The cover story for Springfield weekly newspaper The Illinois Times this week is “A Band On The Brink”- an in depth article on Springfield’s very own Looming, who recently signed to No Sleep Records, has an album coming out this August, and is also on the road for a short run with Run Forever. From the article, written by Scott Faingold:

This is clearly a band on a precipice – excited by the potential of their suddenly raised status in the music world, but still unclear as to what this will mean going forward.  “I think it’s smart not to get too crazy with ambitions,” says Knight. “I think we’re trying to be happy with this right now before we take a moment to think about what we want to do next. We’re still taking in the weight of what this means to us.”
“We just want the most people possible to hear our music and take something good from it – that’s our ambition,” says Fein.

The article also touches up plenty on Southtown, including the members’ roles in our community, and their first experiences with Black Sheep. See the full article right here, or pick up a copy of The Illinois Times at various locations around town.

Looming will be playing next at Black Sheep on July 25th, for Black Sheep Fest 2015. They also have been hinting at a big album release show on Friday, August 14th with older Springfield emo band Park.

It’s that special time of year again, and Springfield weekly newspaper The Illinois Times are taking your votes for the Best Of Springfield 2014. This year you can vote for plenty of your favorite businesses and things local to Springfield in categories such as music and nightlife, bands, restaurants, shopping, schools, and more. Last year Black Sheep got to take home the award of being voted the best all ages venue. This year there is no category for all ages venue, but there are categories for “best small venue” and “best large venue.” Find the link to go vote below.

GO VOTE!

Online voting will continue until September 29th. The winners will be revealed in The Illinois Times on Thursday, October 30th in the weekly publication for The Illinois Times. Good luck!

Springfield weekly newspaper The Illinois Times have debuted a new feature this week called “You Had To Be There.” The article is a recap of some notable events in Springfield local music of the past week. This week’s article is by Times writer Scott Faingold and it covers Donnie’s Homespun’s event “Under The Covers” which happened last weekend as well as Black Sheep Fest. More in particular, the article focuses mostly on the Table Drama/Soap Scum/Nighthawk/F///\\\\M battle set that occurred during the fest. From the article:

Soap Scum (which features Black Sheep proprietor Kevin Bradford on drums) set up their equipment on the floor near the back of the room, with the second band, Table Drama, assembled on the venue’s stage. The proceedings got underway with WWF-worthy ranting by Table Drama vocalist The Pukester proclaiming that Soap Scum was “going down” and with them the entire Black Sheep Café, clearly placing Table Drama as the bad guys in a giddily over-the-top pro-wrestling-style scenario.

You can check out the full article on the Illinois Times site right here. Be sure to also check back in the following weeks for more of the “You Had To Be There Feature.”

The cover story of the Illinois Times this week is an in-depth look of five different perspectives on the current Springfield arts and music scene. The perspectives covered include Allison Lacher (UIS visual arts gallery), Patrick Russell (Legacy Theater), Aaron Phillips (Torch Tuesday), Tom Irwin (Illinois Times), and our very own Black Sheep Cafe. For the Black Sheep, The Times talked to Brian Galecki and Kevin Bradford about Black Sheep being a stop for touring bands as well as an outlet for locals. From the article:

Punk and indie rock music, both on the regional and national levels, are also on the upswing in town, largely thanks to the continuing activities of all-ages venue Black Sheep Café, which in the past few years has made the once routinely bypassed Springfield into a regular stopover for rough-edged independent touring bands, as well as a reliable outlet for locals. Ninety percent of Black Sheep shows are for touring bands, providing a place to do shows between St. Louis and Chicago dates. “Bands sometimes need a place to play on a weekday night and it’s not always easy to find that,” says Brian Galecki, who helps to book shows and run sound at Black Sheep. “A lot of great Springfield bands have been popping up in the past year, year and a half,” he enthuses. “It’s really awesome to see some of these new bands putting out vinyl. There have also been a lot of young kids coming out too – a lot of high school kids in the audience and a lot of high school bands and that’s helped the scene overall. There have been a lot of full-house shows in general over the past year.

You can take a look at the full article online right here, or also by picking up a copy of The Illinois Times this week.

The day has finally come. The Illinois Times have posted the results to their annual “Best of” ballots. This year’s survey was longer than ever with 140 categories. This year there was a record breaking 12,000 voters. You can find the results for the Illinois Times Best of’s in this week’s issue of The Illinois Times or online in two parts here and here.

The music section in this year’s Best ofs was notably longer than it had been in previous years. This resulted in more bars, venues, and bands having the chance to get recognized. Black Sheep did win the category for “best all-ages music venue” so thank you all who voted for us! From the Illinois Times:

There was a little confusion in this category, with a strange mix of other places getting votes not generally considered “all-ages,” which really means “under-21.” But the only joint that allows all ages, all the time and features music geared toward those ages, is the Black Sheep Cafe. Besides the fact the guys running this place (it is not a cafe and does’t serve food) do all the work with no care for profit, it’s great to have a venue that doesn’t feature booze first and music second. Along with the day-to-day workings of the seven-year-old venue, the influence upon the local scene is immeasurable, as having a place to play regularly and to see other bands of your ilk allows an increase in our local band population and creativity. So thank the BSC for that, too, while we award them for having a terrific all-ages venue.

Other bands and musicians that were winners in different categories include NIL8, Our Lady, Brushville, Gypsy Collabo, Catain Geech & The Shrimp Shack Shooters, Novocaine, Hipbone Sam, and a few others. To skip ahead to the music section of the best ofs, go here.