Music reporter Vincent Harris gives an inside look at upcoming music events in the Greenville Community with his weekly Sound Bites.
Saturday, August 17
Silver Tongue Devils, w/ Boo Hag and Her Pilots
Radio Room,
110 Poinsett Hwy., Greenville
8 p.m.
$7
If you’re a fan of the Upstate rockers Silver Tongue Devils, you’ll notice a new voice on their just-out new single, “Bad Habits.” You might also notice that the band has morphed from a heavy Southern-rock juggernaut into a looser, Aerosmith-style rock and roll band with some sharp twin-guitar interplay. That shift is courtesy of a lineup change that saw bassist Jonas Fiebinger and lead singer TJ Jones join the band. With Jones handling vocal and frontman duties, that freed up guitarists Michael Miller and Duncan Morrow to concentrate on the riffs while Fiebinger and drummer Jesse James Worley kept the rhythms tight but loose. “Our music was on the heavier side before,” Miller says. “We were a rock and roll band, but it wasn’t that fun, bouncy, Stones-Aerosmith rock. And Duncan and I, we weren’t really singers; we were guitar players who could sing. This is more in the vein of those great ‘70s bands. It’s still rockin, but the music has more of that Aerosmith feel because we’re able to be guitar players now and focus on our jobs.”
Sunday, August 18
Woodstock 50, featuring Randomonium, Rob Seel, Chris Reynolds, The Jack Greer Band, The Main Street Band, Big Blue Planet, See Alice & Fine Line
Gottrocks,
200 Eisenhower Dr., Greenville
4 p.m.
$5
Randomonium has spent years molding themselves into a variety band that can handle all genres and decades and still deliver the goods, and they often deliver said goods with a goofy sense of humor, a solid theme and some wacky costumes. But that had this one fan who would come to their shows, talk to them afterwards and express a kind of disappointment. “He was really big into the ‘60s,” says Randomonium vocalist Heidi Chapman of their talkative fan. “In fact, whenever he came to see us, he would say that he liked us, but he wished we’d do more ‘60s music.” Rather than tell the guy to buzz off, though, the band decided to bring a little more ‘60s into their act, and what better way to do that than with a show celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock Festival? So the band found a Sunday in August at Gottrocks that fit the bill, recruited some friends of theirs, including The Jack Greer Band, Big Blue Planet and Fine Line, and starting prepping songs by Joe Cocker, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and more of the classic rock deities who played the original festival. “We love costumes and themes and involving the community,” Chapman says. “We love playing music, but we really love playing music with other people. To us, this feels true to the spirit of the original festival.”
Friday, August 16
TPP Events presents Satori Tree, w/ Bad Ties, Cayla Fralick and Connor Brunson
Eighth State Brewing Company,
400 Augusta St., Greenville
7 p.m.
Free
Spartanburg’s Satori Tree has all the trappings of a power-trio, with guitarist Justus Rollins laying down heavy-gauge riffs over the muscular rhythm section of Noah Lytle (bass) and Kolby Carrouth (drums). But if you listen more closely to their music, you’ll notice that there’s some funk in those rock rhythms, “I’d call what we do some form of alternative-funk,” Rollins says. “It’s very groove based music. And being a three-piece has given all of us a really perfect balance in everything we’ve worked on. It’s the ideal setup for the kind of music we play.” As a guitarist, Rollins is far more interested in creating a mood with his six-string than he is in spinning out dazzling solos, something he readily admits to even if he doesn’t quite know why he does it. “Atmosphere is always a priority over soloing,” he says. “I’m not sure where that comes from, but I’ve always been interested in how sound can shift someone’s mood or experience.”
