One month of summer gone! You’re wasting time! There’s so much music, so much of it is completely terrible. But you can relax, Daily Lobo is here to calmly lay down hits and highlights for July in the soft, soothing voice that only a mother can provide.
Saturday
Streetlight Manifesto
Reel Big Fish
Rodeo Ruby Love The Maxies
Sunshine
$18
Sunshine is bringing the ska to ‘Querque for its big summer show. Reel Big Fish did its 90s thing, and if you dug that when you were buying “Parental Advisory”-labeled albums for the sake of it, you’ll probably enjoy it now. Streetlight has some of the best instrumentation around, so go if you’ve never seen it. And if you have seen it before, you are probably going.
July 24
Red Elvis/ Ya Ya Boom
Launchpad
$10
The Red Elvises (led by Igor, no joke) are a Russian-American band of sexy surf and rockabiliy roots, and it performed all of the badass post-apocalyptic film “Six String Samurai” (Look it up). Rock ’n roll is good for the soul, and you don’t get much of it in our pop, “Black and Yellow” days. Not everybody can be Michael Franti.
Friday
Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys
National Hispanic Cultural Center
$25 and up
Ralph Stanley is the man. That’s all there is to it. A definitive bluegrass singer and banjo player, Stanley is probably most known to the masses for providing his voice for the haunting acapella version of “O Death” in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” No one plays banjo like Dr. Ralph Stanley. His three-finger technique is wicked fast.
Bob Dylan
July 21
Rock Pavilion (formerly the Journal Pavilion)
$63 for the lawn. Nose bleeds range up to
$99 and beyond for VIP
That’s right, Robert Allen Zimmerman himself. You might want this, at least for the novelty, if you’re the kind that respects the man for his poetry and single-handedly creating genres and genres of musicians who didn’t want to “sing purty” anymore, but wanted that raspy, hard sound (See: Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, every folker, punker or indie rocker that every lived). But the cynicism might hold some back and just stick with the immortal listenings of “Lay Lady Lay” for the millionth time.
Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival:
Disturbed, Godsmack & Megadeth
Jul 16
Rock Pavilion (formerly known as Journal Pavilion)
$49 for the lawn. Nose bleeds $55 and up
Yes, these windbags of all that is death and chaos are still crack-a-lackin. The band must combine its force to survive, fortunately for those who still care. Presentation will likely be good — those desperate not to die and fade away into obscurity pour the gimmick on thick. If at least one giant flaming skull doesn’t explode, you can tell them personally that I was disappointed.
My Gold Mask
Low Spirits
July 24
$5
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My Gold Mask has a pseudo-White Stripes set up (man on guitar, lady drummer) but for playing creepy indie pop-rock. It’s like a minimum Magnetic Fields, and it’s not at all bad. Five dollars is a hell of a price to get your poppy weirdness on, provided you’re 21 or over. It sucks, as I figure this sort of thing would appeal more to the young impressionables.
