Thursday, October 16, 2008

It's a Noot d' Noot Weekend



My friends, if you couldn't tell by now, here in the Ghetto we have a deep love for the sounds coming out of the ATL. And perhaps such affinity rises from some certain parallels found between our two music scenes. For starters, both Nashville and Atlanta are home to multimillion dollar music industries. Atlanta invented Crunk and is the nucleus of the southern rap game, with players... er playas, such as Lil' Jon, T.I., and Outkast. We've got Music Row and the Christian music dilemma with Big & Rich, Cowboy Troy & Casting Crowns. (OK really bad example... they win that one)

Hmmm... but what else? They've got
Little Five Points, the Fabulous Fox, and The Falcons (meh), while we've got East Nashville, The Ryman, and The Only Undefeated Team in the NFL. They've got Athens and we've got Murfreesboro.

On the local music front they've got Atlantis Music Festival, Criminal Records, International Hits, Rob's House & The Living Room where as we've got NBN, Grimey's, Theory 8, Infinity Cat & Lake Fever. They click over to cableandtweed.com and we love us some outtheother.com. Hell, even some of our favorite bands seem to share some of the same DNA: The Features/The Selmanaires, Jensen Sportag/Judi Chicago, Hotpipes/Gringo Star, MEEMAW/Howlies, Cheap Time/The Black Lips... I could go on, but I won't.

The reason for all this jabberjawin' about Atlanta and Nashville is that despite whatever musical similarities we might share, Nashville can boast no analog to Atlanta's Noot d' Noot. Only the ol' Dirty Dirty could give birth to this sprawling, eclectic collective.

Seamlessly fusing funk, afro-beat, pop, hip-hop, free jazz, electro
, and rock, then coating it in a thick psychedelic goo, Noot d' Noot's game is to make the asses shake & shimmy while melting the mind wide open. Their original intent was to simply produce and sell beats and backing tracks to their city's hip-hop artists. But the rock scene took notice and they've morphed their studio hijiinks into a sprawling stage show. This much-ballyhooed live set and their debut LP, Goofer Dust (International Hits) led Creative Loafing (their much thicker Nashville Scene) to recently choose them as Best Local New Music Act of '08.

Fortunately for us here in Middle Tennessee, Noot d' Noot make their Music City debut this weekend with two shows you really shouldn't miss. Tonight it all goes down at Agave as part of another night of Festivala. Since there really aren't any local acts that have much in common with these guys (and gals), it's only fitting that they're in the middle of a bill with three bands that have absolutely no similarities what so ever. This experiment in sonic contrast sees Noot wedged between the charming punk of MEEMAW and the rough and tumble dirges of All We Seabees. Ghetto favorites This Modern Station will get things kicked off with their smart Pavement-meets-Gram Parsons rock around 8:30. Not enough Noot for ya? Well not to worry as the crew will reassemble on Saturday afternoon around 4:00 at Grimey's for an in-store set.

Check out their blog and download a couple of their tunes below. "Sugar Bicycle" is a personal favorite from their record and features Jason Harris of the Selmanaires on vocals. Their strip-club-friendly anthem "Jiggle City" is the A-side to their Solutionist Records debut seven inch.


Sugar Bicycle

Jiggle City

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