Tonight at Black Sheep: Sleeping Cranes, Jess Knight, Mr. Chandler, Atlast At His Finest, Wir Konnen

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Ladies and blokes, we are going to have a loaded show tonight and it’s going to be TASTY! The Sleeping Cranes, composed of A.J Ward, is an awesome indie folk band rooted in Wyoming. A.J’s main influence is living, which is something we can all relate to so look forward to hearing some full hearted tunes from him! Following The Sleeping Cranes will be the lovely, local Jess Knight, performing some acoustic tunes for our listening pleasure. Jess is currently the bassist of Mother Leopard and has a new project called Looming. Her voice is as clear as a songbirds so I’m sure she will be a pleasure as always. As for Mr. Chandler, he makes music that he hopes makes people love life. And guess what?! He’s local! He’ll be dishing out some rap stylings for us, so look forward to it! There’s another local band called Atlas At His Finest, who produces some alternative jams. They are starting to show their face more and more so check them out and get to know the guys, they’re pretty cool. Last but not least! An emo band has emerged called Wir Konnen. They have members from the local catchy bands Montagh and Lovecow, so make sure to stay and give them a listen.

Thanks in advance to all the bands and thanks to all of you guys for reading! Come out to the show, it will be $5 at 7:00 pm. The weather is predicted to be partly cloudy between 24 degrees C and 15 degrees C. You guys rule! Find a facebook event for the show right here. Check out our complete list of upcoming shows at Black Sheep here.

September 27th at Black Sheep: Estates, Gazeebo, Whenskiesaregray, Ghost Key, Blank Gravestone

1098457_10201096302041137_1459135976_n736068_508842582472307_1864596539_oYa like skramz? Ya like gettin’ sad? Ya like gettin’ mad? Well, this sure is the show for you. We have three bands not from around these parts. Headlining the whole shindig, we have Estates, an Emo group from Milwaukee that played at the Harm House on New Years! Check their stuff out down below! Also from outta town, we have Whenskiesaregray, a screamo band on tour ALLL THE WAY from Baltimore. The last outta town band we have playing is Ghost Key, also a screamo group but from Peoria. They will be touring with Our Lady in the fall. Also playing, we have Gazeebo, a local noise project, and Blank Gravestone, which played the Battle of the Bands a while back.

This show starts right at 7:00 pm and admission is $5. You can find a facebook event for the show right here. Also don’t forget to check out our shows page where you can see what other shows are coming up this summer and fall at Black Sheep.

Black Sheep Radio Tomorrow: George Sinclair

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radioshow1Tomorrow on Black Sheep Radio we have a very special episode for you all! We have George Sinclair of Skank Skates and Springfield’s Southtown Neighborhood coming in to talk to us. Listen from 4:00 to 6:00 pm tomorrow to hear us talk to George about his 25 years of running Skank Skates and his involvement in our neighborhood. We will be talking to him about how the early years were as well as everything that has been going on in the neighborhood in more recent times. We also have Black Sheep owner Kevin Bradford and Brian Galecki coming in to talk to us about Black Sheep and big plans for this fall. It’s going to be a great episode!

Black Sheep Radio airs Fridays (tomorrow) from 4:00 to 6:00 pm on 88.3 WQNA fm. You can stream the show online at wqna.org. Also head over to our radio tab to check out more info on the radio show as well as links to download any of our 31 old episodes!

 

Our Website Is One Year Old!

websitepartyIt’s our birthday today (or yesterday) here at blacksheepspringfield.com! We are celebrating one full year since we officially launched the site on August 6th, 2012. That’s pretty cool! Since our start we have added a few different things to the site:

– a radio tab where you can catch up on all episodes of Black Sheep Radio!
– a page for our two big summer festivals, Dumb Fest and Black Sheep Fest
– a FAQ section
– many many current band and past band pages
– a booking page for anyone interested in setting up shows with us
– a “get involved” page where you can find out what you can do to help our music community

The anniversary for Black Sheep itself is coming up very soon too! It will officially be eight years since Black Sheep’s first show on September 17th. Expect an announcement on an anniversary show and some other surprises very soon.

Battalion Cancel Tour, Release Music Video For “Resilience”

1069279_656342354394723_151676616_nSpringfield and Central Illinois metal/hardcore band Battalion have canceled their upcoming tour with Heavy Arms. Here is the official statement from the band’s facebook page:

After a lot of unforeseen set backs, we are forced to drop the tour with HeavyArms. We will be playing local shows, writing, and doing smaller weekend tours until after the next album. We’re very sorry to anyone who was looking forward to this tour and hope you guys enjoy the new music video and keep coming out to shows. -Clint

Along with the bad news is some good. The band has released a brand new music video for their song “Resilience,” which is the title track to the album the band came out with earlier in the year. You can check out the music video here or embedded below. Battalion played Black Sheep Fest a few weekends ago. We plan on keeping you updated on any upcoming Battalion shows in Springfield.

Our Lady Push Back Tour/Work On New Material

BXSFEST13_84Springfield heavy emo band Our Lady have announced that they have decided to push back their tour that they had planned out to the West Coast and back. Here is the official statement they made from their website:

So today we had some bad news come our way. As well as a bunch of dates falling through last minute, our bass player John has found out that he has some unexpected pending legal issues that have put a financial stranglehold on his money situation and his ability to tour at the moment. So unfortunately this tour is being pushed back.

Honestly we were all really looking forward to this tour and seeing some of the great friends we have met in the past couple of years, as well as making new ones so this is a huge bummer for us. This is something we do because we love doing it, we don’t make any money, nor do we expect to, and we pay for everything directly out of pocket. So when situations like these come up it can be really difficult to bounce back quickly financially. Just because of the cancellation of this tour does NOT mean we are any less to committed to touring as often as we can. We have been on a fair amount of tours this year and have no intentions of stopping.

With that being said we have some good news to take in with all the bad. We will be doing a very similar route as the west coast tour in November with our pals in a really freaking great band called GHOST KEY. So if you are bummed that we aren’t going to be in your area in August just wait a couple of months we will be there! In the meantime we will remain playing shows locally and regionally as well as working on new music. Thank you so much for all of your support, and another huge apology to everyone who was booking shows for this tour or supporting us in anyway. Also, anyone who booked a show that fell through, we will be hitting you up next time around and would still love to come play your town, we understand how difficult it can be to host shows and we don’t hold anything against you. You were awesome the entire time, we are just battling too many setbacks this time around.

The only show Our Lady currently has lined up in Springfield is September 29th at Black Sheep. We plan on keeping you updated once the November tour dates are announced, or on any new material from Our Lady. The band will also be releasing their Vessels 7″ later this month through Mind Over Matter Records.

New Band Pages: Douglass, Wir Können

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Today we are bringing you two more band pages from two brand new Springfield bands. If you were at the show at Black Sheep on Saturday you would have seen two new projects including Douglass and Wir Können. Today we have two new band pages for both of those bands!

Douglass is the solo project of Tara Tracy of Montagh and Worms. Tara started this new project recently and she already has recorded a new EP, which you can stream on her band page. Wir Können is a brand new emo band featuring members of Lovecow, Mildred, and Montagh. They played their very first show on Saturday and have plans to record soon.

You can check out any of the hundreds of band pages we have put together for past and present Springfield bands on our bands tab. Do you play in a Springfield band that we have not yet covered on our site? We would love to hear from you! Shoot us an email at blacksheepspringfield@gmail.com.

 

Tonight at Black Sheep: Pound For Pound, Primitive Man, Reproacher, Scott Blacula, Aporia

1001156_522750767773739_644289418_nThere is a pretty big metal/hardcore/noise show going on at Black Sheep tonight! This show features all kinds of heavy music, so we know it is going to be great. This show features long-running hardcore band Pound For Pound. The show is a celebration of Pound For Pound’s fourteen years as a band, but it is also sadly their second to last show as they announced their breakup last month. On to the touring bands! We have Primitive Man playing “blackened doom” from Denver, Colorado. Also on tour with Primitive Man is Reproacher from Cheyenne, Wyoming. They play a “pissed off/sludgy” hardcore. Next up we have the ultimate villains of the Springfield music scene, Scott Blacula. Who will they be battling out this time? Opening up the whole show is Aporia, the newer Springfield harsh noise project from Jeff Brown of And God Said Dance.

This show starts right at 7:00 pm and admission is $7. You can find a facebook event for the show right here. Also don’t forget to check out our shows page where you can see what other shows are coming up this summer and fall at Black Sheep.

 

Mother Leopard Lineup Changes/Plans To Record

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Those of you who were at Black Sheep Fest 2013 towards the middle of the fest may have seen the chaotic and extremely fun set of Mother Leopard. The band usually plays as a three-piece instrumental project, but at the fest things took an unexpected turn with members of the crowd scrambling to take part in doing vocals for different songs. Since the fest the band posted this from their newly created tumblr page:

Hello everyone! Mother Leopard has a Tumblr now! We just played Blacksheep Fest 2013 and it was absolutely amazing. It was inspiring to see so many people share the microphone during our set…totally unexpected. We all feel like a lot of people left their burdens on the stage that night and we hope to continue our journey towards claiming your souls at the next show! I hope everyone enjoyed themselves as much as we did. We have been a 3 piece instrumental band for a while now, with the recent addition of myself (Jess!) on bass…but BXS fest inspired us to take on a fourth member! Her name is Aubrey and she will be coming with us to Champaign, IL on Wednesday 7/31 for our first show with an official vocalist! (kind of?)

If you haven’t listened to our shit yet you can find it at http://motherleopard.bandcamp.com/

We have plans to record soon with our new lineup and with new songs. Keep in touch! Ask us questions! Message us on facebook or book us in your town jknight@capitolradiogroup.com

Love Always, Jess

The show on July 31st at Error Records in Champaign already took place and Mother Leopard played with new vocalist Aubrey. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for any new Mother Leopard shows in Springfield this late summer/fall. We plan on keeping you all updated on Mother Leopard’s plans to record and anything else going on with the band.

Radon Lounge Announce More Shows

944719_602731929737339_446427384_nThe Radon Lounge have announced a few shows that they will be putting on between now and the end of the fall. The Springfield house venue are deciding to take a break in August, but they are still active setting up shows on later dates and planning big things for the future.

The first show is being put on by The Radon Lounge and The Harbor, but it is being held at Lakeside Christian Church on August 14th. The show features Adam Strumpel and Dan Arseneau and friends. You can find more information on that one here.

The next show happening at The Radon Lounge is on September 26th, which will feature Spoken Nerd, Brian Lee & His Orchestra, Cantalouper, and Hushpad. Then if we skip ahead all the way to October we will find a show on October 6th with Families and Kevin Schlereth! Then if we look wayyy into the future we see that The Radon Lounge is planning a Bob Dylan cover show of some sorts on November 9th. And of course after that they plan on continuing their tradition of putting on a “Christmas Explosion” show sometime around the holidays.

You can check out the complete list of upcoming Radon Lounge shows here on their website. You can also check out our Springfield shows page for a more complete list of shows going on outside of Black Sheep.