned after Joanna Newsom from New York songwriter Jane Herships, former guitarist for Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson. Also featuring Magdyn Osh and a solo set from Arbouretum singer Dave Heumann.

Dave Heumann - Two Soldiers

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Offbeat alt-rock quartet Soul Coughing dissolved, fittingly, just as the 90’s faded into the 00’s, but poetic frontman Mike Doughty managed to flip their implosion into a viable solo career within about six months. His last couple albums have moved toward thicker radio-friendly pop production than the sparseness his fans grew used to, but the just-released Sad Man Happy Man tones it back down again and zeroes in on the acoustic skeletons and the programmed beats slated to move into the foreground with his upcoming electronic album Dubious Luxury.

New York singer-songwriter Porter Block opens with tunes co-written by several of his Brooklyn neighborhood’s finest musicians.

Porter Block - Youth’s Magic Horn
Porter Block - Got To Get Back

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Pitchfork once praised this funky Miami dance-rock duo, which has opened for both Girl Talk and Animal Collective, as “the right balance between magnet school and special ed” while simultaneously chastising them for “the worst name since Ninja High School;” local opener DBB Plays Cups makes a strong showing with that last one too. Also featuring Giant Cloud. Hoo boy. Come on, guys.

Awesome New Republic - Alleycat

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Catchy-ass guilty-pleasure NYU electro-pop-rap, occasionally filthy and/or in the spirit of Brazilian 2007 dance-rock sensations CSS, and probably the only band we’ve heard from all year which willfully compares themselves with the Black Eyed Peas. Local dance-rockers Bear War open.

Menya - Philly Gurls
Menya - Oh
Menya - Loose
Menya - Diana (I Heart You)

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If you’ve been following our occasional checkup chats, which you totally should be, you probably already know that local guitarist Eli Cook maintains roughly equivalent levels of enthusiasm for acoustic early proto-blues (see 2005’s Miss Blues’es Child), 90’s Seattle grunge (2007’s not-particularly-traditional alt-rock record Electricholyfirewater, and New Orleans R&B (the latest incarnation of his power trio). With the record released here, Static In The Blood, we get another angle: the singer-songwriter. Cook spent two years cooking up these seventeen tracks alone, playing almost all the instruments himself, and says they’re bluesy, but not actually blues per se.

Paradoxically, this will probably continue to make him even less marketable to those rare purists looking for someone they can call a blues guitarist without needing a footnote, but those people should put a sock in it anyway (as should you, if you’re thinking of complaining about spending your Saturday night up on Route 29 — this is definitely the Rivals show to catch).

Book Of Job opens, followed by sets by Eli both as a soloist and with the trio.

Eli Cook - Static In The Blood

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Old-school UK funk quartet The New Mastersounds, now hitting their ten-year anniversary, has been anchored for the past decade by the astonishing pocket of bassist Pete Shand through gigs alongside Matisyahu, the Crowes, and the Peas. Keep your fingers crossed for their 2007 instrumental cover of Roots Manuva’s “Witness (1 Hope),” whose bobbling bassline has been begging for a stoner-jam reinterpretation forever. This should be a no-brainer for Daptone fans.

The New Mastersounds - Thermal Bad [live]

East Ponce Soul Faction opens.

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In all the lamenting of lost venues, everyone seemed to forget the Chapel, which unexpectedly started hosting shows a few years back from Sarah White, Le Loup, and Ben Chasny’s Six Organs Of Admittance (which, mercifully, did not cost nearly as much as you might think).

Now, praise the Lord, it comes roaring back — figuratively, that is, since the great K Records‘ act Mount Eerie is actually an indie-folk project. Phil Elverum’s latest album touches on both field recordings and ambient black metal, though, so maybe there’s a roar here after all.

Mount Eerie - Between Two Mysteries

Opening: fellow K songwriter Tara Jane O’Neil, and Stephen Steinbrink, the (extremely) young Phoenix-based pop songwriter formerly known as French Quarter whose latest album is available as either a digital download or — wait for it — VHS. Crazy kids!

Stephen Steinbrink - Wet Cloud
Stephen Steinbrink - Warning
Stephen Steinbrink - The Cops
Stephen Steinbrink - Neighbors In The Bedroom
Stephen Steinbrink - My Cacoon
Stephen Steinbrink - A Set Of Hours

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Former Meat Puppets tour-mates and recent Kill Rock Stars signees The Shaky Hands thumb their noses at the mania typical of the indie rock bands constantly manufacturing ways to come across as progressive and instead resort to the simplistic and straightforward guitar parts that gave us Tom Petty and the Strokes. Case in point: Nick Delffs spent a month and a half in India shortly before recording their latest album Let It Die and didn’t fill it with tabla and sitar flourishes.

The Shaky Hands - Allison And The Ancient Eyes

Fresh-faced indie rock locals Pompadour open with a dance-friendly set.

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As you may know from his previous Tea Bazaar shows, Brooklyn songwriter Tavo Carbone used to take his pop and folk tunes on tour with a revolving-door band and often with outlandish instruments (glockenspiel, accordion, etc). Things have settled down recently, though, so now we have Horse’s Mouth, the new stable band which should prove to be a) tighter and b) louder (we heard all that straight from the, er, original source).

Tavo Carbone - Boxcar Serenade
Tavo Carbone - Off To Hawaii
Tavo Carbone - Blue Boats On Black Lakes
Horse’s Mouth - As I Climb In The Horse’s Mouth

With The Invisible Hand and Preacher.

Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand - There’s Room In My Will

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Pianist Rachel Grimes (part of the folkish Louisville chamber-pop band Rachel’s, though confusingly not actually the namesake) performs her new pastoral-themed new abstract classical album Book Of Leaves and, if we’re lucky, maybe a few of Erik Satie’s intoxicating Gnossiennes, which she’s reportedly brought out at other shows on this tour.

Rachel Grimes - Bloodroot

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Folk legend Jesse Winchester is known as much for his 1967 draft dodge as for his tunes, which include several to garner endorsements from The Band’s Robbie Robertson, eventual covers by bigwigs like Jimmy Buffett and Reba McEntire, and his own hit “Yankee Lady.” Even though he lives in Charlottesville, this is his first serious show around these parts since the release of Love Filling Station earlier this year, the release party for which was canned when Gravity Lounge abruptly closed back in April.

Jesse Winchester - Wear Me Out

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Electronic improv jams

J3 Project - Heady Salute
J3 Project - Everybody Get Down
J3 Project - Diminished
J3 Project - Breakin’ Out

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This remarkable DJ duo makes gorgeously languid electronica which owes as much to jazz and exotic samples from Indian and Brazilian traditional folk forms as to more straightforward trip-hop. The occasional reggae backbeats and Jamaican accents, in particular, can sometimes feel obnoxiously contrived, but overall these guys are the reigning champions when it comes to layering goopy keyboards over surdos and berimbaus, a task which requires a 13-piece band when they move from your headphones to the stage.

Thievery Corporation - Radio Retaliation
Thievery Corporation - Sound The Alarm
Thievery Corporation - The Numbers Game

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Still flying high with the release of Hundreds Of Lions, her new album on Ani’s Righteous Babe Records, cheeky Fredricksburg-spawned folk-rock guitarist Erin McKeown gets to tear up a brand new stage in the room she’s already grown familiar with over the last few years. With singer-songwriter Jill Sobule, whose main claim to fame lately has been that she released a single called “I Kissed A Girl” when Katy Perry was all of ten years old (and thus probably not yet kissing girls, presumably, although you never know).

Erin McKeown - The Foxes

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Seven-piece San Francisco indie-Americana band Or, The Whale sticks to the softer side of country-rock but don’t shy away from intricate vocal harmonies, pedal steel parts, or washboard percussion.

Or, The Whale - Shasta
Or, The Whale - Rusty Gold
Or, The Whale - No Love Blues
Or, The Whale - Never Coming Out
Or, The Whale - Datura
Or, The Whale - Black Rabbit

Also featuring noisy New York pop trio Grooms.

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Powerful indie pop singer Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn was once sort of an Ingrid Michaelson with street cred, at least until one of her songs popped up on So You Think You Can Dance. Norfolk and Western open, by which we mean the indie-folk rock band, not the usual train rumbling across the tracks up by the warehouse, but maybe that too.

Mirah - Education

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K Records projects both, the occasionally long-winded but mostly experimental Curious Mystery give Americana a psychedelic kick in the pants using junkyard-improv instruments, while LAKE’s most recent set of upbeat indie-pop clumps was wrapped up in a title derived from a Dr. Seuss book.

The Curious Mystery - Black Sand
The Curious Mystery - Strong Swimmers
Lake - Madagascar

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Blues and Americana from the Brooklyn guitarist and songwriter whose latest album drew in guests like Jolie Holland and a Be Good Tanya.

Will Scott - Stain Lifter
Will Scott - Make Her Love Me
Will Scott - Gnawbone

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Here we have one of the most formidable indie lineups the Tea Bazaar has had in a long time — and if you’ve been following their schedule, you know that’s really saying something. tUnE-yArDs is the minimalist recording/maximalist caps-lock alter ego of former puppeteer Merrill Garbus, whose hissy uke-and-loop folk tunes as documented on the DIY LP Bird-Brains recently landed her a slot opening for this week’s reigning kings of indie rock, the Dirty Projectors.

tUnE-yArDs - SUNLIGHT

Flanking, Princeton, a band fronted by twins Matt and and Jesse Kivel which serves as a sort of rebirth of Vampire Weekend circa 2007, before they allegedly jumped the shark due to overexposure, then more heavily layers pop atop the exotic influences in an attempt to ensure that they’ll never overstay their welcome.

And finally, songwriter Nelly Kate, who writes her tunes using unorthodox tools like a Casio and a typewriter.

Nelly Kate - Sounding3
Nelly Kate - Soft Things
Nelly Kate - Often To Cry Yourself
Nelly Kate - Compassion
Nelly Kate - Found Sounds
Nelly Kate - Dink

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Folk duo

Gene and Gayla Mills - Ghost Town
Gene and Gayla Mills - Fool’s Gold

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Thoughtful avant-garde Richmond jazz quintet with an irrepressible love for all things narrative and cinematic, so much so that it informs their original tunes. Here, however, they’ll be playing tunes from the 70’s crime flicks so beloved by Tarantino as well as themes from movies by John Carpenter, the man responsible for The Thing, Halloween, and Escape From New York.

Glows In The Dark - Through A Glass Darkly
Glows In The Dark - The Silence
Glows In The Dark - John Carpenter Medley

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