SPACE FOLK | Julie Slonecki
w/ Oh Jeremiah! and Bo Farish
Thurs. June 16
9 p.m.
$5
The Royal American
Julie Slonecki’s new album Apogee is a deeply meditative, startlingly sparse, heavily impressionistic work that’s different from anything else she has ever recorded. Her vocals are awash in eerie, ethereal echo and layered over slow, pulsing electronic beats and minimalistic synths. And it’s a fitting sound for the lyrics, which are more like allusive sound-bites than narrative stories. “When I was writing these songs, I liked to start with the instrumentation first and get that down and perfected before I put the vocals over the top,” says Slonecki, — who also performs in local comedy R&B outfit, Sexbruise?. “Not that the vocals took a back seat, but more so than my other albums, the songs have a lot fewer words. Each song has lines that I find very inspiring, but I consciously didn’t try to overrun the tracks with vocals, like you kind of hear on the radio a lot.” In fact, the only lyrical motif Slonecki latched onto on Apogee was an unearthly one. “I found that the music was kind of lending itself to the topic of space, which is an interest of mine anyway, just because of the electronic sounds,” she says. “The song ‘Great Expanse,’ for example, the sound of it to me came across like what I thought the edges of space might sound like if you tried to represent that emptiness.” —Vincent Harris THURSDAY
NIRVANA TRIBUTE | White/Bogan Duo
w/ Justin Osborne, Johnny Delaware, Keon Masters, Ward Buckheister, Josh Swain, Josh Roberts, Jordan Igoe, Lindsay Holler, Mackie Boles, Matt Dobie, Tom Leoncyk, Mike Sivili, Campbell Brown
Fri. June 17
9:30 p.m.
$10
Pour House
The White/Bogan Duo — keyboardist Ross Bogan (Sol Driven Train) and drummer Stuart White (Weigh Station) — has teamed up with an impressive list of local musicians to create Come As You Are, a night of electric and acoustic covers honoring the influential songwriting of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain. “I feel like every musician and listener has had a special connection to Nirvana at some point in their lives,” says Bogan. “Kurt was an amazing songwriter … It was his obsession with documentation, creative rhythm, and attitude that left behind a musical legacy.” The show will be an inventive exploration of the popularized grunge-rock sound Nirvana popularized. Musicians from bands like SUSTO, Brave Baby, the Royal Tinfoil, and Gaslight Street, just to name a few, will perform two to three Nirvana songs each, while Bogan and White take charge of the arrangements using their signature synths, pedals, and Fender Rhodes keyboard. “When I was revisiting all of this music, I was surprised to find how many of the songs I could still sing along to, and I hope everyone that goes shares that same experience,” says Bogan. “There will be screaming, broken strings, loud amplifiers, beautiful ballads, and pleasant surprises, all from your local favorites.” A portion of the proceeds from Come As You Are will go to the Lowcountry Ministries Fund created in response to the attack on Mother Emanuel. Also called the Palmetto Project, the fund’s purpose is to address issues of social justice and economic empowerment in mostly rural, under-served areas of Allendale, Hampton, Colleton, Jasper, Beaufort, and Charleston counties. —Graham Crolley FRIDAYt
HIP-HOP | Huger Street Hip-Hop
Sat. June 18
2 p.m.
Free
Palmetto Brewing
Slim COD and Mardy Says are artists in their own right, but together they make up Speakerbox, a local hip-hop duo that integrates jazz and funk elements into their sets a la Tribe Called Quest. They’ve joined forces to organize this weekend’s first ever Huger Street Hip-Hop show at Palmetto Brewing. The two have worked sound and production at Awendaw Green for years, so further submersing themselves into the local music scene has been only natural. Now they’re on a mission to help bring hip-hop to the forefront with an all-day event highlighting brand new and established acts, with sounds ranging from atmospheric, electro hip-hop to beachy hip-hop. Local artist Jaybird will host the open-mic portion of the event Saturday afternoon, which will see various acts performing in 10-minute increments. Later, Black Dave, local DJ and founder of Charleston Hype (a website highlighting Holy City culture), will host a showcase, with performances from local acts Tropical Business, Will G., Contour, Bass Ghost, Mossy B IV Prez, and Speakerbox. Speakerbox will also drop a 15-song LP soon called Calm Before the Storm, so be on the lookout for the new music at the show and on Bandcamp. Huger Street Hip-Hop is free, but there’s a $5 suggested donation. —Kelly Rae Smith SATURDAY
INDIE ROCK | The Wombats
w/ Coast Modern
Mon. June 20
8 p.m.
$18-$20
All ages
Music Farm
Liverpool indie rockers the Wombats — vocalist/guitarist Matthew Murphy, drummer Daniel Haggis, and bassist Tord Øverland Knudsen — formed in 2003, releasing the poppy A Guide to L ove, Loss & Desperation four years later. But it was with the LP that followed, 2011’s This Modern Glitch, that the trio began to make waves with American audiences. Between Modern and last year’s Glitterbug, the band solidified their standing as major players in the indie rock world from here to Australia, where the album charted at No. 2. Glitterbug features some of the band’s most synth-pop, hook-heavy music yet, with each member credited at trying their hand at the keyboards. “As soon as we started to experiment with synthesizers and keyboards, it was a bit out of our comfort zone,” admits Knudsen during a tour stop in Cleveland. “But having that kind of element added soon got very exciting.” With so much U.S. success, the band feels at home here in cities like Boston and Los Angeles, where they’ve spent the most time. But no matter where they are, the state of American politics right now is something that’s impossible to ignore. Knudsen, who lives in Oslo, says Donald Trump is of utmost concern to folks everywhere. “At the moment, people are a bit worried all over the world,” he says. “Hopefully everyone will come to their senses and realize that this is real life and not a reality show.” —Kelly Rae Smith MONDAY
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