SHELLAC in Louisville, this Saturday

"Whenever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit. I imagine these people, some of them good friends, some of them barely acquaintances, at one end of this trench. I also imagine a faceless industry lackey at the other end holding a fountain pen and a contract waiting to be signed."
~from the article "The Problem with Music" by Steve Albini, which originally appeared in Maximum Rock 'n' Roll Issue #133.

Sooo, I'm pretty sure many of you are aware I helped organize a festival in Lexington this past October called Boomslang (even though I pretty much never posted about it for some reason, which, looking back on it, I now find rather odd). Anyway, some of you probably also know that one of the bands I was most excited to score for said festival was Louisville post-rock greats Shipping News, a definite personal favorite of mine that I saw as kind of a long-shot – to my knowledge, they have been relatively reclusive over the past few years, not playing many live shows and having not released an album in a few years. Their booking agent confirmed that yes, it would be awesome, but true, I probably shouldn't hold my breath. After what must have been a couple of months after my initial feeler, Erik from Uncle Booking finally reported back to me, kind of out of the blue, that lo and behold, Shipping News were indeed interested in playing Boomslang. Much to my glee, they seemed genuinely stoked on it, sending me personal e-mails complimenting the line-up and expressing their excitement. Unfortunately, a few weeks after the show was announced, the band had to cancel their performance and also postpone their November recording plans, due to suddenly finding out about some serious health problems that had progressed with guitarist Jason Noble, who needed to immediately undergo an extensive surgery & recovery process that I believe included traveling to Texas for chemo/radiation.

Scrambling to fill their spot at Boomslang, in the midst of my sadness that the show was canceled under the crappiest of circumstances, one of the first bands that came to mind was a little band called SHELLAC. Again, a long shot, I thought – this is engineering wizard genius STEVE ALBINI'S band, after all. Not only is Albini, who founded and runs Chicago recording studio Electrical Audio, an incredibly busy dude (most epic production catalogue ever, including albums by Pixies, Nirvana, Breeders, The Jesus Lizard, Tony Conrad, Dirty Three, many more) but being versed on his stance on agents & managers and whatnot, I kind of assumed he would also be an incredibly difficult-to-get-ahold-of dude. Not to say the band wouldn't have agreed to the show, given the circumstances – I think they would have at least entertained the notion – but I saw Mission of Burma as an equally amazing and potentially more easily accessible replacement, and fortunately they jumped on it pretty much right away (and gave a performance that all but stole the entire fest). Anyway, long story short (or rather, getting to the short of an unnecessarily long story), I was obviously stoked and reaffirmed in this decision when I got word that Shellac had scheduled a benefit show for Jason Noble at Louisville's 930 Room with Shannon Wright and The Web (organized by fellow Shipping Newsian Jeff Meuller) for November 21. I got my tickets pretty much immediately, and I suggest you do the same - this is a 450 capacity venue and the show is coming up this Saturday. Tickets are $17 in advance/$20 at the door and all proceeds go to Jason and his family to help cover hefty medical costs - get them here.

SHELLAC = intense and heavy-hitting no frills math rock trio based out of Chicago featuring guitarist Steve Albini (I repeat, one of the most influential audio engineers of all time), drummer Todd Trainer and bassist Bob Weston ('live engineer and tape manipulator' of the most recent Mission of Burma incarnation; also a renowned sound engineer).

I don't know much about Shannon Wright, but she has been a frequent collaborator with Shipping News family from what I understand. The Web, also performing, appear to be in the weirdo Louisville avant garde camp.

If you're still not convinced that this is going to be the place to be on Saturday, I should mention that I've been reading up lots of interviews with promoter Barry Hogan, whose All Tomorrow's Parties festivals have seen the likes of bands such as, oh, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Slint, Boris, Om, Portishead, Deerhoof, Explosions in the Sky, pretty much every single band I've ever wanted to see, etc., and in more than one interview Hogan has referred to Shellac as one of the greatest live performances he's ever seen. So there ya go.

If that doesn't convince you, well, yeah, you should probably just stay home and listen to Bon Iver or something. But still feel encouraged to keep up with Jason's progress and even make a donation to his health fund through his Caring Bridge site if you are so inclined.