Ferndale Library Recommends: Ferndale Blowout

This is a bit more ambitious than our usual monthly music series (First Stop Fridays). The Metro Times Blowout asked the Ferndale Public Library to participate as a host venue for its annual local music festival (The Blowout), which expanded to two weekends and three cities (including Detroit and Hamtramck, which hosted as many as 100 bands in more than 10 venues last weekend). 

Now it's Ferndale's turn. 

If you go

• What:16th annual Metro Times Blowout.
• When: May 2-4, Ferndale. Music starts around 9 p.m. (list of venues).
• Where: Venues in Ferndale (full line-up).
• What else: Wristbands/tickets available here (or at Woodward Avenue Brewers, aka the W.A.B.)

[Click here to read more about the Metro Times Blowout!]

Here's a preview of the artists, musicians and quirky local weirdos who'll be performing at the library, this week. 

Thursday

9:20 pm
Satori Circus: 
Fans of David Lynch, Peewee Herman, Buster Keaton, Pere Ubu and all things surrealistic-punk-burlesque will find something to like in this engaging, dynamic, and at times gymnastic, performance artist / singer. 
Watch: Satori Circus - @ the Ann Arbor Art Fair 

10:10 pm
Bell Beat:
Just in time for spring, smooth, sleek, freewheeling pop jams with a classy baroque-minded charm.
Listen: The Bell Beat - "The New Year"

11:00 pm
Jesus Chainsaw Massacre:
Muddied-up doo-wop gets its croony-face punched in by three darkly-comical pop satirists.
Listen: JCM - "People Are Afraid to Merge"

Friday:
9:20 pm
Phantom Cats
Zesty, knotty, poppy, groovy – punk's energy meets fine pop elegance, graceful yet wobbly, rock-ish yet weird.
Listen: Phantom Cats - "Summer Dance" 

10:10 pm
Pewter Cub
Mellifluous, melancholic nocturnes for the shoegaze-leaning 90's pop-rock fan; furled with a bit of ambient noise experimentation and skating along through indelible grooves-a-plenty.
Watch: Pewter Cub - "King Baby"

11:00 pm
Pupils
allmusic.com calls "No-Wave" an avant-garde off-shoot of '70s punk. This band dips into that ... but also into a freejazz-minded mutation of a spazzy, experimental indie-funk.
Listen: Pupils - "Nothingnauts"

Saturday:
9:20 pm
Odd Hours
Spiky like a punk thing, groovy like a funk thing, danceable like a techno thing – very up, very edgy, uncannily endearing.
Watch: Odd Hours - "Long Lost Lovers" (live)

10:10 pm
Rogue Satellites
Synth-rock duet sailing through the wobbly wormholes of space-rock.
Listen: Rogue Satellies - "In Movies"

11:00 pm
Doc Waffles & Eddie Logix
If Oscar Wylde and Edgar Allen Poe shared a cup of iced-tea at Hugo Ball's Cabaret Voltaire and enlisted Mary Shelley to Frankenstein-us-up a modern-day Rapper – it might resemble Doc Waffles – bolstered here by the beats, samples and sensible hip-hop production of DJ Eddie Logix.
Listen: Doc Waffles - "Edgar Allen Poe"

Click here for the full schedule.

A few other recommendations from me? Get out your notepads. Write down the names:

• Passalacqua
• Bars of Gold
• Revoir
• The Ill Itches
• Jeecy & the Jungle
• Lord Scrummage ...

Just to name a few ...

Have a Happy Blowout, Ferndale.