While his music has been compared to everything from "garage-rock Springsteen" to "post-punk Prince," the style and work habits of Jesse Sterling Harrison have always been easy to peg. In short, he's the quintessential DIY poster boy, a prolific multi-instrumentalist with a proclivity for home recording.
As tunes from his 17th recorded work, Jackhammer Soul, started to leak out earlier this year, however, Harrison says that the resulting steady stream of critical praise and radio airtime have convinced him that it is finally time for him to re-enter the live circuit and hammer some new tunes out in fully realized versions.
"It's been a long time since I performed fronting an actual group," he says about his impending full-band engagement at The Elevens Friday, April 24. "But I can't wait to go onstage, and the other players involved [brothers Josiah Erikson on bass and Jonah Erikson on lead guitar plus drummer Peter Irvine] add so much energy to my stuff."
In addition to jamming out the Jack tunes proper, Harrison says he plans to debut "at least two brand new tracks" and quite possibly throw in a Beastie Boys cover this weekend.
In other news, Mass. metalmeisters Shadows Fall had a corny idea for what will amount to their only area play in the foreseeable future. Why not hook up with Korn, arguably the biggest nu-metal band on the planet?
"[We're] very happy to announce that we will be playing our only local show on May 22 with Korn in Wallingford, Conn.," declared lead Fall-boy Brian Fair in a prepared statement. "We will be busting out some new tunes from our upcoming album, so be sure to come down and rip it up with us."
To get your tix—and, apparently, into the rip—visit livenation.com.
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Since we've happened upon the national scene… sure, they've always been partial to Detroit Rock City. But for this, the god (of thunder or otherwise) knows how many-eth tour after the supposed official farewell trek of 2000, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley say they will take their marching orders from the KISS Army this fall.
In what they bill as the "first ever fan-routed tour," the band that simply refuses to end its three decades-plus rock 'n' roll party is encouraging its followers to point their browsers to kissonline.com and demand that their heroes play their city.
Speaking of KISS-ing and telling, the Crawler recently caught up with Valley native Eric Holden sometime between The Late, Late Show and the Good Morning America pre-show on Facebook earlier this month.
And somewhere in between a mutual pity party for each other's tax situations and lamenting the loss of local, brick and mortar record stores, the journeyman bassist revealed that he had had a couple of recent brushes with the infamous makeup-laden rockers himself.
"I was rehearsing in L.A. just the other day and, yeah, KISS was in the studio right next to us," he explained. He went on to add that while drummer Eric Singer and guitarist Tommy Thayer proved quite personable in the studio hallways and common areas, Simmons and Stanley themselves had yet to utter a single syllable to anyone, to his knowledge.
As has been well documented in this very column, Holden himself has been holding court—and touring with—the likes of Josh Groban and Five For Fighting in recent years. And before signing off, he added that he has a couple more high-profile affiliations on the horizon. Specifically an upcoming Asian tour with alt-rock faves Vertical Horizon—who, to Holden's understanding, also have a new CD in the works that features some guest drum work by percussion god Neil Peart.
"Neil Peart? you have to be kidding me!" your friendly neighborhood Nightcrawler said of the latter announcement. "What if he hooks up on the tour? If so, you'd better buckle up, my friend& 'cause locking into a groove with him must be akin to barebacking a bucking bronco."
"I like the way you think," Holden responded. "And, yeah, it would be a challenge&but as you know, I'm always up for one!""
Send correspondence to Nightcrawler, P.O. Box 427, Somers, CT 06071; fax to (860) 698-9373 or email Garycarra@aol.com.
