Category Archives: Music.

Izzy Almeida set to bring another captivating Hunters performance to BottleTree.

Hunters returns to BottleTree on Thursday, August 15. The band will take the stage second on a bill that includes three acts; Hunx and His Punx will headline, while The Shine Brothers will open. Doors are at 8 p.m. with the first band taking the stage at 9 p.m. Tickets are $10 at the door.

I spoke to Izzy Almeida, the band’s captivating lead vocalist about her style and when the band expects to followup its debut EP with its first full-length. And cassettes. We talked about cassettes.

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Broments, 2012.

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Broments, 2012. (or This Year-End Blog is Mostly Top Tens and Photos)

This annual blog post which began on MySpace, shifted to tumblr and has now found its home at my own site hosted by WordPress has been detailed, hopeful, resilient and depressing over the last three years. But, as I said last year, that was a trilogy. And the trilogy reached its conclusion in 2011. There were Ewoks.

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Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires take BottleTree stage on Thursday.

Lee Bains III lives in Atlanta now, but he’ll always consider Birmingham home. The native’s band is still based in the Magic City. The band is part of an Alabama scene making national waves. It’s Southern garage and blues rock sound follows in the footsteps of Drive-By Truckers,

Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit and Alabama Shakes, catching the attention of publications like

Rolling Stone

The band opens for Pujol on Thursday at BottleTree Cafe. Doors open at 9 p.m. and tickets are $10. I spoke to Lee about that scene, his other band, The Dexateens, and his obsession with water, which he can be seen carrying around in a gallon jug before each show.

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Who to see at Secret Stages: Birmingham’s K.L.U.B. Monsta.

In its second year, Secret Stages can still be an overwhelming festival. With over 80 bands and comedians performing in Birmingham’s Historic Loft District over two days in May, people sometimes have a difficult time choosing which emerging acts to see.

The easy answer is “all of them,” but it’s not practical. The festival has a lineup with enough diversity to satisfy every taste: rock, country and hip-hop acts from every corner of America invade bars and clubs like Matthew’s Bar & Grill, Pale Eddie’s Pour House, Metro Bar, Das House, Rogue Tavern, Steel Urban Lounge, and the Wine Loft. VIP weekend passes are $60, while a general admission weekend pass is $25. Day passes are $15. All passes allow admittance to all bars that are part of the festival. Tickets can be purchased in advance at www.secretstages.net.

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PHOTOS: Show Choir Nationals 2012 (or the Time I Met John Oates of 80’s Pop Group Hall and Oates)

I think this photo of me with John Oates earned me more likes than I have ever squeezed out of a Facebook post. I’m kind of mad about the guy from Painted Blind, a local Nashville band who slipped me their cd, photobombing me.

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Forgotten Broments (or More Reflections of 2011)

I thought of a lot of wildly awesome moments from 2011 that I neglected to include amid the epic story of love and theft, career and disaster, trials and travel. I also neglected some records I wish I had included in my list of “Best of.” So this follow up post is 100% awesome, and mostly just photos and lists.

Like the photo above, where Blair sprang 20th row seats to the Braves v. Cubs game in August on me for my birthday. But it wasn’t just any Braves/Cubs game. In this game:

– Dan Uggla broke the Braves hit-streak at 32, by going 3-3 with 2 HR

– Chipper Jones, Jose Constanza and Freddie Freeman all homered

– Bobby Cox had his jersey retired

– Carlos Zambrano was tossed, from the mound, in the 5th for throwing at Chipper

Braves won 10-4. Mike Minor got the win. Continue reading

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2011 Broments (or Return of the Jedi)

Each year, I move farther from the events that shaped me. And still, I think I’ve made good on the promises made to myself when I left Rogersville after high school and, completely unaware, never looked back.

“You can throw me in the Colbert County jail house. You can throw me off the Wilson Dam. But there ain’t much difference in the man I wanna be and the man that I really am.” – Never Gonna Change, Drive-By Truckers

When juxtaposed with 2009 and 2010, I suppose 2011 is Return of the Jedi to ’09’s A New Hope and ’10’s Empire Strikes Back – complete with Ewoks. The trilogy of my most recent three years has been an epic journey of how to deal with circumstance and rebirth. Then, perhaps 2011 was its own trilogy, with each third of months representing its own stage of an entire life. This year has been a remarkable dichotomy of blessing and curse, and it’s final days have been an epic reflection of how far we’ve come. Continue reading

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