Page 15 - SPIRE Digital Version JAN-APR 2024 8th Issue_Neat
P. 15

WINTER 2024





 INDIEFERM BREWING PRESENTS
 SUNDAY FUNDAY WITH THE
 SHADY ROOSTERS
 SUN, JAN 14  @ 2:00PM-5:00PM

 *****TICKETS SOLD AT DOOR, cash only*****
 [General Admission seating]
 The Shady Roosters are a South Shore-based roots rock band
 that have been together for about twenty-five years, mostly
 under the name Lonesome Jukebox. But they changed the
 name to the Shady Roosters recently as the lineup had
 changed somewhat. Their song list includes a mix of
 rockabilly, blues, roots, and country with some original tunes
 that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on jukeboxes of the
 ‘50s and ‘60s. The most important ingredient is fun. They
 wouldn’t still be doing it if it wasn’t fun and that always
 carries over to the crowd.

 THE BUSTED JUG BAND
 SAT, JAN 20  @ 8PM
 $25
 The Busted Jug Band’s show is an hilarious romp
 through time featuring group vocals, swinging
 rhythms and novel instrumentation. Played by five
 men in top hats, derbies and garish suits; inspired by
 Black American music of the early 20th Century; the
 group features novel instruments — often
 homemade, such as washboard, washtub bass,
 rhythm bones, banjo-ukuleles, bicycle horns,
 modified kazoos and – yes – rubber chickens. The
 BJB plays music of classic jugsters like the Memphis
 Jug Band, plus a mix of obscure swing, blues and
 novelty music. The Busted Jug
 Band have produced entertaining “silent music videos” for songs featured on their debut, eponymous
 album. They even have their own comic book (!) featuring band members “Smiling Pee-Wee Hernando,”
 “Early Bird,” “Kayola O’La,” “Lefty Boom-Boom” and “Rude Boy,” as well the anthropomorphized “Phil the
 Jug.” (In this way, the band stayed active during the pandemic, if only in the second dimension!)
 During the Jazz Age of the early 20th Century, musicians who couldn’t afford trumpets, tubas and drums
 replaced them with homemade instruments, such as kazoo, washboard and jug. Thus the Jug Band sound,
 sometimes called “poor man’s Jazz”, was born. This was revived in the 1960s with groups like Jim
 Kweskin’s Jug Band. The Busted Jug Band pushes the Jug idiom beyond its historical confines. Homemade
 instruments are modified with modern techniques for maximum impact. Inspiration has come from the
 likes of Spike Jones & His City Slickers and Hoosier Hotshots. Vaudevillian sight gags, jokes and colorful
 stage attire round out the show and fun reigns supreme.
 What started as a weekly session at a local pub turned into a costumed, vaudevillian-style act when the
 band was invited to perform at a nearby Steampunk festival. Along the way, the band has performed at
 area performing arts centers, schools, municipal festivals and nursing homes (for which they received
 Club Passim’s Iguana Grant).










 1 2       |     T H E   S P I R E   C E N T E R   M A G A Z I N E
   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20