Hey kids.  Hi.  How are you?  That’s good.  Me?  Ehh, I’m old.  Back hurts these days.  Eyesight is going, and I have this weird growth right near my….oh yeah.  That’s right.  When we ask how someone is we really don’t want to know…

Anyways, the reason I’m at your doorstep at 3am is because I wanted to ask you what the hell you were doing this Sunday, June 23rd?  You don’t know?  Well I do.  You’re buying yours truly a drink at the Brass Rail in lieu of seeing Madison, Wisconsin’s The Hussy.  You know who else is going to be there?  Some band called Pouncer(weird name, but cool music) and Jason Davis’ Streetlamps For Spotlights playing tunes off that Streetlamps For Spotlights long player I’ve been hearing about for quite some time.  Or not.  Either way there’ll be some great music coming out of loud amps and screaming mouths.

Eventually, all good things must come to an end.  A wonderful dinner, a great film, a relaxing car ride through the country, an emotional song.  I get all choked-up every time The Beatles’ “In My Life” ends.  I can go back and listen to it again, a hundred times in a row if I want, but each time I get that twinge in the pit of my stomach.  Unfortunately, bands we love come to an end, too.  One of  Fort Wayne’s finest indie bands is bidding farewell to the stage and are saying goodbye to the city on April 27th, 2013 at 9pm at CS3.  Omar Afzaal is bidding a fond adieu to the Fort and moving to Brooklyn for more opportunities.  He’s still a young guy.  He can do that sort of thing.  Though this won’t be the end of House of Bread per say, it will be the end of seeing Omar and his compadres in HoB hitting local stages and playing their exquisite brand of dream pop and indie squall.  Before Omar packs up the van for the last time and heads east, I contacted him and asked him some personal questions.

EAP:  Congratulations on your big move to Brooklyn.  What will you be doing in everyone’s favorite borough?

Omar Afzaal:  Thanks! I’ve already been scouting out local eats that I’ll immediately be checking out. I’ve got a “Top 3 Gyro Joints” list that I’m going to conquer too. Can’t wait. Besides that, I’ll be immersing myself in the city’s culture while also looking for jobs in teaching.

EAP:  At least you have your priorities in order(laughs).  So what does this move mean for House of Bread?  Will the band continue in truncated form?  Will you share music files via email, or will it become the bedroom project it started out as?

Omar:  I believe House of Bread will continue in a hybrid of a bedroom/internet-collaboration form. Bob, Zach, Phil, and I will be sharing files and working on it while I piece it together in New York. This is not unlike how we did our crazy covers project.

EAP:  How will you and Bob handle this?  You two seemed pretty inseparable?  Is he coming along?

“We are the music makers… and we are the dreamers of dreams.” – Willy Wonka.

Yes kiddos, there’s a show coming up here in our illustrious Fort that if you decide to skip out it’s gonna be like sleeping through the Rapture.  You’ll be a lost soul in a city of enlightened freaks.  On Friday, April 19th at 10pm over at the perfectly grimy Brass Rail a freakout is gonna be taking place.  Your hosts?  Well Heaven’s Gateway Drugs, Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor, and The Holydrug Couple.  Dig this boys and girls, a show like what will be going down on April 19th doesn’t come around too often, so clear your schedule and get ready to get freaky.

The Holydrug Couple is a band from Santiago, Chile.  Imagine that state somewhere between sleep and consciousness.  That space of time where you are nearly at total peace with the universe.  That chunk of the spiritual plain where this life and the afterlife hold hands and share their essences.  Well that’s what The Holydrug Couple create for your senses on their completely awesome album Noctuary.  It’s a mellow psychedelia.  This isn’t acid blotter and walls melting.  This is a mellow buzz.  It’s Tame Impala-approved psych.  It’s shotgunning with a heart-shaped pipe.  These cats bring the great vibes.  And get this:  they’re on Sacred Bones Records.  Home of some of E.A. Poormans’ favorite artists.  Me and Moon Duo are tight, yo.  I guarantee this is a rare opportunity to see a band like The Holydrug Couple in a hole(wonderful hole that it is) like The Brass Rail.  Here this, come this time next year these Chilean psych purveyors will be playing much bigger stages.  Get a babysitter, Mr. Dad Rock and come out.

Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor are a drone psych outfit out of Detroit.  Yep, the Rock City itself.  I had a chance to peruse their album Spectra Spirit and all I have to say is “Yes!”  SoYSV are a much darker bunch.  As I listened to Spectra Spirit I couldn’t help but picture some sort of ‘Frankenstein Musical Monster’ version of Suicide and The Doors.  There’s that drone-y darkness of Suicide with the dark blues dirge of The Doors.  But more than anything, there’s the heavy hand of psychedelia that permeates their songs.  A great balance of dark with The Holydrug Couple’s technicolor light.  If The Black Angels butter your muffin Shirley, then you best come out to see these Michigan freaks.

Hey Fort Wayne.  I know, I know, it’s been awhile.  I’ve been busy, what with court dates and writing obits for The Swayzee Violator daily newspaper and farm report.  It’s hard to believe so many people die, so often, in such a small town.  Anyways, I’m back.  The next few weeks are gonna be busy ones in Fort Wayne, at least for the music listening public.  There’s some pretty great shows coming up(sorry Chuds, but Nickelback at the Coliseum has been postponed….indefinitely).  Heaven’s Gateway Drugs have a couple BIG shows coming up in April and May, and one of EA Poorman’s favorite local bands House of Bread are bidding a fond adieu to the stage and to the head baker at HoB, Mr. Omar Afzaal.  But those are for future posts my little chickadees.  Right now, the spotlight is on da Spotlights.

So Streetlamps for Spotlights have been an on and off priority for Jason Davis since back before we “voted for change”.  Davis is spread thinner than jam on a slice of stale bread at St. Cloud’s;  what with drumming duties in TIMBER!!!, studio duties at Off The Cuff, his own solo work, and that damn time machine he says he’s working on in the underground bunker under Parkview Field(more on this later).  But over the last couple months there have been signs of life over at SfS headquarters.  Pings of activity in the social networking front, shows here and there, and cryptic messages live from the studio regarding minds that will be blown.  I think we might actually be close to a full-blown Streetlamps for Spolights album release.  Then I hear about what’s going down next Saturday, April 6th at O’Sullivan’s.  The Swan King with Streetlamps for Spotlights, Pouncer, and Fedallah.  If your ears are tender, stay home buttercup.  If you like the feeling of your skin peeling off your skull, bring plenty of beer money and find a spot close to that pretty tattooed lassie(careful, she bites).

The Swan King features members of Pelican, Planes Mistaken for Stars, Ass Chapel, and ToroToroToro.  The name Ass Chapel alone should get you tingly.  Check out the track ‘Good Deeds’ here to see what you have to look forward to.

Pouncer will be the eardrum break with their new wave-ish sound, complete with Synsonics drums, keytars, and skinny ties(not sure if any of that is true).  But check ‘em out here and get your 80s pop on.

2012.  Great year.  May it rest in peace.  Now it’s time to discuss what we have to look forward to in 2013 as far as local music is concerned.  You ready?  Too bad.

I’ve heard some rumblings in regard to our favorite indie rock dream pop confectioners House of Bread.  Yep, it seems they’re not stopping to pat each other on the back and toast with paper cups full of hooch in regards to the great success -and I might add full-on bad assery- of their 2012 release Hypnic Jerk.  It was filled with enough dreamy synth, hazy guitar, reverbed drums, and lyrical mystery to make any fan of the Cure, Cocteau Twins, and brooding Smashing Pumpkins purr and quite smitten.  There might even be some 8×12 head shots of Bob K.  Haddad taped up to a few bedroom walls, right next to Bradford Cox, James Iha, and Kip Winger.  Maybe.  Anyways,  it seems they’ve begun working on Hypnic Jerk’s  follow-up.  There were pictures on FB to prove it.  Various boards, pedals, and cables in disarray.  That’s the sign of things happening in the studio, folks.  HoB have also been hitting some local stages.  Seems they played with Free Energy a week or so ago.  They’re also gonna be hitting The Tiger Room(CS3) on Feb. 8th with husband&wife and plural pines.  And don’t miss them at C2g Music Hall on Friday, February 22nd.  They’ll be playing with Heaven’s Gateway Drugs and The Dead Records.

Well the world didn’t end back in December of 2012, so in 2013 we HAVE to be getting a new Streetlamps for Spotlights record.  Jason Davis has been hard at work on this record for some time over at his Off The Cuff fortress of solitude.  We’ve had little nuggets of greatness thrown our way over the last few years, starting with ‘Wake Up’ in 2011, then ‘After The Bullfight’ and ‘Vultures’ in October of 2012.  In-between drumming for TIMBER!!! and producing a slew of last years great local releases(TIMBER!!!, D Ferren, Heaven’s Gateway Drugs, and post-production work on HoB), Jason Davis and his Streetlamp for Spotlights’ compadres have begun writing and recording a proper full-length debut(if there is a full-length already out there, please correct me….and tell me how to get my dirty hands on it).  If those few tracks we’ve heard are any indication, this record is gonna be one of the highlights of 2013.  Not 2014, or 2015.  2  0  1  3.  Right Jason?  Make sure to clear your calendar for March 16th.  Streetlamps for Spotlights will be playing a show at the Brass Rail with Exterminate All Rational Thought and Buster Eagle.

It’s been nearly four years since Auburn’s speed metal freaks Mighty Crush has put an album out.  2009s Satan’s Pajama Drawer was the last time we heard the Death Angel-meets-Biohazard Midwest misfits, but 2013 will change that.  Mighty Crush have been holed up in a remote studio in southeastern Michigan recording what they’ve called their “Red Bull symphony”.  Tentatively titled Messenger of Death: A Love Story, it’s apparently a rock opera in the vein of Savatage’s Gutter Ballet and every Coheed and Cambria album that’s ever been released.  Look for some shows very soon.

No year would be complete without a new album from Columbia City’s own Mister Mr.  Not to be confused with the ‘Broken Wings’ sissies from the 80s, these guys(and gal) know how to party.  Part Andrew W.K. and part Alannah Myles on a crystal meth binge, they fill every album with unadulterated rock ‘n roll with a hint of rockabilly.  2010 gave us their  Sugar T*ts e.p., followed by the full-length(released on 8-track cassette only) Full-On Trucker Hat.  After she made parole at the end of 2011, lead singer Hazel T. Shaths rounded up the band and they wrote for 2 weeks straight at an abandoned farmhouse just north of Huntington.  The fruits of their energy drink and nicotine-fueled labor are evident on the soon-to-be-released Snortin’ The Q.  Look for a Wooden Nickel in-store in April.

Heaven’s Gateway Drugs made 2012 the year of HGD.  Playing shows around town, hitting the Cincy Psych Fest, and in lieu of a full-length record they gave us the CPF Cassette, a five song e.p. of sorts that made for a great aural sampler of what these freaky psych rockers had in store for us in the near future.  Well it seems they’ve been hard at work on recording some new material over at Off The Cuff and recently announced they’ve finished mixing the new record.  So there’s a good chance we could see the debut L.P. of Fort Wayne’s favorite psychedelic freak scene philistines.  Hell, they may be Fort Wayne’s ONLY freak scene philistines.  Either way, let’s get weird with ‘em on Feb. 22nd when they play C2g with House of Bread and The Dead Records.

Let’s keep it coming Fort Wayne.  If you know of any other upcoming local releases, or if you’re in a band and want to fill me in on the goods, send me an email at elwoodaugustus@gmail.com.  If you can string enough words together to make a complete sentence, and your use of grammar and punctuation isn’t too atrocious, I’ll get back to you.  Otherwise, get your mom to type it for you.

2013, we’re ready for you.