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hendershots
coffee • bar • musk
WEDNESDAY,JANUARY 15 th »
Nick Johnson Trio
THURSDAY,JANUARY 16 th
Carey Murdock & Asher Armstrong
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17 th
Jack Logan & Scott Baxendale with
John Mills & Ben Mize
Ken Will Morton
"Slow Bum"CD Release Show
SATURDAY, JANUARY 18 th
Secret Europeans
& One Man Machine & Chartreuse
SUNDAY, JANUARY 19™ 6.TT-D
Experimental Night
featuring Quiet Evenings,
Future Ape Tapes & Merlin Olsen Twins
MONDAY, JANUARY 20™
Open Mic Night
ATHENS’ INTIMATE LIVE MUSIC VENUE
See website for show times & details
hendershotscoffee.com
L237 prince ave. • 706.353.3050J
MARKER SEVEN
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New Lunch & Dinner Menus
She Crab Soup
Blackened Salmon BLT
Shrimp Burger
Seafood Pasta Salad
Sweet Chili Rubbed Pork
Heated Porch • Plenty of Parking
WATCH THE WORLD GO BY IN FIVE POINTS
At the corner of Lumpkin & Milledge
MARKER7COASTALGRILL.COM • 706.850.3451
140 E. Washington St. • Athens • 706-546-1 102 • coppercreekathens.com
//f% ruce Springsteen's for the working
W^man," comedian Colin Quinn once
■■Wriffed. "If you were really for the work
ing man, would you do a four-and-a-half-hour
concert on a Tuesday night?" That is, if the
Boss is willing to profit from his Everyman
image, shouldn't he be responsible to his
audience? The "Springsteen feeling" is undeni
able in its Americanness—the halfway point
between lonesome and hopeful, weary and
indefatigable, Elvis Presley and Aaron Copland.
But if Springsteen's music represents an ideal,
do his fans have equal access? (Let's not even
discuss ticket prices.)
Brooklyn-based indie-punks The Shondes
represent a real and personalized response
to the call for a kind of music that speaks to
the diversity of America well into the 21st
Century. Formed by bassist and vocalist Louisa
Solomon and violinist Elijah Oberman in 2006,
the group immediately established itself as
a radicalized personal entity. (Members first
met original drummer Temim Fruchter through
activism in opposition to the Republican
National Convention in 2004.)
The band's music is solidly catchy, driv
ing rock and roll, which acts as a vessel for
Solomon's personal-as-political missives. That
the lyrics veer towards hopeful positivity is of
significance when considering The Shondes'
political alignment with the LGBT community;
the inclusion of tremulous violin leads is a
nod to their connection to Jewish culture. (In
Yiddish, a "shonde" is translated as a "shame,"
a sly nod to the group's connections to both
Semitic and queer communities.)
This winter sees the group touring with
Against Me!, a band that morphed from a
paragon of D.I.Y. intimacy to a major-label
powerhouse over the past decade. That band's
vocalist, Laura Jane Grace (formerly Tom
Gabel), came out as transgender in 2012; even
within the typically open-minded punk com
munity, there was some deplorable commen
tary from the cowardly Internet sinkhole.
"There's no doubt that we still live in a
culture that's deeply racist, sexist, homopho
bic and certainly transphobic," says Solomon,
speaking to Flagpoie from Buffalo, NY, the tour
already in progress. "And there's a special kind
of vitriol that people sometimes have for trans
women. [But] in my observation, audiences on
this tour are so excited to support Laura. The
audience seems, to me, to be quite mixed—
there are fans that have been following
[Against Me!] for a decade, and then maybe
some new fans.
"I've noticed queer people or trans people
in the audience, as well as people who appear
to me to be their longtime fans," Solomon
continues. "And everybody's just chanting:
'Laura Jane Grace, Laura Jane Grace, Laura
Jane Grace.' It makes me almost moved to
tears—the support seems to be so palpable in
these audiences. [There are] transphobic losers
on the Internet who are going to say whatever
they say, but so far at the shows, it's a real
culture of support."
Following the September 2013 release
of their fourth full-length, The Garden, The
Shondes are continuing to tour their asses off,
even breaking a longstanding agreement not
to tour during winter in order to join Against
Me! on the road. And while Solomon concurs
that LGBT acceptance at large has changed
radically in the past five years, within the
circuit the band came up through, the change
hasn't been so significant.
"We've never really had any problems with
the way we've been treated by fans or by
venues," she says. "I've toured all over the
country, and a lot of times New Yorkers will
be skeptical about how we'll be received. I've
found that even where there's a less-liberal
surface culture, within the music scene you
will always find people who are progressive
and interested in supporting your work and
having conversations about political issues...
People often ask us if we're scared to play in
Birmingham or whatever, and I always sort of
laugh at them: 'Have you ever actually trav
eled to these places?' There are people trying
to change the world everywhere. There are
people who are committed to justice every
where, and interested in art everywhere. It
might look a little different, but it's there."
In spite of some recent lineup changes,
Solomon and Oberman voice a determination
to continue to commit to The Shondes in a
full-time effort to connect with those people.
"Eli and I—we drive the band," Solomon
says. "I'm the bandleader, and he's kind of my
Clarence Clemons. But playing violin."
Jeff Tobias
/ \
WHO: Against Me!, The Shondes,
The Sidekicks
WHERE: 40 Watt Club
WHEN: Tuesday, Jan. 21,8 p.m.
HOW MUCH: $14 (adv), $16 (door)
V )
14 FLAGPOLE.COM • JANUARY 15, 2014