Our Dumb Records Grand Opening and Art Show is coming up here in a few weeks, and it’s surely going to be a South Town extravaganza you won’t want to miss! One, you’ll get to experience our rad record store in all of its shiny new rays of glory. Two, you’ll get to hear some spoken word from our local folks and see some art pieces by them. The celebration and art show will be taking place from 12:00 to 9:00 pm that day, and Dumb Records will open at 10:00 am. There will also be a soft opening at Dumb Records on Friday the 10th from 10:00 am to 8:00 pm. Here’s a list of who exactly will be throwing down for all of this and the location and time slots they will be performing.

Dumb Records Acts
12:00 pm – Brandon Carnes
1:00 pm – Jess Knight
2:00 pm – Jared Small
4:00 pm – Lovecow
5:00 pm – Montagh
6:00 pm – Kamila Glowacki
7:00 pm – Good Times

Black Sheep
2:30 pm – Mike Tirehaus
3:30 pm – Matt Hill
5:30 pm – Clare Frachey
6:30 pm – Paqui
7:30 pm – Mario Cannamela
8:30 pm – Aubrey Puyear

Artists
Brian Galecki
Tater Cronin
Mike Tirehaus
Amanda Aulich
Kamila Glowacki
Clare Frachey
Nathan Shepard
Martin “Lumpy” Meyer
Emily Johnson
John Mechana
Angelea Cooke
Kristin Walker
Mario Cannamela
Matt Hill
Heidi Abegg
Vince Merriman
Julia May
Jess Black

We still have a few open time slots for acoustic acts and spoken word artists! Email us at blacksheepspringfield@gmail.com if you are interested. Try to make it out to see these acts and pieces of work as well as the opening of Dumb Records! This event will have no cost, however you may want to bring a few bucks for all the cool stuff Dumb Records has to offer. A facebook event for this whole enchilada is right here so make sure to check it out and come if you can!

It looks like Skeletal Lightning have announced their first wave of bands for “Skeletal Lightning Fest Two,” happening in April of 2014. Last year was the first year the festival happened in Champaign/Urbana, Illinois focusing on DIY music of the Midwest. You may have seen clips of last year’s festival in the Dither documentary, which had a screening at Black Sheep this past fall.

This year’s festival is happening over the course of three days- from April 11th through the 13th. Notable acts playing include Weekend Nachos, The Reptilian, Cloud Rat, Northless, and Thou, but there are plenty more acts that you can see on the flier above or here at the Skeletal Lightning site. There are still more bands and venue information to be announced later on in January, so keep a heads up for that!

We hope you all are ready for 2014 because it is going to be packed with shows and records. This show is going to happen on Friday, January 17th and it is going to rock. We have the Springfield super pop band Looming, who just played a show at Black Sheep the other night. This show will feature the five-piece indie rock band The Flips from Chicago. We have some of their music streaming on the player embedded below. Also on this show is a newer Champaign band called Bookmobile. What could they be about? Come find out at this show! If you are a fan of post-rock, come to this show because local post-rock band Meredosia will also be playing. We have new Champaign band Bookmobile playing this show, but we will also have an older and recently re-united Champaign band playing. Bad Catman will be making their first Black Sheep appearance since 2011! Bad Catman feature members of Dino Bravo, Orange Soda, Wolf Luv, Gnargoyle, The Diamond Stretch, Planet Farm, and probably a ton of other bands we are forgetting.

This show will start at 7:00 pm and admission is $5. You can find a facebook event for the show right here. Also be sure to check out our shows page to see what other great shows we have coming up in the new year at Black Sheep.

Black Sheep is wishing you and all of your friends a happy Halloween! Be safe and lookout for any moshing basement clowns! If you missed our Halloween Show/Hobgob this year you can find photos from the show right here.

Our next show is this Saturday, where we will be showing a screening of the documentary Dither: The DIY Sound. We will also have performances by Springfield bands War Magic and Caterpillar Club. That’s at 7:00 pm Saturday and admission is $5 so see you then!

The local emo jammers Our Lady are going on a west coast tour, ladies and gents! Check out the places they’ll be venturing to on the awesome tour poster posted above. So far, here are the set destinations they’ll be playing at:

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11/07 St. Louis, MO- The Livery Company (event)
11/08  Nashville, TN- The Owl Farm (event)
11/12 Houston, TX- Super Happy Fun Land
11/14 Denton, TX- Macaroni Island (event)
11/18 Pheonix, AZ- The Trunk Space
11/23 Reno, NV- The Holland Project
11/24 Salt Lake City, UT- The Shred Shed
11/25 Denver, Co- Seventh Circle Music Collective (event)

For all the other dates, the venue status is TBA, so if you are from any of those TBA areas (or know someone in the music scene there), give Our Lady a hand by contacting ourladyband@gmail.com and helping them book! Here’s their facebook page as well.This band is so rad and the people in it are swell so make sure to check them out at any of these shows if you are able to go.
Below is their album Dawning, which they have been revamping whilst recording a few new hits! Check out their other emotional and heartfelt tunes on bandcamp.

Springfield emo/rock band Our Lady has been a very busy band in the past year, and we have an update on what they’ve been doing (as you can see by the posted photos of their recording session in the studio above). After the band pushed back plans for touring through most of August, they decided to start working on recording new material and planning their next releases. Our Lady released their Vessels 7″ through Mind Over Matter Records earlier this year and also “Dawning” on cassette through Turn of The Century Records. Rumor has it there will be updated versions of old songs and maybe even another one added on to Dawning thanks to this recent recording session, so make sure to check out their new and perfected releases!

Our Lady will be playing in Springfield next on November 5th at Black Sheep along with Two Knights, Wir Konnen, and Jessica Knight. Make sure to check that show out, hear Our Lady’s new stuff, get a fresh Wir Konnen tape and listen to the good show.

It’s already Friday and we almost forgot that Friday means that it’s another episode of The Black Sheep Radio Show! We are excited to announce that our guest on the radio this week is long time musician and writer of the music section of The Illinois Times, Tom Irwin. Tom is bringing a lot to the show this week. He might fill us in a little bit on how the Illinois Times’s Best Ofs are going for 2013. He is also bringing his guitar and might perform some songs on air. He also is bringing in some of his older recorded music and some of his favorite Springfield songs from as far back as the 1980s. All that plus we will be playing more of your current favorite Springfield hits as well as plenty of music from bands coming through Black Sheep very soon.

That all happens on The Black Sheep Radio Show, airing Fridays (today) from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm. You can listen to our show on 88.3 WQNA fm or online at wqna.org. All of our old episodes are also up for download over on our radio page!

On Saturday a few of us met for our Black Sheep roundtable meeting. We talked about some stuff and then went around town and hung up some upcoming show fliers. Here are some of the things that were done/discussed:

– We now have fliers for our radio show! Plenty have been hung up around town.
– More people need to come to roundtable and street team meetings. We could really use more help in a lot of areas, and you can help us!
– Plans for our new heating and cooling system inside of Black Sheep were discussed. We are still looking for leads to electricians and roofing contractors so get at us!

Don’t worry, that was not the last meeting that we will be having. You can make it to the next one on Saturday, October 5th at 1:00 pm. Everyone and anyone is welcomed to come to these meetings! And if you can’t make it to that, there are always things you can do to help out and volunteer around Black Sheep! Check out our get involved page for more info on that.

Tonight is the beginning to a very long wave of shows at the end of the September for us at Black Sheep! There are shows on the 21st, 22nd, 24th, 25th, 27th and 29th! Wow! Make you don’t miss any of those shows because there are going to be some GREAT bands playing. Tonight is going to be a great kick off to this long run of shows! We have local punk band The Timmys headlining the bill. Tonight will also be the very first show for the brand new Springfield band Looming! We streamed their brand new EP on our site earlier this week. Are you a fan of ska music? Do you like to skank? Well you will probably like the band Skank, who are coming from Carbondale, IL! Check out some of their music streaming below. Opening the show up we have Built In A Day, who will also be on Black Sheep Radio today.

The show tonight starts at 7:00 pm and admission is $5. You can find a facebook event for the show right here. Also check out all of the many many shows we have coming up on our shows page! If you are not doing anything before the show today, don’t forget that we have a Black Sheep roundtable and street team meeting at 1:00 pm!