This week's cool shows and music: Monsonia, Static Minds and more

This week's two best shows are tied to CD releases, and luckily for you, I have some music for you to check out before the shows.

The first is Monsonia, who will celebrate the release of "33.3," out now on Holidays for Quince, with a release party Friday, Nov. 12, at Nightlight. This record reminds me a lot of one of my all-time favorite bands, The Jesus Lizard, with a little Shellac and Honor Role thrown in. MAKE and Minor Stars are also on this show.

Also on the same night, Static Minds will celebrate their CD-release, "Electricity,"  with The Loners and Maldora at Kings. You can stream "Electricity" here.

Looking ahead, Brooklyn "transcendental black metalists" Liturgy will play with Nine Fingered Thug and Here Lies ... at Kings on Thursday, Nov. 18. They'll have a new album out on Thrill Jockey next year.


Finally, N.C. expats Future Islands, Lonnie Walker, NAPS and Veelee will be at Kings the following night, Nov. 19. Check out the Jason Urick remix of my favorite Future Islands song, "Tim Man," here.

Video of Static Minds from the J. Betski's Rocktoberfest

I have to apologize for the tardiness of this particular blog post. I'm dealing with several things right now (some good, some not so good) that are making blogging difficult. Regardless, here's the video from the Static Minds' rockin' Rocktoberfest performance. My picks for the shows of the week are the COC/Double Negative show tomorrow night at Kings, and the Birthday/Benefit for Steven with Royal Nites, Hank Sinatra, Richard Bacchus & the Luckiest Girls, the Hell No

and The Infamous Sugar Sunday at White Collar Crime. If things calm down a bit for me, maybe I'll see you out and about. More photos.


Static Minds at Rocktoberfest from Mann's World on Vimeo.

Static Minds episode 4 is out!

And it looks like a good one. In honor of our recent rainy spell, Joel and Erik hav mixed together Mudhoney, Howlin' Wolf and Neil Young among many others.

Check it out.

Catching up: Static Minds

Static Minds put on a great show Thursday night at Tir na Nog. Unfortunately the video I recorded didn't turn out well, so I thought I'd leave you with an .mp3 from the band's new three-song CD, which they were giving out at the show. If you like what you hear, you're in luck because the band is hoping to have a full vinyl release by the end of the year. See more photos. "Feel Good," by Static Minds 

Check out the Static Minds podcast!

Erik and Joel from Static Minds have just released their second podcast, full of songs from their favorite bands, including Status Quo and Guided by Voices. Sounds good, and makes me feel totally lazy! Check it out here!

Sweethearts go Static

Last night was the debut of Static Minds, which is essentially Suburban Sweethearts with The T's Andy Kerr on second guitar. I sort of assumed both bands would sound similar, but in fact Static Minds are much heavier. They certainly won over the crowd at Slim's. And a certain friend of mine remarked that Lucius is the only man in town who can get away with wearing a neckerchief. Here's a very dark video of the first song.
Static Minds from Mann's World on Vimeo. Opening up were The Huguenots from Chapel Hill, who have a '60s mod quality similar to The Names and The Booze, two great not-local bands I got to see this year. They're the ones who listed The Barbarians' "Moulty" as an influence. I got to the show after they began, so I don't know if they played that song or not, but I will personally buy each member of the band a PBR if they play it the next time I see them. Actually, I'll go ahead and put that offer out to any band in the Triangle. The only stipulations are that I have to be warned ahead of time so I can shoot video, and I will only do it once. And the drummer has to sing. Actually, the more I think about this, it might be better to have Sir Arthur do this song, and have Trent Bowles sing. Anyway, here's video of The Huguenots.

The Heugenots from Mann's World on Vimeo.

The Magic Babies headlined the show, but because I had to work early this morning, I cut out before Static Minds had finished.