Musicology

Moonalice has existed on the periphery of my musical world for some time now. They first popped up on my Facebook feed with their excellent allusions to “Moonalice legend”, usually followed by a picture of an adorable baby owl or something similar.

October 22 House Concert Will Benefit Haiti Relief Efforts

(Urbana, IL) October 12, 2016-“We have some great artists scheduled to perform and a very worthy cause to support,” says John McNally describing the Conscious House Concert which will be held on October 22 at the Ananda Liina Yoga Center in Northeast Urbana.

The Canopy Club lit up on Saturday night for Nashville-based space rockers Moon Taxi. Their spindly dual guitars, squishy organ, and the soaring voice of lead vocalist Trevor Terndrup all swirled into a blissful concoction of southern-inflected prog-jam with dashes of sparkly indie music thrown in for good measure.

The Canopy has a lot of different music every year, from EDM to funk, bluegrass to hip hop, and everything in between. This Saturday, Nashville-based prog-jam outfit Moon Taxi comes to the stage, with their upbeat dancy space jams.

Fans of funk music were in for a treat on Wedneday night, as Brooklyn legends Lettuce turned the Canopy Club into a nonstop groove train with dashes of psychedelia. Lettuce has a stellar reputation for good reason; their live shows are bombastic, earth-shaking affairs, replete with stuttering, machine-gun horns, thunderous bass, splashy keyboards, crunchy guitar, and commanding drums.

This summer was a flurry of activity in the music scene, with new albums, reunion tours, festivals both large and small, and seemingly a band playing every night, somewhere and somehow. It has been difficult to catch everything, and indeed some things fall through the cracks.

Coming tomorrow night to the Accord in downtown Champaign is Canadian alternative group Arkells. Coming fresh off two hit singles in “Private School” and “Drake’s Dad”, Arkells put on an energetic dance-pop show, filled with enough tongue-in-cheek lyrics and catchy choruses to have you shouting along before you know it.

Anyone who reads my column regularly knows I like to brag about the quality of our music scene in the CU, not only because of the sheer diversity and talent, but the quality of the people creating. Lately we’ve all had a bit of a wake-up call; we need to help each other out, and people just aren’t being excellent to each other anymore.

LOCKN’ finally happened, and truth be told, I’m having a hard time even knowing where to start as I write this review. I had heard so many good things going in that my expectations were sky high, and I have to say I was not disappointed. It was an insane weekend from the minute I left my doorstep to the minute I returned home, sweaty and in desperate need of air conditioning.

Shoe Fest 2016….man, I don’t even know where to start. It’s taken me forever to figure out how to get my review going, because every time I even begin to plan it out I’m overloaded with smiles and memories of an amazing weekend. The musicians were on fire, the weather was perfection, and the crowd was the friendliest I’d seen yet.