Thursday Looks Good To Me [Gallery]

Before I even attempt to go any further I need to get something off my chest. Whoever decided that ‘maring on a Thursday night was a good idea is (was?) a twat. It may have started well, but it ended like this…

The hangover I had on Friday was soul-crushing. If they’re willing do that to themselves on a weekly basis, the majority of people are obviously better people than I, or at least have better self-control when it comes to the tequila and Jaegermeister.

Anyway back at the ranch, Thursday saw me at The Bean Republic for Vamp Entertainment’s Artist Showcase of Jerry & the Bandits and Acoustic Groove Machine. The showcase happens every second Thursday at Bean Republic on Corlett Drive. Think Wolves Cafe’s acoustic Howl music nights, but in a basement with not too many people in the audience (for now) beyond close friends of the band that were probably coerced into going. While that may seem a bit naff, scale really is one of its charms. You don’t have to strain to hear the band over people who are obviously just there because it’s where everyone goes on a Thursday. It just carries that air of a private show that, with a few little white lies here and there, you can brag to your friends about. It helps that, unless you know for a fact the event is happening, you would never know it was going on.

Sure, a few notes may drift up the staircase, but with no signage and people front of house just hanging out nonchalantly, it could be just another night. You really get that feeling of having discovered something new and exciting, exactly the kind of “I knew it before it got big” rush that some people crave.

Jerry and his bandits (two of whom were gorgeous I might add – not sure if that is actually safe to say considering one of them is a mate’s sister) were intriguing. A simple four person arrangement consisting of guitar; bass; general percussion in the form of a tambourine, shaker things and a single drum; and the Pièce de Résistance, a saxophone played by a blonde girl. They managed to get me chair dancing (a pretty good achievement for a folk band) and I really want to see where they go with this project. Just whatever you do, don’t listen to the live demo on their Facebook page because the lyrics are cringeworthy and it really isn’t a good representation of how much fun this band is.

Acoustic Groove Machine were pretty decent, and obviously a band that has been playing together for a few years. They just didn’t grab me, and I don’t mean to sound cynical and to be honest a bit dickish, but folk/general acoustic guitar music/alt.folk (their own genre description) just doesn’t grab me anymore. At the end of the day it’s all a bit of a muchness. Don’t get me wrong, it was pleasant and enjoyable, but certainly not mind-blowing.

Needless to say that if that was where my night ended I would have been pretty happy with life, but like Fast & The Furious, I had about 11 more gears left to shift and heading to Kitcheners for Dune Rats seemed like a good idea. Having missed their first stint in the country and being a pretty big fan I was, to say the least, keen. I had also heard some very good things about Another-Day favorite The Moths, but according to true Alex style I somehow ended up taking a million years to get there and missed them, only arriving as The Dunies were setting up for their set.

The Dune Rats, while playing again what I would call pretty generic surf rock/surf punk/more obviously made up genres (because you know you’re not a real band until you’ve defined your own genre) have something that Acoustic Groove Machine are lacking: that High School house party nostalgia factor. That and the fact that even the most generic fast-paced punk-inspired rock can induce punch dancing in even the most uncoordinated person (me).

Thursday night all went downhill from there, and then this happened.