Weekend of local rock volume 24

May 23, 2009

This oft-delayed edition finally comes up and covers two weekends in April - the music of Pork in the Park and selected stuff from the Salisbury Festival.

Let's start with the first Pork in the Park act, Higher Hands.

Higher Hands led off that Pork in the Park Saturday with a pop-rock sound.

To be honest, I didn't get to see a lot of these guys since I was wandering around in the competitor area for a good deal of their set. That wandering extended a little bit into the next group as well, Big Cam and the Lifters.

Next it was the doo-wop classic rock of Big Cam and the Lifters. I forget which one is the Big Cam.

We finally settled in once Crossroads hit the stage.

Local Southern rock and blues veterans Crossroads began the afternoon off with a mostly blues-based performance.

There was one big difference in Crossroads from previous times I'd seen them as they added a keyboard player and subtracted their previous guitarist. Obviously it changed their set list a bit to a more blues-based menagerie of songs.

That vein contined in part with the next act, Tom Principato.

Guitarist Tom Principato brought his band of musicians to play a fusion of influences from jazz to blues to reggae to Creole.

Here's the extent of Tom's band. I really enjoyed watching the percussionist on stage right.

Tom was also smart enough to have his swag and CD's on sale. He did a pretty decent business.

While I enjoyed sitting through Tom's part of the show and the awards ceremony which occurred right afterward, getting up to grab dinner meant that I missed a bunch of what the next group played.

Unfortunately I was in the food line for a large part of the Smokin' Gunnz show, and boy did I miss out from what I could hear. They did a scorching set of Southern-fried rock covers.

I got back in time for Smokin' Gunnz last half-dozen songs or so and let me tell you if they're in the area make sure you catch them. These guys were good.

After Smokin' Gunnz wrapped up, the scene was set for 96 Rock's Battle of the Bands. They had preselected four bands to perform with a chance to play the opening party for the Ocean City Air Show in June. In order of performance, the bands were Order 6D6, CIA, Riot Act, and David Andrew Smith. But I'm going to present them in the order I would have judged them, worst to first.

Riot Act had an interesting stage show and probably was the crowd favorite - which is probably why they were picked as the winners. All three of their songs were covers of songs from the 1980's - David Lee Roth's "Yankee Rose", Ozzy Osbourne's "I Don't Know" and Journey's "Separate Ways".

Riot Act won the competition, but they had low marks on my card. Certainly they're talented but I thought the idea was for original music.

Here's the lead singer of Riot Act doing his best Ozzy Osbourne impersonation. It's been a long while since I've seen Ozzy so I don't know how good he was. Photo by Kim Corkran.

It seems a shame that the winner will probably do all cover songs while a group doing original music doesn't get the limelight. Welcome to Ocean City in the summer I guess.

CIA did two cover songs, one of them was a Foo Fighters tune and I forget the other one, it's a modern rock staple I'm sure. I liked the original song they did best. The lead singer needed a bigger stage to jump around in.

This up-and-coming band is called CIA. They did two covers and one original song which was pretty good, so I'd like to see them add more of those to the set as they write them.

David Andrew Smith did two originals and covered Kings of Leon. If the judges were looking for a pop-rock sound these guys were the winners. David's band is a very polished group and probably deserved better - I think what hurt them was their position as the final group of the evening because the crowd had become noticably thinner once beer sales were halted.

The pop-rock sound of David Andrew Smith's band was quite appealing to the crowd. I think their disadvantage in this was going last.

The only band who did all originals, including a kick ass tune which has gotten a little airplay called "Holeshot", was Order 6D6. They were hard-edged yet surprisingly melodic and I thought they represented the idea of supporting local original music the best. But what do I know?

The winner of the competition in my eyes was Order 6D6. They kicked some serious ass but they also had the lead spot.

This guy doesn't sound like he looks - he sings quite well for Order 6D6. Photo by Kim Corkran.

I know Order 6D6 has quickly become one of my favorite local bands and I really need to check them out for a full show sometime soon.

I also decided to add the couple bands I checked out at the Salisbury Festival the following Saturday to this post. The first of the two was a country-tinged cover band called Cherrybud.

This won't be the hardest band you'll ever see, but Cherrybud did a nice job in the range from country rock to more mainstream classic stuff.

I didn't see all of their set but they were entertaining those folks who were hanging around the stage in the Plaza. I think more of the younger artistic set were waiting for the other band, Naked Brunch.

The larger part of Naked Brunch comes from a former local band called Boats to Tangier.

I don't know if they were having a rough day because one member was feeling under the weather or if the band wasn't quite in sync yet after some personnel changes, but something about Naked Brunch sounded a little bit off. Boats to Tangier had a quirky sound and vibe about them, but Naked Brunch wasn't capturing the same effect. They seem to be a regular group at these sorts of affairs so I'm sure I'll see them again down the line, hopefully on a little better day.

As for the Weekend of local rock series, it might be awhile until the next one because of other things going on. Until then, though, I'm going to still be doing what I can to support the local music scene, at least vicariously.

Weekend of local rock volume 24

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